Transcripts For CSPAN Presidential Debates Trump-Biden First Debate 20240712

Question, then open discussion for the rest of each segment. Both campaigns have agreed to these rules. For the record, i decided the topics and the questions in each topic. I can assure you that none of the questions have been shared with the commission or the two candidates. This debate is being conducted under health and safety protocols designed by the cleveland clinic, which is serving as the Health Security advisor to the commission for all four debates. As a precaution, both campaigns have agreed to candidates will not shake hands at the beginning of tonights debate. The audience here in the hall has promised to remain silent, no cheers, no boos or other interruptions, so we and more importantly you can focus on what the candidates have to say. No noise except right now as we welcome the republican nominee, President Trump, and the democratic nominee, Vice President biden. [applause] vice pres. Biden how are you doing, man . Pres. Trump doing well. Chris gentlemen, a lot of people have been waiting for this night, so lets get going. Our first subject as the Supreme Court. President trump, you nominated Amy Coney Barrett over the weekend to succeed the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the court. You say the constitution is clear about your obligation and the senates to consider a nominee to the court. Vice President Biden, you say this is an effort by the president and republicans to jam through an appointment and what you call an abuse of power. My first question to both of you tonight, why are you right in the argument you make and your opponent wrong and where do you think a Justice Barrett would take the court . President trump, you go first. Pres. Trump i will tell you very simply, we won the election. Elections have consequences. We have to senate. We have the white house. And we have a phenomenal nominee, respected by all. Top academic, good in every way, good in every way. In fact, some of her biggest endorsers are very liberal people. From notre dame and other places. So i think she is going to be fantastic. We have plenty of time. Even if we did it after the election itself. I have a lot of time after the election, as you know. I think she will be outstanding. Shes going to be as good as anybody that has served on that court. We really feel that. We have a highly respected professor at notre dame who said she is the single greatest student he has ever had. We won the election and therefore we have the right to choose her and very few people knowingly would say otherwise. By the way, the democrats would not even think about not doing it. The only difference is they would try to do it faster. There is no way they would try to give it up. They had merrick garland, but the problem is they do not have the election, so they were stopped. And probably that would happen in reverse, also. It would definitely happen in the reverse. We won the election and we have the right to do it. Chris thank you. Same question to you, Vice President biden. You have two minutes. Vice pres. Biden first of all, thank you for doing this. And mr. President. Pres. Trump thank you. Vice pres. Biden the American People have a right to say who the Supreme Court nominee is and that say occurs when the vote for United States senators and when they vote for the president of the United States. They are not going to get that chance now because we are in the middle of an election already. The election has already started. Tens of thousands have already voted. So the thing that should happen is we should wait, we should wait and see what the outcome of the election is. That is the only way the American People get to express their view is by who they elect as president and Vice President. Now, what is at stake here, the president has made it clear he wants to get rid of the Affordable Care act. He has been running on that and he has been governing on that. He is in the Supreme Court right now trying to get rid of the Affordable Care act, which will strip 20 Million People from having insurance, Health Insurance now, if it goes in the court. And the justice and im not opposed to the justice, she seems like a very fine person but she has written before she went to the bench, which is her right, that she thinks the Affordable Care act is not constitutional. And if struck down, what happens . Womens rights are fundamentally changed. Once again, a woman could be held for more money if she has a previous condition of pregnancy. They are able to charge a woman more for the same exact procedure. That ended when we in fact passed the Affordable Care act. There are 100 Million People who have preexisting conditions and they will be taken away as well, those preexisting conditions, Insurance Companies are going to love this. It is just not appropriate to do this before this election. If he wins the election and the senate is republican, then he goes forward. If not, we should wait until february. Pres. Trump there are not 100 Million People with preexisting conditions. As far as the say is concerned, the people already had their say. Ok, Justice Ginsburg said very powerfully, at some point, 10 years ago or so, she said a president and the senate is elected for a period of time, but a president is elected for four years. Im not elected for three years, so we have to senate, we have a president during that period of time, during that period of time, we have an opening. Im not elected for three years. Im elected for four years. Joe, 100 Million People is totally wrong. I dont know where you got that number. The bigger problem you have is that you are going to extinguish 180 Million People with their private health care. Vice pres. Biden that is simply not true. Pres. Trump you are going to socialist chris we are now into open discussion. Go ahead, Vice President. Vice pres. Biden number one, he knows what i have proposed. What i have proposed is that we expand obamacare and we increase it, we do not wipe any one of the big debates we had with 23 of my colleagues trying to win the nomination that i won, they were trying to say biden wanted to allow people to have private Insurance Private insurance. They can, they will, they do. Pres. Trump that is not with the party has said. Your party doesnt say your party wants to go socialist. Vice pres. Biden my party is me, right now. Pres. Trump they are going to dominate you, joe. You know that. Vice pres. Biden im the platform of the democratic party. The platform is what i approved of. Heres the deal, the deal is that it is going to wipe out by the way, the 200,000 people that have died on his watch, how many of those have survived . 7 Million People have contracted covid. What does it mean for them Going Forward if you strike down the Affordable Care act . Pres. Trump joe, you have had 308,000 military people die because you could not provide them Proper Health care in the military, so dont tell me if you were here, it would be 2 Million People because you were very late on the draw. You did not want to ban china. Chris gentlemen, mr. President , mr. President , mr. President , as the moderator, we are going to talk about covid in the next segment. Vice pres. Biden let me finish. The point is that the president is also opposed roe v. Wade. That is on the ballot as well in the court. So that is also at stake right now. So, the election pres. Trump why is it on the ballot . It is not on the ballot. Vice pres. Biden it is on the ballot in the courts. Pres. Trump there is nothing happening there. You dont know her view on roe v. Wade. Chris all right, lets talk we got a lot to unpack here. Weve got a lot of time. [laughter] on health care and then we will come back to roe v. Wade. Mr. President , the Supreme Court will hear a case it week after the election in which the Trump Administration along with 18 state attorneys general are thinking to overturn obamacare. You have spent the last pres. Trump because we want to give back chris let me ask the question, sir. Over the last four years, you have promised to repeal and replace obamacare, but you have never come up with a plan, a comprehensive plan to replace obamacare. Pres. Trump of course i have. We got rid of the individual mandate. Excuse me. We got rid of the individual mandate, which was a joke. That is a big thing. That was the worst part of obamacare. Chris let me ask my question. Pres. Trump i will ask joe. Individual mandate was the most unpopular aspect of obamacare. I got rid of it and we will protect people. Chris im the moderator of the debate and i would like you to add let me ask my question. Pres. Trump go ahead, chris. Chris you have never come up with a comprehensive plan to replace obamacare and just this last thursday, you signed a largely symbolic executive order to protect people with preexisting conditions five days before this debate. My question is what is the Trump Health Care plan . Pres. Trump first of all, i guess im debating you, not him. But thats ok, im not surprised. There is nothing symbolic. Im cutting drug prices, im going with favored nations, which no president has done because you were going against big pharma. Drug prices will come down 80 or 90 . You have not done it in your 47 year period in government. We are Cutting Health care. All of the things that we have done i give you an example, insulin. It is destroying families, destroying people because im getting it for so cheap it is like water, you want to know the truth. Take a look at all of the drugs that what we are doing. Prescription drug prices, we will allow governors to go to other countries to buy drugs because they pay just a tiny fraction. Chris this is open discussion. Sir, you will be happy him about to pick up on one of your points to ask the Vice President , which as he points out that you would like to add a public option to obamacare and the argument he makes and other republicans make is that that is going to end private insurance. Vice pres. Biden it is not. Chris let me finish the question. It will end private insurance and create a government takeover of health care. Vice pres. Biden it does not, it is only for people who are so poor all if i for medicaid. They can get that free in most states, except governors who want to deny people who are poor medicaid. Anyone who qualifies for medicare medicaid, excuse me would automatically be enrolled in the public option. The vast majority of the American People would still not be in that option. Pres. Trump joe, you agreed with Bernie Sanders and the far on the manifesto that you would socialize medicine. Vice pres. Biden the fact of the matter is i beat Bernie Sanders. Pres. Trump not by much. Not by much. Vice pres. Biden all he knows how to do pres. Trump you got very lucky. Vice pres. Biden im going to get very lucky tonight, as well. Tonight im going to make sure pres. Trump with what . Vice pres. Biden the fact is that everything he is saying so far tonight is simply a lie. Im not here to call out his lies, Everybody Knows he is a liar. I want to make sure i want to make sure chris mr. President , can you let him finish . Vice pres. Biden he doesnt know how to do that. The wrong guy, the wrong night, the wrong time. Pres. Trump you agreed with Bernie Sanders vice pres. Biden there is no manifesto. Pres. Trump you just lost the left. You just lost the left. You agreed with Bernie Sanders on a plan vice pres. Biden folks, do you have any idea what this clown is doing . Pres. Trump socialized medicine. Chris mr. President vice pres. Biden hes not for any help for people needing health care. Because he in fact already has cost 10 Million People there health care that they had from employers because of his recession. Number two, there are 20 Million People Getting Health Care through obamacare now that he wants to take away. Thats what he wants to do. Take it away. Pres. Trump i want to give them Better Health care at a much lower price. Vice pres. Biden he doesnt know how to do that. Pres. Trump ive already fixed it. Vice pres. Biden he has never offered a plan. [indiscernible] chris gentlemen, you realize you are both speaking at the same time. Go ahead, sir. Pres. Trump obamacare is no good. We made it better. We took away the individual mandate. We guaranteed preexisting conditions, but took away the individual mandate. This is the way it is. That destroyed they should not even call it obamacare. Do i let my people run it really well or badly . If i run it badly, they will probably blame me. But more importantly i said, you are going to run it so well. I just had a meeting with them. They say, no matter how well you run obamacare, it is a disaster we get it is too expensive, premiums are too high. It doesnt work. We do want to get rid of it. Chris i understand that, sir. I have to give you roughly equal time. Please let the Vice President talk. Pres. Trump good. Vice pres. Biden he has no plan for health care. Chris please. Vice pres. Biden he sends out wishful thinking. He has executive orders that have no power. He has not lowered drug costs for anybody. He has been promising Health Care Plan since he got elected. He has none, like almost Everything Else he talked about. He does not have a plan, he does not have a plan. The fact is that this man does not know what he is talking about. Chris i have one final question for you, mr. Vice president. If Senate Republicans we were talking originally about the Supreme Court if Senate Republicans go ahead and confirm Justice Barrett, there has been talked about ending the filibuster or even packing the court, adding to the nine justices . You call this a distraction by the president , but it was not brought up by the president , it was brought up by some of your democratic colleagues. So my question to you is you have refused in the past to talk about it, are you willing to tell the American People whether or not you will support either ending the filibuster or packing the court . Chris whatever position i take will become the issue. The issue is the American People should speak, you should go out and vote. You are voting now, vote and let your senators know how you feel every good vote now. Make sure you let people know. Pres. Trump why wont you answer that question . Vice pres. Biden because the question is pres. Trump the radical left chris gentlemen, i think vice pres. Biden this is so in president ial. Chris we have ended the segment and we will move on to the second segment. Vice pres. Biden that was really a productive segment, wasnt it . Pres. Trump the people understand, joe. 47 years, you have done nothing. Chris the second subject is covid19, which is an awfully serious subject, so lets try to be serious about it. We have had more than 7 million cases of coronavirus in the United States and more than 200,000 people have died. Even after we produce a vaccine, experts say it could be months or even years before we come back to anything approaching normal. My question for both of you is based on what you have said and done so far and what you have said you would do starting in 2021, why should the American People trust you more than your opponent to deal with this Public Health crisis Going Forward . In this case, the question goes to you first, sir. Two minutes uninterrupted. Vice pres. Biden good luck. 200,000 dead. As you said, over 7 million infected in the United States. We in fact have 4 of the worlds population. 20 of the deaths. 40,000 people a day are contracting covid. In addition to that, between 750 in 1000 People Per Day are dying. When he was presented with that number he said, it is what it is. Because you are who you are. That is why it is. The president has no plan. He has not laid out anything. He knew all the way back in february how serious this crisis was. He knew it was a deadly disease. What did he do . He is on tape acknowledging he knew it. He said he didnt tell us or give us a warning because he didnt want to panic the American People. You dont panic, he panicked. He went in and we were assisting the people we had on the ground and china should be able to go to wuhan and determine for themselves how dangerous this was. He did not even ask xi to do that. He told us what a great job xi was doing. He said we owe him a debt of gratitude for being so transparent with us. What did he do then . He waited and waited and waited. He still does not have a plan. I laid out back in march exactly what we should be doing. I laid out again in july what we should be doing. We should be providing all of the protective gear possible. We should be providing the money the house has passed to go out and get people to help they need to keep their businesses open. It costs a lot of money. You get out of your bunker and get out of the sand trap and out of your golf course and go in the oval office and bring together the democrats and republicans and fund what needs to be done to save lives. Chris you have two minutes, sir. Pres. Trump if we would have listened to you, the country would have been left wide open, millions would have died and one person is too much. It is chinas fault. It should have never happened. By the way, when you talk about numbers, you dont know how many people died in china, you dont know how many people died in russia or india. They dont give you straight counts. But if you look at what we have done, i closed it and you said he is xenophobic, he is a racist and he is xenophobic chris two minutes. Pres. Trump you did not think we should have closed our country because you thought it was terrible, you would not have closed it for another two months. In fact, dr. Fauci said President Trump saved thousands of lives many of your democratic governors said, President Trump is a phenomenal did a phenomenal job. Go take a look. The governors set i did a phenomenal job. Most of them said that. In fact, people that would not necessarily be on my side said that, President Trump did a phenomenal job. We did. We got the gowns, we got the masks, we made the ventilators. You would not have made ventilators and we are weeks away from a vaccine, we are doing therapeutics. Fewer people are dying when they get sick, far fewer are dying, we have done a great job. The only thing i havent done a good job and that is because of the fake news no matter what you say to them, they give you bad press. They give you good press, they give me a bad press because that is the way it is. Let me tell you something, i dont care, but you could never have done the job, you dont have it in your blood, you could never have done that job. Vice pres. Biden i know how to do the job. Pres. Trump you did not do very well on swine. H1n1, you are a disaster. Vice pres. Biden 14,000 people died, not 200,000. [indiscernible] chris you made a point, let him answer. Vice pres. Biden we did not shut down the economy. This is his economy that he shut down. The reason it is shut down is because look, your folks at home, how many of you got up this morning and had an empty chair at the Kitchen Table because somebody died of covid . Comedy if you are in a situation where you lost your mom or dad or could not speak to them with a nurse holding the phone up so you could say goodbye . Pres. Trump we would have lost four more people, far more people. Vice pres. Biden by the way, his own cdc director says we could lose as many as another 200,000 people between now and the end of the year. He said if we just wear a mask, we could save half those numbers. Just a mask. By the way, in terms of the whole notion of a vaccine, we are for a vaccine, but i dont trust him at all, nor do you. We trust the scientists. Chris gentlemen, gentlemen, let me move on to questions about the future because you both have touched on two of the questions im going to ask. Focusing on the future, President Trump, you have repeatedly at contradicted or been at odds with some of your governments top scientists. The week before last of the head of the cdc said it would be summer before the vaccine would become generally available to the public. You said that he was confused and mistaken. Those are your words. But the head of your operation warp speed has said exactly the same thing. Are they both wrong . Pres. Trump ive spoken to the companies and we can have it a lot sooner. It is a very political thing because people like this with itwould rather make political then save lives. Ive spoken to pfizer, ive spoken to all of the people you have to speak to. Moderna, johnson johnson, and others. They can go faster than that by a lot. Become very political because the left or right dont know chris the head of your operation warp speed . Pres. Trump i disagree with both of them. He didnt say that. He said it could be there, but it could also be much sooner. Chris he talked about the summer before it is generally available, sir. Pres. Trump he said it is a possibility we will have the answer before november 1. Chris im talking about when it is generally available. Pres. Trump we are going to deliver it right away. We will have the military logistically set up. We have our military that delivers soldiers and they can do 200,000 a day. Vice pres. Biden this is the same man that i told you thatll be by easter it would be gone away, that it would be like a miracle. Maybe you could inject some bleach in your arm and it would take care of it. Pres. Trump that was sarcastic, you know that. Vice pres. Biden heres the deal, this man is talking about a vaccine. Every Serious Company is talking about maybe having a vaccine done by the end of the year. The distribution will not occur until the beginning or middle of next year to get it out, if we get the vaccine and pray god we will. Chris mr. Vice president , i want to pick up on this question. You said the public can trust the scientists, but they cant trust President Trump. You said that tonight. Your running mate senator harris goes further, saying that Public Health experts will be muzzled, will be suppressed. Given the fact that polls already show that people are concerned about the vaccine and are reluctant to take it, are you and your running mate contributing to that fear . Vice pres. Biden no more than the question you just asked. He puts pressure and disagrees with his in scientists. Chris but you are saying senator harris is saying you cant trust the scientists. Vice pres. Biden she did not say that. Chris she said Public Health experts will be muzzled and suppressed. Vice pres. Biden that is what he is going to try to do, but there are millions, thousands of scientists doubt their like here at this great hospital the dont work for him. Their job doesnt depend on him. They are the people pres. Trump but scientists that are in charge will have the vaccine very soon. Vice pres. Biden if you believe for a moment what he is telling you in light of all the lies he has told you about the whole issue relating to covid he still has not even acknowledged that he knew this was happening, knew how dangerous it was going to be back in february and he did not even tell you. He is on record as saying it. He panicked or he just looked at the stock market. One of the two. Guess what . A lot of people died and a lot more are going to die unless he gets a lot smarter, lot occur. Quicker. Pres. Trump did you use the word smart . So you said you went to delaware state, but you forgot the name of your college. You did not go to delaware state. You graduated either the lowest or almost the lowest in your class. Dont ever use the word smart with me. Vice pres. Biden give me a break. Pres. Trump you know what, there is nothing smart about you, joe. 47 years, youve done nothing. Vice pres. Biden lets have this debate. Pres. Trump let me tell you something, if you would have had the charge of what i was put through i had to close the greatest economy in history of our country and now it is being built again. Chris we are going to the economy in the next segment, sir. Pres. Trump it is going up fast. Chris when it comes to how the virus has been handled so far, the two of you have taken very different approaches and this is going to affect how the virus is handled Going Forward by whichever of you ends up becoming the next president. I want to go through several of those. Reopenings. Vice President Biden you have been much more reluctant than President Trump about reopening the economy and schools. Why . Vice pres. Biden because you what about this question of reopening he wants to shut down and i want to keep it open. Pres. Trump he wants to shut down the country. We just went through it. We had to. People with heart problems and diabetes and different problems are very vulnerable. We learned a lot. Young children are not. Even younger people are not. But he wants to shut it down. More people will be hurt by continuing. If you look at pennsylvania, states that have been shut down, they have democrat governors all. One of the reasons is they want to keep it shut down until after the election. I want to move on to another section. Those states are not doing well that are shut down. Toyou have begun increasingly question the effectiveness of masks as a disease preventer. Recently you have cited the issue of waiters touching their masks and touching plates. I think masks are ok. I have a mask right here. I put the mask on what i think i needed. Tonight, everybody has has a test. But i wear our masks when needed. Like him. Ear masks every time you see him he has a mask. Every time you see him, hes got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away and he shows up with the biggest mask ive ever seen. Chris Vice President biden, go ahead, sir. Vice pres. Biden look, the way to open businesses is to give them the wherewithal to be able to open. We provided money chris i was asking about masks. Vice pres. Biden masks make a big difference. His own head of the cdc said if we wore a mask between now and social distancing between now and january, we would probably save up to 100,000 lives. It matters. Pres. Trump they have also said the opposite. They have also said the opposite. Vice pres. Biden no serious person said the opposite. No serious person. Pres. Trump dr. Fauci said the opposite. Vice pres. Biden he did not say the opposite. Pres. Trump he said masks are not good, then he changed his mind. Im ok with masks. Chris i want to ask about one last subject. Your different approaches have even affected the way you have campaigned. President trump, you are holding the large rallies with crowds packed together, thousands of people. Pres. Trump outside. Chris yes, agreed. Vice President Biden, you are holding much smaller events pres. Trump nobody will show up. [laughter] its true. Nobody shows up to his rallies. Chris in any case, why are you holding the big rallies, why are you not . You go first, sir. Pres. Trump because people want to hear what i have to say. I will have 25,000, 35,000 people show up at airports, we use airports. Chris are you not worried about covid19 . Pres. Trump so far, we have had no problem whatsoever. It is outside, it is a big difference, according to the experts. We do them outside, we have tremendous crowds, as you see. And literally on 24 hours notice. And joe does the circles and has three people someplace. Vice pres. Biden by the way, did you see one of the last big rallies he had . A reporter came up to him to ask him a question he said, no, stand back, put on your mask, have you been tested . Im way far away from those other people. That is what he said. Im going to be ok. He is not worried about you, hes not worried about the people out there. Pres. Trump no negative effect. Weve had no negative effect. We have had 35,000, 40,000 people. Chris i want to move on to our next segment. Vice pres. Biden he has been totally responsible the way in which he has handled the social distancing and people Wearing Masks, basically encouraging them not to. And he is a fool on that. Pres. Trump if you could get the crowds, you would have done the same thing. But you cant. Nobody can. Nobody cares. Chris can we move on to the economy . Pres. Trump yes. Chris the economy is recovering faster than expected from the shut down in the second quarter. The Unemployment Rate fell to 8. 4 last month. The Federal Reserve says the hit to growth, which is going to be there, is not going to be nearly as big as they had expected. President trump, you say we are in a vshaped recovery. Vice President Biden, you say it is more of a kshape. What difference does that mean to the American People in terms of the economy . President trump, you go first. Pres. Trump so, we built the greatest economy in history, we closed it down because of the china plague. We closed it down, which was very hard psychologically to do. He did not think we should close it down and he was wrong. 2 Million People would be dead instead of still 204,000 is too much, one person is too much. Should have never happened from china. But what happened is we closed it down and now we are reopening and we are doing record business. We had 10. 4 Million People in a fourmonth period that we have put back into the workforce. That is a record the likes of which nobody has ever seen before and he wants to close down, he would shut it down again, he wants to destroy this country. A lot of people between drugs and alcohol and depression, when you start shutting it down, you take a look at what is happening to some of your democrat run states where they have these tough shutdowns. Im telling you it is because they dont want to open it one of them came out last week, we are going to open up on november 9 because it is after the election. They think they are hurting us by keeping them closed. They are hurting people. People know what to do. They can social distance, they can wash the hands, they can wear masks, they can do whatever they want, but theyve got to open these states up. When you look at North Carolina and these governors are under siege pennsylvania, michigan, and a couple of others youve got to open these states up. It is not fair. It is all most like being in prison. You look at what is going on with divorce, you look at alcoholism and drugs, it is a very, very sad thing and he will close down the whole country. This guy will close down the whole country and destroy our country. Our country is coming back incredibly well, setting records as it does it. We dont need somebody to come in and say, lets shut it down. Chris you say it is a k shaped recovery. Vice pres. Biden the difference is millionaires and billionaires like him in the middle of the covid crisis have done very well. Billionaires have made another 300 billion because of his profligate tax proposal. But you folks at home, you folks living in scranton and claymont and all the small towns and workingclass towns in america, how are you doing . This guy paid a total of 750 in taxes. Chris sir no you have agreed to the two minutes, so please let him have it. Vice pres. Biden do i get my time back . The fact is that he has in fact worked on this in a way that he is going to be the first president in the United States to leave office having fewer jobs in his administration than when he became president. Fewer jobs than when he became president. History. In american secondly, the people who have lost their jobs are those people who have been on the front lines. Those people who have been saving our lives, those people who have been out there dying, people who have been putting themselves in the way to make sure that we could all try to make it. The idea that he is insisting that we go forward and open when you have almost half the states in america with a significant increase in covid deaths and covid cases in the United States of america and he wants to open it up more. Why does he want to open it up . You cant fix the economy until you fix the covid crisis. He has no intention of doing anything about making it better for you all at home in terms of your health and your safety. Schools, why arent schools open . Because it costs a lot of money to open safely. You know, they were going to give, his administration was going to give the teachers and School Students masks, then they decided, no, couldnt do that because it is not a national emergency. Not a national emergency. They have done nothing to help small businesses, nothing. They are closing. One in six is now gone. He ought to get on the job and take care of the needs of the American People so we can open safely. Chris your time is up, sir. Pres. Trump can i respond to that . Chris you both had two minutes, sir. Pres. Trump excuse me, he made a statement. Chris so did you. Pres. Trump people want their schools open. They dont want to be shut down. They want their restaurants. I look at new york, it is so sad what is happening, it is in most like a ghost town and im not sure it can never recover. People want their places open, they want to get back to their lives. They will be careful. They want their schools. Im the one that brought back football. I brought back big ten football. It was me and im very happy to do it the people of ohio are very proud of me. Chris we are going to get to your economic plans Going Forward in a moment. But first, mr. President , as you well know, there was a new report that in 2016, the year you were elected president and 2017, your first year as president , that you paid 750 a year in federal income tax each of those years. I know that you pay a lot of other taxes, but im asking you the specific question. Is it true that you paid 750 in federal income taxes each of those two years . Pres. Trump i paid millions of dollars in taxes. Millions of dollars of income tax. And let me just tell you, there was a story in one of the papers i paid 38 million one year. I paid 27 million one year. Vice pres. Biden show us your tax returns. Pres. Trump you will see it as soon as it is finished. Go to the board of elections, there is a 118 page report that says everything i have, every bank i have, im totally under leveraged because the assets are extremely good and we have i built chris i asked you a specific question. I understand all of that. No, mr. President , im asking you a question. Will you tell us how much you paid in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017 . Pres. Trump millions of dollars. Chris you paid millions of dollars . So not 750 . Pres. Trump you will get to see it. Vice pres. Biden when . Next july . Pres. Trump it was the tax laws i dont want to pay tax before i came here, i was a private developer, i was a private business people. Like every other private person, unless they are stupid, they go through the laws and that is what it is. He passed the tax bill that gave us all these privileges for depreciation and for tax credits. We build a building and we get tax credits like a hotel on pennsylvania avenue. Which, by the way, was given to me by the obama administration, if you can believe that. Now, the man got fired right after that happened. Chris Vice President biden . Vice pres. Biden i do want to respond. Look, the tax code that put him in a position that he pays less tax than a schoolteacher makes than the money a schoolteacher makes is because he says hes smart because he can take advantage of the tax code and he does take advantage of the tax code. Thats why im going to eliminate the trump tax cuts. Im going to eliminate those tax cuts and make sure we invest in the people who need the help. People out there need help. Pres. Trump but why didnt you do it in the last 25 years . Vice pres. Biden because you were the president screwing things up. Pres. Trump you were a senator vice pres. Biden you are the worst president america has ever had. Come on pres. Trump ive done more in 47 months then youve done in 47 years, joe. Weve done things that you never even thought about, including fixing the broken military you gave me. Chris mr. President , we are talking about the economy. I would like to ask about your plans Going Forward because mr. Vice president , your economic plan, if you were to be elected president , focuses a lot on big government, big taxes, big spending. I want to focus first on the taxes. You propose more than 4 trillion over a decade in new taxes on individuals making more than 400,000 a year and on corporations. President trump says that that kind of an increase in taxes is going to hurt the economy as it is just coming out of a recession. Vice pres. Biden well, just take a look at the analysis done by wall street firms. It points out that my economic plan would create 7 million more jobs than his in four years. Number one. And number two, it would create an additional 1 trillion in Economic Growth because it would be about buying american. The federal government spends 600 billion a year on everything from ships to build steel, buildings, and the like. Under my proposal, we are going to make sure that every penny of that has to be made by a company in the u. S. Chris im talking about taxes, not spending. Vice pres. Biden by the way, im going to eliminate a significant number of taxes im going to make the Corporate Tax 28 . You have 91 companies in the fortune 500 who dont pay a single penny in tax making billions of dollars. Pres. Trump why didnt you do it when you were vice with obama . Vice pres. Biden because you in fact passed that. Pres. Trump i got it done. Our economy boomed. Chris mr. President , let me pick up on that. You would continue your free market approach, lower taxes, more deregulation, correct . Vice pres. Biden not lower taxes for the American People. Chris you talk about the economy booming. It turns out that in obamas final three years as president , more jobs were created, 1. 5 million more jobs than in the first three years of your presidency. Pres. Trump they had the slowest recovery since 1929. It was the slowest recovery. Also, they took over something that was down here, all you had to do is turn on the lights and you pick up a lot. They had the slowest economic recovery since 1929. Let me tell you about the stock market. When the stock market goes up, that means jobs. It also means 401ks. If you got in, if you ever became president with your ideas, you want to terminate my taxes, i tell you what you will lose half of the companies that have come in here will leave. The companies that were already here will leave for other places and you will have a depression the likes of which you have never seen. Vice pres. Biden look, we inherited the worst recession short of a depression in american history. I was asked to bring it back. We were able to have an economic recovery that created the jobs you are talking about. We handed him a booming economy. He blew it. He blew it. Pres. Trump it wasnt booming. It was the weakest recovery chris sir, is it fair to say he blew it when there was record low unemployment before covid . Vice pres. Biden because what he did even before covid, manufacturing went in the hole, manufacturing went in the hole. Number two. Number three pres. Trump you were on number two. Chris, they said it would take a miracle to bring back manufacturing. I brought back 700,000 jobs. They brought back nothing. They gave up on manufacturing. Vice pres. Biden im the guy that brought back the automobile industry. I was asked to bring back chrysler and general motors, brought them back right here in the state of ohio and michigan. He blew it, they are gone, he blew it. Pres. Trump ohio had the best year it has ever had last year. Michigan had the best year they have ever had. Vice pres. Biden that is not true. Pres. Trump many Car Companies came in from germany, went into michigan and ohio. Chris mr. Vice president , go ahead. Vice pres. Biden so you take a look at what he has actually done. He has done very little. His trade deals are the same way. He talks about these great trade deals, he talks about the art of the deal, china has perfected the art of the steel. Steal. We have a higher deficit with china than we did before. We have the highest trade deficit pres. Trump china ate your lunch, joe. No wonder, your son goes in and he takes out billions of dollars, takes out billions of dollars to manage, he makes millions of dollars. While we are at it just out of curiosity the mayor of moscows wife gave your son 3. 5 million what did he do to deserve it . Vice pres. Biden none of that is true. None of that is true. Pres. Trump oh really . Chris mr. President , mr. President , please. Vice pres. Biden totally discredited. Pres. Trump by the way, he did not get 3. 5 million . He got 3. 5 million. Vice pres. Biden it is not true. Pres. Trump really . Chris it is an open discussion. Pres. Trump it is a fact. Vice pres. Biden totally discredited. Pres. Trump making 183,000 a month with no experience in energy . Vice pres. Biden my son did nothing wrong at burisma. Chris mr. President , let him answer. Vice pres. Biden he does not want to let me answer because he knows i have the truth. His position has been totally discredited. By the media, by our allies, by the world bank. By everyone. It has been discredited. As a matter of fact, even the people who testified under oath chris im listening to you. Pres. Trump 3. 5 million from moscow. Vice pres. Biden people who testified under oath in his administration said, i did my job and i did it very well. Pres. Trump i want to know who they are. Vice pres. Biden i will give you the list of people who testified. You have already fired most of them because they did a great job. Chris wait a minute, you get the final word. Vice pres. Biden it is hard to get any word in with this clown. Chris no, no, no, mr. President. Pres. Trump why did he deserve 3. 5 million from moscow . Vice pres. Biden heres the deal. We want to talk about families and ethics, i dont want to do that. I mean, his family we could talk about all night. [indiscernible] [indiscernible crosstalk] vice pres. Biden this is not about my family or his family, it is about your family, the American People. It does not want to talk about what you need. You, the American People. It is about you. That is who we are talking about. Chris that is the end of the segment, we are moving on. Pres. Trump can i be honest . It is very important to try to be honest. Chris the answer to the question is no. Sir. Pres. Trump ukraine, with 1 billion vice pres. Biden that is absolutely not true. Chris gentlemen, i hate to raise my voice why should i be different than the two of you . Vice pres. Biden good point. Chris we have six segments. We have ended that segment, we are going to go to the next segment. In that segment, you are each going to have two uninterrupted minutes. Mr. President , you can say anything you want. Im going to ask a question about race, but if you want to answer about something else, go ahead, but i think the country would be better served if we allowed both people to speak with fewer interruptions. Im appealing to you, sir, to do that. Pres. Trump and him, too. Chris frankly, you have been doing more interrupting. Less than you have. Lets please continue on. The issue of race. Vice President Biden, you say that President Trumps response to the violence in charlottesville three years ago when he talked about very fine people on both side was what directly led you to launch this run for president. Pres. Trump oh yeah, sure. Chris President Trump, you have often said you believe you have done more for black americans than any president with the possible exception of abraham lincoln. Pres. Trump true. Chris my question for the two of you is why should voters trust you rather than your opponent to deal with the race issues facing this country over the next four years . Vice President Biden, you go first. Vice pres. Biden it is about equity and equality. It is about decency. Its about the constitution. We have never walked away from trying to require equity for everyone, equality for the whole of america. But we have never accomplished it. But we have never walked away from it like he has done. It is true the reason i got in the race, close your eyes, remember those people carrying torches, their veins bulging, spewing antisemitic bile, accompanied by the ku klux klan. A young woman got killed. They asked the president and he said there were very fine people on both sides. No president has ever said anything like that. Chris sir. Vice pres. Biden the second point i would make to you is that when mr. Floyd was killed, there was a peaceful protest in front of the white house. What did he do . He came out of his bunker, had the military use teargas on them, so he can walk across to a church and hold up a bible. And what happened after that . The bishop of that very church said it was a disgrace. The general who was with him said all he ever wants to do is divide people, not unite people at all. This is a president who has used everything as a dog whistle to try to generate racist hatred, racist division. This is a man, you talk about helping africanamericans, one in 1000 africanamericans has been killed because of the coronavirus. If he does not do something quickly by the end of the year, one in 500 will have been killed. One in 500 africanamericans. This man, this man is the savior of africanamericans . This man cares at all . This man has done virtually nothing. Look, the fact is that you have to look at what he talks about. You have to look at what he did. The fact is you have to look at what he did and what he did has been disastrous for the africanamerican community. Chris President Trump, you have two minutes. Why should Americans Trust you over your opponent to deal with race . Pres. Trump you did the crime bill, 1994 where you called them super predators, africanamericans, super predators. They have never forgotten it, joe. Chris sir, it is his two minutes. Pres. Trump you did that and called them super predators, and im letting people out of jail now that you have treated the africanamerican population, community, you have treated the black community about as bad as anybody in this country. And that is why if you look at the polls im doing better than any republican has done in a long time because they saw what you did. You called them super predators and you have called them worse than that because you look back at your testimony over the years, you have called them a lot worse than that. As far as the churchs concern and the general, we just got the support of 250 military leaders and generals, total support. Law enforcement, almost every Law Enforcement group in the United States, i have florida, i have texas, i have ohio, i have excuse me, portland, the sheriff just came out today and he said, i support President Trump. I dont think you have any Law Enforcement. You cant even say the word Law Enforcement because if you say those words, you are going to lose all of your radical left supporters. Why dont you say the words Law Enforcement . If they called us in portland, we would put out that fire in half an hour, but they wont do it because they are run by radical left democrats. If you look at chicago, if you look at any you want to look, seattle, they heard we were coming the following day and they put up their hands and we got back seattle. Minneapolis, we got it back, joe, because we believe in law order. But you dont. The top 10 cities and just about the top 40 cities are run by democrats and in many cases radical left and theyve got you wrapped around their finger, joe, to the point where you dont want to say anything about law order. I tell you what, the people of this country want and demand law order and you are afraid to even say it. Chris all right, i want to return to the question of race. Vice President Biden, after the grand jury in the Breonna Taylor case decided not to charge any of the police with homicide, you said it raises the question whether justice could be equally applied in america. Do you believe that there is a separate but unequal system of justice for blacks in this country . Vice pres. Biden yes, there is. There is systemic injustice in this country. In education, and work, and in Law Enforcement, and the way it is enforced. But look, the vast majority of police are good, decent honorable men and women. They risk their lives every day to take care of us. But there are bad apples, but when they find them, they have to be sorted out, they have to be held accountable, they have to be held accountable. What im going to do as president of the United States is call together an entire group of people at the white house, everything from the civil Rights Groups to the Police Officers to the police chiefs, and we are going to work this out. So we change the way in which we have more transparency and when these things happen these cops arent happy to see what happened to george floyd these cops arent happy to see what happened to Breonna Taylor. Most dont like it, but we have to have a system where people are held accountable. By the way, violence in response is never appropriate. Never appropriate. Peaceful protest is. Pres. Trump what is peaceful protest . When they run through the middle of town and burn down your stores and kill people all over the place . But you say it is. Chris President Trump i promise we will get to the issue of law order in a moment. This month, your administration directed federal agencies to end Racial Sensitivity Training that addresses White Privilege or critical race theory. Why did you decide to do that, to end Racial Sensitivity Training and do you believe that there is systemic racism in this country . Trump because its racist and a lot of people were complaining that they were asked to do things that were absolutely insane. It was a radical revolution taking place in our military, in our schools, all over the place, and you know it. Chris what is radical about Racial Sensitivity Training . Pres. Trump if you were a certain person, you had no status in life. It was sort of a reversal. We would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to teach very bad ideas and frankly very sick ideas, and they were teaching people to hate our country. Im not going to allow that to happen. We have to go back to the core values of this country. They were teaching people that our country is a horrible place, racist place, and they were teaching people to hate our country. Vice pres. Biden nobody is doing that. Hes yththe racist. [crosstalk] the fact is there is racial insensitivity. People have to be made aware of what other people feel like, what insults them, what is demeaning to them. Its important for people to know many people dont want to hurt other peoples feelings, but it makes a big difference. It makes a gigantic difference in the way a child is able to grow up and have a sense of selfesteem. Its a little bit like how this guy and his friends look down on so many people. They look down on Irish Catholics like me who grow up in scranton. They looked down on people who dont have money. They look down on people who are of a different faith, a different color. In fact, we are all americans. The only way we are going to bring this country together is to bring everyone together. We can take this on, and we can defeat racism in america. Pres. Trump during the obamabiden administration, there was division. There was hatred. You look at ferguson. Look at oakland. Look what happened in oakland. Look what happened in baltimore. Frankly, it was more violent than what i am seeing now. The democrats who run of these cities dont want to talk like you about law and order. Are you in favor of law and order . [crosstalk] chris let him finish. Vice pres. Biden yes, im in favor of law and order law and order with justice where people get treated fairly, and the fact of the matter is Violent Crime went down 17 in our administration. Its gone up on his watch. [crosstalk] down muchp it went more in ours. Chris mr. President , we are now going to talk about law and order. Pres. Trump democraticled cities chris theres been an increase in homicides in america this summer particularly, and you often blame that on democratic mayors and governors, but in fact there have been equivalent spikes in republicanled cities like tulsa and fort worth. Is this really a party issue . Pres. Trump i think it is a party issue. Coup,e ole ofin a examples. If you look at chicago, what is going on in chicago where 53 people were shot and eight died. If you look at new york where its going up like nobodys ever seen anything. The numbers are going up 150 , 200 . Its crazy what is going on, and he doesnt want to say law and order because he will lose his radical left supporters. Overhe does that, its with. If he ever got to run this country and they ran it the way he wants to run it [crosstalk] pres. Trump our suburbs would be gone. Vice pres. Biden he wouldnt know a suburb unless you took a wrong turn. I was raised in the suburbs. This is not 1950. All of these dog whistles dont work anymore. Suburbs are by and large integrated. There are many people driving their kids to soccer practice who are black and white and hispanic in the same car as there has been in any time in the past. What really is a threat to the suburbs and their safety is his failure to deal with covid, his failure to deal with the environment. They are being flooded and burned out. That is why the suburbs are in trouble. Chris i do want to talk about this issue of law and order, and in the joint recommendation that came from the biden and Bernie Sanders task force, you talked about reimagining policing. First of all, what does reimagining policing mean, and do you support the black lives matter call for Community Control of policing . Announcer we will leave this year to get an update on President Trumps condition from walter reed medical center. We are talking to this morning, the senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. He is here to discuss the latest on the resident and the first ladys positive covid diagnosis. Good morning. Guest thank you for having me. Host tell us what you know about what the president and the first lady are going through with their treatments at walter reed this morning. Guest it is hard to know exactly what is going on if you are not part of the medical team taking care of the president. We know that he got an experimental antibody treatment today and we are hearing he is getting remdesivir which is an antiviral. He is likely getting aroundtheclock nursing. He likely has an intravenous mine in place. He is getting his fever controlled, but work and Supportive Care that we do for these patients that end up hospitalized with coronavirus. His wife from what i understand is recovering at the white house and has a very mild case that is not requiring any specific treatment. Host President Trump is a 74yearold male who has been diagnosed with obesity. Each of those attributes increases his risk of developing a severe case of covid19. Is he in any danger . True it is definitely that because of his age and he is obese he is in a high risk group. These are more people more likely to be hospitalized and he is hospitalized now. These individuals are more likely to develop pneumonia. That is why it is important that those who have risk factors of being above the age of 60 and have obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular that they are really cautious about their contact and be meticulous about what theyre doing in terms of social interaction because if they do contract the illness, it is often not something that is easy. It often requires hospitalization. Lets talk a little bit more about preventing yourself from getting covid19. We have heard different messages about masks throughout the year. For those of us who do not get the same medical care as the president of the united dates, are you still suggesting Wearing Masks, social distancing, all those things . Are they still relevant now . Guest they are even more relevant now because we are in this era with complacency and we are seeing uptake of this virus as people are more likely to do things indoors versus outdoors because it is getting colder. We dont have a vaccine yet. The only thing you can do to prevent yourself from getting infected is to socially distance and wear a Face Covering when necessary. These things have been shown to make a major impact in how likely you are to come into contact with the virus. It is really important when you are at Mass Gatherings or congregate settings. We saw the announcement of the Supreme Court nominee that has been connected to many cases and those types of events are difficult to have in the current era and they are much more dangerous when there are no facial coverings being required. Viewerst me remind our that they can join this conversation. We are going to open up regional lines. If you are in the eastern and central time zones, you can call 202 7488000. Mountain and pacific time zones, 202 7488001. You can always text us at 202 7488003. We are always reading on social media so you can contact us that way as well. Doctor, they have said from the white house that President Trump is experiencing mild symptoms. What does mild mean . Fatigue, usually means fever, muscle aches and no evidence of shortness of breath. That is what we would think of as severe. It is a term of art. Mild symptoms did not mean the same thing to each person. A 74yearold man who has fever is not mild and that is why it is pumping the hospitalization. Host what can we expect the president to go through in the next few days . They expected to stay a few days in the hospital. Will they continue to use an intravenous line . Will they moved to a different treatment . What would a normal american be going through if they were hospitalized with the symptoms they told us the president was experiencing . Guest very similar to what the president is having. Likely remdesivir which is a five day course. Sometimes people get better quicker. They will be monitoring his status. How easy or hard it is for him to breathe. Likely be doing some routine blood work to check and see how things are going. He will get fever control medications, simple things like tylenol and ibuprofen, monitoring his vital signs. That is usually what happens when a person like this gets admitted. They likely have done some imaging of his chest, a chest xray at a minimum to see if he has not developed pneumonia, and they may do another one in a couple of days to see if anything has changed. That is the usual course that we would do for any 74yearold with risk factors who has been admitted. Obviously, if the symptoms progress and he may require supplemental oxygen, then you might see the care accelerate. He may get things like steroids like dexamethasone, but i think that is premature. It doesnt seem like he is in a situation where he needs extra oxygen or anything at this point. Host we have a question from one of our social media followers who wants to know, what is the most important method of keeping yourself safe, social distancing versus a less than n100 mask. Guest social distancing is the most important way to keep yourself from getting a virus. The virus needs social interaction to spread from persontoperson. If you are away from people, you are not going to come into contact with this virus. If you wash your hands a lot as well, so that any kind of minimal surface transmission is decreased. I dont recommend people need n100 masks or even m 95 masks. I see patients i dont normally see. It is important to remember that social distancing is the main thing. Masks are not a substitute for social distancing. You dont necessarily need to have an n95 mask to get the benefit of a Face Covering. Host for those who dont know, can you explain the difference between n95 masks and n100 and what those numbers mean . The numbers mean how efficient they are at filtering. The particles that you are inhaling, are they blocking 95 of them or 100 of them . They are different than a surgical mask. We use n95 masks to take care of patients with tuberculosis or chickenpox. These are right airborne pathogens where you worry about inhalation. These are airborne pathogens where you worry about inhalation. With sarscovid2, the cause of the coronavirus, we recommend Health Care Workers n95 masks where procedures are going on. For the general public, i am not sure there is any strong data that an n95 mask is necessary or useful or can be one properly, because they are uncomfortable. For the general public, we are recommending cloth Face Coverings. They are being used for different reasons, more for source control, meaning if you are somebody who has the virus and doesnt know it, or mild symptoms that you attribute to something else, a Face Covering can stop particles come three of particles from coming from your mouth and nose and infecting other people. And n95 mask is often for the protection of the wearer, but we dont have the us that is something the general public should be wearing. And it is something that we are worried about the supply of. We need those must in the hospital for workers who are taking care of patients with covid19 or that have other conditions where they need airborne precautions. So we want to make sure that n95 masks are available for Health Care Workers, because that is where the data says they are necessary. Host lets talk about the purpose for the mask. For the cloth covering and the mask coverings that americans are wearing, those masks are not to prevent the person wearing the mask from getting covid19, it is preventing supposedly, to ensure that the person isnt spreading the coronavirus, am i correct . Guest that is the rationale. It is part of what we call source control, data that kind of came out during the pandemic. So when you see there was some shifting Public Policy positions on masks, it had to do with what we were learning. Early on we didnt think there were many people who had no symptoms that were contagious, but we are learning that there is a portion of individuals who dont know they are sick, who may not have symptoms who can transmit it to others. That is why the facial covering policy changed. There is some emerging evidence that people who wear Face Coverings have a decreased risk of getting infected as well. But that is not the purpose. If you get infected, you may get less virus and that might make you have a less severe illness. These are hypotheses. There are processes underway, because you want to have really strong guidance when you tell the general public what they should be wearing. Host lets let some of our viewers take part in the conversation. We start with barry who was calling from new york. Good morning. Caller thank you so much for your very informative guests comments. I have a couple of questions. My wife is a new york city schoolteacher. She has been going back to teaching live classes. We are both concerned because we are both over 60, my wife and i. My question is, i have my wife wearing a plastic face shield in addition to the mask, because the children are not compliant shes teaching younger kids. Some of them, i dont believe, will keep the masks on all the time. I am worried about the face shield my protect my wife from getting droplets or something in her eyes from the kids. Im hoping that is going to be helping my wife not get sick. Second question is, public bathrooms and toilet flushing and aerosolized droplets from toilet flushing, i am wondering if that is significant. Third one is, i see people Wearing Masks where their nose is not covered. I think that is probably not being very effective. And i wanted to make a quick comment, i think it is important i just read something, a fox news pundit said something along the lines of, we are proud of trump because he has taken one for the team. In some sense, he was being heroic by not being compliant about Wearing Masks, etcetera, i just want to say, he is not being patriotic or somehow heroic. When nathan hale said his famous last words i regret that i have but one life to give from my , he wasnt saying other peoples lives, he was saying he regretted that he couldnt die multiple times. You are not being nathan hale. Trump is no nathan hale. Thank you. Host go ahead and respond. Guest so the first question was his fields. I do think that they are very important. We are getting more data that face shields protect the wearer because they cover the eyes. There are individuals trying to understand, do we need to wear a mask if we are wearing face shields, may be that is an alternative to facemasks. Some states consider them equivalent. We know that people dont wear masks very well, as the caller said, people leave their nose out and that makes it not very effective. Everybody that wears a face shield usually wears it correctly, and they dont touch their face. Most touch their face a lot. Difficult, they dont touch their face. I think it is a good idea to wear a face shield because eye protection is very important. There are studies that show the people who wear glasses are less likely to get infected because they likely touch their eyes less. It is something worth thinking about. When it comes to public restrooms, there is a theoretical risk. We can found the virus that causes covid19 in feces. When you flush, there is something called a toilet plume that can emanate. This is a theoretical risk. I dont think it is a major risk. I havent had any issues or concerns about using a public restroom. That is something we have to think about but i dont think it is a major way people are getting infected. If you have a toilet that has a lid on it, if you flush the toilet with the lid closed you decrease the amount of the plume. The plume is mostly going to be hitting the person likely flushing it. There is probably some aerosolization for people in the bathroom, but it is likely the person who themselves is flushing the toilet. Host dr. Adalja, i have taken a couple of coronavirus tests, because i am an educator as well as the college level. I also took a couple of coronavirus tests when i went to visit my parents in mississippi. Talk a little bit about coronavirus tests. What do the current tests that we take for coronavirus tell us . Is there one particular test that is better than others, or what should we be looking for . Guest there is a lot of different coronavirus tests on the market. I will divide them into two big buckets. These are people who are infected, if you are looking to see, what is making my patients sick . If that is the question you are asking, one type of test is called the pcr test, it is a fancy term. It is a test that looks for genetic material of the virus. If it is there, it tells you. So those are very sensitive, they require experienced Lab Personnel and are more expensive and have more ingredients that you need to run them. That is the main test people get, the pcr test. And that is what we have had shortages of and we have had problems with. The second type of test is called an antigen test. If they have gotten a rapid flu test, those are antigen tests. Instead of looking for genetic material of the virus, they look for the actual structure of the virus. They are more likely to tell you that, yes, you have the virus, yes, youre contagious. If it is positive, you can stop there. They are easier and cheaper and faster to do. If they are negative, though, you may still have to do a pcr test to decide, what am i sick with, or why is my patients sick . There has been a move to use antigen test not to answer the question of who is sick with something, but for asymptomatic screening, to see if people are contagious, the antigen is something that is looking at the structure of the virus. If that is positive, you are likely to be contagious. In the pcr test, if you are positive and asymptomatic, we dont know how contagious you are, or if those are remnants from a prior infection that was mild. This is a paradigm shift going on. Those are the two big tests we use. And the third type is an Antibody Test which tells you if you have had exposure to the virus in the past. They are variable whether they are good or bad in terms of sensitivity and specificity. Antibodies do fall below the level of detection over time. It is mostly pcr tests people are getting with antigen test increasing. And does it matter how does it change anything about the test, the amount of time it takes to get results . Some of the tests i have taken take two weeks to get back. Some tests take 48 hours. Now i am hearing there are some that take 15 minutes. Does it matter the amount of time it takes to get results . Guest it definitely matters. We want the test to be useful. If it comes back in 14 days, it is useless. We shouldnt be paying for those type of tests. It is not an actionable test result. It doesnt help you as a patient. You are just waiting and have to selfquarantine for that period. But you are waiting for the test able toso you are not go about your daily life. The tracers cannot do anything with the results because so much of the damage has been done. We ideally what results to come back in minutes. I think that is the goal, is to have actionable test results. This turnaround time we have with some of these pcr tests, when you get an outpatient test, it is unacceptable and it is not going to make it easy to control the outbreak. This is one of the major flaws in our was on that we cannot get this is one of the major flaws in our response, that we cannot get rapid tests. Host lets go back to our phone en callingtalk to bn from new york. Good morning. Caller good morning and thank you for cspan. I have enjoyed the doctors discussion very much. I am a moderate democrat, and yes, we do exist. I am working in the health field for the Indian Health service. I am just hoping that this episode of positivity for the covid tests that is raging through the white house sends the message to people that this cavalier attitude about masks and distancing is very dangerous and people need to take it seriously. I am hoping now that it has hit our top echelon, people will regard it as dangerous. I truly hope that President Trump survives. I dont wish him ill health, but i do hope that if he survives, that he has a little bit of empathy for the hundreds of thousands of people who have suffered from this disease. In closing, i do have one question, i see in the literature about a saliva test that seems to be called the yale saliva test. Could you maybe comment on that . Guest sure. When you get a sample, most are getting nasal swabs. There is a nasopharyngeal swab that goes all the way back into your nasal passages, or one in the anterior portions of the fun front part of your nose. Another alternative is to use saliva. They have been around since the start of the pandemic, but there is a new test that yale pioneered with the National Basketball association. It is easy because you can selfcollect. It is a pcr test but it doesnt require those reagents, extra ingredients that have been in short supply, to run the tests. It is something we are seeing rolled out. It is something i think will probably become easier to use because it is easier to do self collected specimens. If you can think forward to a test that people can do at home and know their status, it likely will be a saliva test because it is easier to collect. You take saliva and put it on Something Like a litmus paper and that helps you know what your status is. So i think saliva tests will be something of the future, because we also have shortages of nasal swabs. We have had shortages of everything related to testing, but the nasal swabs are being 3d printed because we dont have enough. Host one of our social media followers has a question. Can an infected person know where and when they were infected . Guest sometimes, yes. If you are somebody who had certain interactions and you keep meticulous records of who you have been around and where and how long and you have some data from Contact Tracing about when you became symptomatic, when you tested positive and the others around you that tested positive, yes, you can sometimes figure it out. Sometimes it is very hard. Suppose you went to a rock concert or a big mass gathering, it would be hard to know who infected you. What if it was some but if it was some interaction with one person who been tested positive and that was one of very few directions, you can pinpoint. So sometimes you can and sometimes you cant. It helps us understand the story of how people are getting infected, which then guides our Public Health decisionmaking and action. That is why Contact Tracing is so important. When the phone rings from the health department, you should pick it up and help them figure it out. That is the only way we will get a handle on this is by understanding where people are getting infected and by finding them and telling them they may be exposed so they can get tested. That is why we do Public Health. Think about tuberculosis. We have 10,000 cases every year, but we dont worry about them because we have such robust Contact Tracing for tuberculosis. We can get that way with coronavirus but only if people can be tested, traced and isolated and comply with tracing efforts from the health department. Host lets talk to our caller from boston, massachusetts. Nadu, good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. My question from the doctor is, i know someone who wears a mask, doesnt go out, stay home religiously, only going out to pick up food in the supermarket, and ended up having the coronavirus. Can the doctor explain how that happened . Masks,talking about maybe the droplets can get through your clothing or your body, doesnt matter if you wash your hand, if you touch there, you can get the virus. Thank you for taking my call. Guest so, you have to remember that masks are not 100 . There are people that can get infected. You have to remember also that you have to wear your mask correctly you cant touch your face and it needs to be over your nose and mouth. It is more about protecting other people than it is protecting you. We know that cloth masks are not 100 effective. You can still get infected if somebody around you was not wearing a mask, or maybe you touched something and then touched your eyes. Yourber masks do not touch do not cover your eyes and we are learning that people can get infected from their eyes. It is uncommon but it can happen. I would look to see if it got infected through their eyes or if someone was not wearing a mask around them. Host something we have been talking about on the show since the beginning of the pandemic is handwashing and Hand Sanitizer especially when talking about being able to get coronavirus through your eyes. How important is using Hand Sanitizer and handwashing . Guest handwashing is one of the Core Principles of Public Health. If people wash their hands meticulously, we would have a different world when it comes to Infectious Diseases, because people transmit infections through their hands. This has to be a core part of how we move forward. Handwashing has to become the arm every time you touch or before you touch your face or hand somebody an object. We need to make that normal, and it is very easy now with all these alcoholbased Hand Sanitizers and Spray Bottles so there is really no excuse for not handwashing. Host michael is calling from florida. Good morning. Caller good morning and thank you so much for doing this for everyone. I am calling from florida. Dont know if you are aware of it, but they are trying to open us up here. On the 21st, just a few days ago, the cdc removed mention of aerosols from its website. The reason the timing is very suspicious, is down here in florida, in the Fourth Largest School District in the country, we were blackmailed. We had an allfemale board and our community does not want to open, we were one of the worst hit, broward county. They were going to withhold a quarter of a billion dollars. My question to you is in regard to air filtering. When you look on the website, if it is an aerosol, if you look at the engineering society, they say the air should be moved at least twice per hour using hepa filtration. Most schools dont have hepa filtration. If you look on the cdc website, they downplay things where there are shortages or where it involves doing any action really for viruses. And i ask you to do this in addition to answering the question about hepa filtering in a classroom. We need a definitive answer from someone. Because when you go to that cdc website, the material is so look this up on the website, they post this article, which, when youre something write about that is really old, like say a traffic light, that is an old technology. So you look for things that are kind of edgy. So you start out at the beginning of the article saying, this is something everyone should use. And in fact every article you see mentioned, if it is peerreviewed, will say that. But then they go into the details and say, watch out, the timing can be off on traffic lights. So the end of the article gives you the impression that you shouldnt trust these traffic lights, use your eyes. Of course you need to use the know to go or to not go. It can be specific to a school. If im not using masks and one student comes into a class, the entire class gets sick. Host he was going off a bit. Go ahead and answer the question, doctor. Guest it is a controversial topic and it has to do with a lot of semantics between the way Infectious Disease doctors and epidemiologists talk about transmission and the way biologists talk about it. The primary way people get infected is through the respiratory route. Droplets, some of which fall to the ground within six feet. Some may be airless sized aerosolized during speech or talking. Some people get infected through a true airborne pathogen, like measles or tuberculosis or chickenpox. We are not seeing that type of epidemiology. I know this is controversial. Infectious disease doctors and biologists are butting their heads about this. It is difficult to get this kind of concept correct. I dont believe we have to change hepa filters, put them in schools. You have to look at the epidemiology. Are people getting infected the way they do with measles . The answer is no. The household attack rate isnt as high as it is with measles. I dont think you need to do that. You have to think about not necessarily filtration, but ventilation, making sure have ventilation and doing social distancing. But i dont think every school needs to have a hepa filter, although there are some that advocate doing that. I dont think there is evidence that will actually have a major benefit. If you look at the epidemiology, we are not seeing true airborne transmission in the manner of measles. Not that it cant happen, but it is not a major part of transmission. There is a lot of debate about that. It is not something i am recommending people do at this point because there is not strong data to show that it is going to decrease rates. I think the only benefit would be marginal if any. Again, this will be something that will continue to be debated. Host one of the things we hear lots of conversation around is the question of whether asymptomatic people can spread the coronavirus. One of our social media followers has a question about this. Can he explain how they confirm asymptomatic people can spread the virus, because my personal care physician cannot explain it to me because she can figure out how they know this. Guest this is something that was an important question early on. We know that with an Infectious Disease that has asymptomatic transmission, it will be by definition uncontainable. You have to look at a case contact investigation, look at an individual that was infected, and the only contact they had was with somebody who also was infected but only became sick after the fact or never became sick. You look at that data. When was the person in contact with the index case . At that time, did the index case have symptoms . This can be tricky because people have very love symptoms mild symptomsry they dont realize are from the coronavirus. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish asymptomatic transmission from what we call parse symptomatic, meaning very few symptoms. If there is no explanation, that is when you go to asymptomatic transmission. You can look at viral loads and see when the load is high in the nasal or oral secretions. Then you can say yes, there is a virus in their respiratory secretions. That gives you a hint that asymptomatic transmission is possible. That doesnt mean it happens all the time. We still dont know all the factors that govern whether somebody is an asymptomatic transmitter or not, but it is something that we learned during the pandemic because we have not seen it with coronavirus in the past. That is why a lot of the guidance changed and why this virus is a lot more difficult to contain then we initially thought it would be because asymptomatic transmission was shown to be some level of transmission. Host lets go to martha from texas. Martha, good morning. Caller thank you. I went yesterday to get a flu shot at my drugstore and they were out of the one for me. I had to sign up. Apparently there are two because of your age. I am 80. Last year i didnt think there were two varieties of a flu shot. Could you explain . Guest sure. There are a couple of different varieties of the flu shot based on age for some time. Because older individuals are so much at higher risk of complications from influenza, and because we know their immune system does not react very well to the standard vaccine [standby]