That nobody would have ever thought possible. It has been incredible. That is why the numbers are so far much better. We want to keep it that way. If you look at the original projections, if we did nothing, it would be disasterous. If we, we decided to do something, we closed it down. Had no choice t was a good move. That was a good move. The early china move was a good move. Early europe move was a good move. We did a lot of good moves. Closing it down was a big statement, an important thing, but were looking to have far viewer deaths than originally thought and i think were heading in that direction but it is too early to talk about it. I dont even want to talk about it now because we want to work and, i think that people are doing an incredible job. The doctors, the nurses, the firefighters, the police, all medical people, what theyre doing, the bravery theyre displaying is just incredible. Every citizen should take immense pride in the selflessness and all of the courage and compassion of our people. The workers, the people that are working, and construction workers going into hospitals, knowing nothing about this problem, other than it is dangerous and they go in there to rebuild sections of hospitals and you have people in really big trouble right next door. They know nothing about it. Although know they will get it done. Fix the wing so they can have more people in there, it is incredible. This is a National Spirit won our independence and settled frontier and explored the horizons of space. Thats what were doing. This is all new territory. It unlocked the miracles of science. Were doing that i wish you could have heard the calls i had yesterday with these Great Companies that come up with cures to diseases and success they have had over the last 15 years is really amazing. So i just want to thank all of them. Theyre working very hard. Theyre working with uk right now, and the uk doctors, hopefully helping with their great prime minister. But these people are really tremendous signs of success are staring us right in the face. I think well have something that will be great in terms of vaccines and inn terms of Everything Else that theyre doing, just helping, really helping us, helping the people of our country and helping ultimately the people of the world. So i want to thank you all for being here. I will take some questions and then im going to give it over to the Vice President. They will go into great deal tail what were doing successful supplies and medical equipment that were getting. All of the ventilators i said it, you can go more detail if you like and building thousands and thousands of ventilators. Theyre very high quality. I said you have to go for the quality. These are Quality Companies doing it because there is a big difference between a good ventilator and a not so good ventilator, tony, right . Weve seen that, a big difference, so were going top of the line. Steve, please. Reporter acting Navy Secretary submitted his resignation today modally, why did that become necessary. What role did you have it sir. I had no role. I heard he was a very good man. The whole thing was a very unfortunate, the captain should not have written a letter. He didnt have to be earnest hemingway, he made a mistake. He had a bad day. I hate seeing bad things happen. The man made a mistake but you know, shouldnt be writing letters and youre in the military. Youre the captain after great ship and you shouldnt be writing letters and sending them to many people and then it gets out to the media. You know, the question is how did it get out to the media . So there is a lot of bad things happened there. I had heard he did because he didnt want to cause any disturbance for our country. Sew that was, he wouldnt have had to resign. I would not have asked him. I dont know him. I didnt speak to him. But, he did that, i think just to end that problem. I think, really many ways that was a very unselfish thing for him to do. Reporter what should happen now to commander crozier . They will look at that i think secretary of defense, as you know is, mark esper. He is very capable. I think he is looking at that right now. Theyre going to just take it under regular navy channels to see what they want to do but, he made a mistake but he shouldnt have done that and, your secretary probably shouldnt have said quite what he said. He didnt have to resign but he felt it would be better for the country. So i, i think its, it will end it quickly. Please. Reporter president , couple on economic front. The 250 billion that was added today will be added for the Small Business loan program. Bring it to 600 billion in total. Do you think that figure is enough . My well find out. When you see hundreds of thousands of applications, dont forget, theyre for 3,000, for 7,000, some for a couple million. One of the banks had a couple million. So theyre for different varying amounts of money and there is a limit on the top and then there is really no limit on the bottom what it might be but its really popular. It is hundreds of thousands of applications they really like it. What i like it keeps companies together, little companies. Well help the airlines and Big Companies well help the little companies and the banks are nobody is equipped to do a thing like that but the banks are equipped so the banks are doing it. Big banks, small banks, many banks, Community Banks and theyre processing the loans and they will be able to watch it, make sure it is done properly. Reporter talk today, sir potentially reopening the economy in the upcoming weeks. You mentioned the other day about a potential Economic Task force. Can you give us some update . We want to open up. We want to get it open soon. I think maybe were getting to the very top of the curve. I spoke with Governor Cuomo and he seems to think he is getting close. Any a lot of people think that, a lot of places are getting close. We want to start hitting the downside, i think this will be a very difficult week however. This week will be a very difficult week because that is the most difficult week, when youre at the top position and well see what happens. See what happens. Reporter what can the federal government do . Done a lot and it is going to do a lot. We want i really think with the stimulus we can be maybe even beyond, were going to do perhaps infrastructure which you wouldnt have gotten approved before and now people are looking to do it and the beauty is were paying zero interest or very close to zero interest. In some cases were actually paying zero, have no interest charge. And, the dollar is very strong and people are investing in the dollar. They want, the fact that we have the strong currency, we have the currency. Our currency is everything and other companies, other countries want to be in our currency. So were, were getting all of the investment wanting to come into the dollar. The dollar is the strength. The dollar is the whole ballgame. We have a strong dollar. Other currencies are going down, way, way down in some cases. You look at other countries. I wont mention them but other countries are going down 22 , 25 , 2 and it is very hard for them, makes it much more difficult with us. Our currency is relatively now stronger than it ever was or it was over the last few years, relevant to other countries. It is always relevant to other countries but our currency is very strong. Therefore people want to invest. If we do a bond issue to do infrastructure everybody want as piece of that issue. Even at zero interest. Yeah, please. Reporter thank you, sir. Did you see these memos reportedly Peter Navarro wrote back in january, when did you see them, how do these memos square with what you often said nobody was predicting, sounds like he was predicting. I didnt see them. I heard he wrote memos talking about pandemic. I didnt see them, didnt look for them. That was about the same time i felt we should do it. That was about the same time i closed it down. I asked him about it a little while ago because i read something about a memo. Did you do a memo . I didnt see it. I didnt ask him to show it to me. Yes, i talked about the possibility of pandemic. Nobody it is going to happen but there is a possibility. There always has been a possibility but people wouldnt talk about it, but it was right about the time i closed it down. Interestingly the World Health Organization was not in favor of us closing it down, and if we didnt close it down we have lost hundreds of thousands more lives. So good thing. Reporter so at the time though when Peter Navarro did circulate those memos you were still downplaying the threat of coronavirus in the u. S. You were saying things like, i think it is a problem that is going to go away. Which i was right about. It will go away. Reporter couple days cases will be down to zero . Cases really didnt bo go up for a while. You understand im a cheerleader for this country. I dont want to create havoc and shock and Everything Else. Ultimately when i was saying that im also closing it down. I obviously was concerned about it because i closed down our country to china, which are was heavily infected. I then closed it down to europe. That is a big move, closing it down from china and closing it down from europe. Ultimately closing it down to the uk. It was right about that time but im not going to go out and start screaming this could happen, this could happen. So again as president i think a president has to be a cheerleader for their country but at the same time im cheerleading im also closing down a very highly infected place, specifically, location as you know in china had the problems. Were closing it down but were closed it down to all of china. Then we closed it down to all of europe. Those were big moves. It was right about that time. Reporter just a quick followup, mr. President. Reporter talking about this today . Reporter you learned about the memos today . I read it about a day ago, two days ago. Reporter someone on your staff or Peter Navarro himself shoved told you about memos . It was recommendation a feeling that he had. I think he told certain people on the staff. It didnt matter. I didnt see it but i closed it down. I dont remember it even being discussed. We had a meeting with a lot of people. Most people felt we shouldnt close it down, we shouldnt close it down to china. I felt we had to do it. That was almost the exact same time at the memo. Reporter if you would have read the memo at the time how would that have changed the steps i dont think i changed it. I basically did what the memo said, the memo was pretty good memo from the standpoint he talked, i guess, i didnt see it yet. Reporter reporting u. S. Could lose trillionslars and millions of lives. You wint lose millions of lives. You lose plenty of money. I did it about the same time i closed to china. Reporter you maintain confidence in Peter Navarro . Of course i maintain confidence. He wrote a memo. He was right. I havent seen the memo. I will see later on after this. Didnt matter whether i saw it or not because i acted on my own, i guess i had same instincts as peter. He is a smart guy. He have is a good guy. He has done a wonderful job. He wrote a memo, talked to various people about it. I did more or less what the memo said just about the time the memo came out. I closed it down. I took a lot of heat. The World Health Organization was very much against, they didnt like it. They put out statements about it. In all fairness to joe biden he called me xenophobic, like i dont like china. I like china. I like Chinese People are phenomenal people. I was called xenophobic. I was called racist, how could i do a thing like this. Since then joe said that he was wrong. He said that i was right. But i closed it down. I was called names by some of the morning show hosts who dont have a clue what theyre talking about. Theyre not smart people. I was called also names when i closed it down to china. Now they try and hide that, you know the tape of them saying terrible things but that was a great decision. If i didnt do it, if i didnt do that, we would have had hundreds of thousands of more people dying. Yeah, please. Reporter talked a lot about the w. H. O. , and i was wondering, dr. Fauci, came up earlier if i could ask you a question about it. He respects the w. H. O. Thats good. He worked with them for a long time but they did give us some pretty bad play calling. Reporter they have also i think given lots of countries in the world accurate coronavirus testing that has been central to your guys data modeling. That i dont know. Only can say with regard to us theyre taking a lot of heat because they didnt want the borders closed. They called it wrong. They called, they really called i would say every aspect of it wrong. Until reporter [inaudible] look, we fund it. Take a look. Go through step by step. They said there is no big deal. No big problem. There is no nothing. Ultimately when i closed it down they actually said that i made a mistake in closing it down. It turned out to be right but at the time they did that. So were just going to take a look at it. We fund it. And they seem to be, you know, i said, recently, social media said, they seem to be very china centric. That is nice way of saying it but they seem to be very china centric. They seem to err always on the side of china and we fund it. You know, i want to look into it. Yes, please. Reporter quick follow up on that. So is it time to freeze funding to the w. H. O. During a pandemic . No, maybe not. Im not saying im going to do it. I will look at it. We, no i didnt i said well look at it. Well investigate it and look at it. Well look at ending funding. Yeah. Because you know what . They called it wrong and, if you look back, over the years, even theyre very much, everything seems to be very biased towards china. Thats not right. Reporter wanted to follow up. Talked about africanamericans and how they have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus. Appears to be unfortunately. Reporter do you plan on requiring the cdc, any federal agencies or state agencies, Public Places doing tests and private companies doing tests to collect that data on the rates of people being tested and the rates of people being treated and how well were seeing tremendous, were seeing tremendous evidence that africanamericans are affected at a far greater percentage number than other citizens much our country because were dealing with our country. Now were looking at it from a worldwide standpoint. Tony fauci is looking at it very strongly but these numbers have started to come out and theyre very strong and pretty obvious. Were talking about reporter you wont release that publicly . You want to talk about that please . I think one of the things well be doing with our medicare data is do that analysis, look back at the last month or so related type illnesses going forward. We have a cold for coronavirus we want stratify by demographic information so we can look at rates as a factor. We can also look at what the Underlying Health issues are as well. So well be providing that data very shortly but we will be doing that analysis. Working on that very hard. This is something come up over, i hadnt heard this. Over the last few days this has come up more and more. And i dont mean by a little bit. I mean many times, it is a real thing. Now we want to find cures. We have want to find therapeutics, we want to find vaccines. That will solve everybodys problem but why is it that the Africanamerican Community is so much, numerous times more than everybody else . We want to find the reason to it. And, dr. Fauci, sema, both of them, others are working on it. I would say, over the next, in less than a week i think you will have very good statistics. Couple days. Reporter specifically aimed ad those communities being hard hit, black communities. Were helping them a lot but what is happening is were trying to find out why is it three and four times. Maybe that is not going to be the final number but why is it three or four times more so for the black community as opposed to other people . It doesnt make sense. I dont like it. And were going to have statistics over the next probably two to three days. Okay . Please. Reporter thank you, i would like to ask a question on behalf of myself and colleague who couldnt be here due to social distancing. Who are you with . Pete Hearst Newspapers im the pool reporter. Some banks only giving paycheck protect loans to clients with whom they have banking relationships today. You spoke with banking ceos today. I did. Reporter will you ask them lenders to accept applications from all Small Businesses not just businesses who theyve a were working with small Community Banks. They will be doing that. A question i have already spoken about. In many cases they have longterm relationships with thousands of companies. I was amazed to see how many, you saw number of applications. It is hundreds of thousands. Its a lot of work but i did ask that question and they are working on that. Reporter thank you, my second question from a colleague is, congressman gerry connelly, democrat from Northern Virginia told the local dc, cbs station you personally requested the cares act stimulus bill be stripped of 25 billion for the Postal Service. Connelly claims that unless the usps gets 25 billion the agery will run out of money by june. He accuses you hastening denies of Postal Service. Im the reason, the Postal Service has lost billions of dollars every year for many, many years. Im a denies. This is the new one. Im now the demise of the Postal Service. Tell you who is the demise of the Postal Service is the Internet Companies that give their stuff to the Postal Service, packages and i dont know why theyre not, i dont run the Postal Service. You have a group of people, socalled independent people and they run it but these packages are, they deliver, they lose money every time they deliver a package for amazon or these other Internet Companies, these other companies that deliver, they drop everything in the post office, say you deliver it. And if they would raise the prices by actually a lot, then you would find out that the post office could make money or break even. They dont do that im trying to figure out why. These are independent boards. They were appointed by other administrations. Theyre sort of long term. Theyre there for a long time. Ive been talking to them also. You can look it up, take a look, they should raise, they have to raise the prices to these companies that walk in and drop thousands of packages on the floor of the post office and say, deliver it. And they make money but the post office gets killed. Okay . So they ought to do that and were looking into it. Weve been pushing them now for over a year. You know that because you have seen the stories im pushing them. Not fair for them to, to this great wonderful, modern companies, theyre walking into our Old Post Office with all those routes that could never be built, you could never build them. They go into areas that you could never do, and they say, here, deliver this. And they lose a lot of money per package. They have to raise their prices but their Postal Commission doesnt do it. We just got a chance to appoint a couple people on to the commission as i understand it, and thats good but they have to raise their prices otherwise theyre just going to lose a lot of money. Tell your democrat friend he ought to focus on that, if he focused on that he could truly save the post office. Post office has been losing billions of dollars a year for many, many years. And, have him take a look at that because that is the way to solve the problems. Reporter you stated it could be very painful, but two weeks ago you said this was just like a flu. What have you learned i didnt say two weeks ago it was a flu. You know what, can i tell you what. Reporter what have you learned could offered a vice to foreign leaders who are still skeptical about pandemic and who are again, social distancing . What is your advice. You said i said it was just like a flu. So the worst pandemic we ever had . This world, was a flu. It was called, you know, that it was in in in 1917 to nate 18. 50 Million People died. That was a flu. You say it was a flu or flu is nothing to sneeze at. Reporter my question, what can you offer to advice to foreign leaders who are skeptical about the pandemic, who are again, social distancing . Well i think theyre arent too many of them. If you look throughout the world, everyone, just about, everyone that has practiced that is now closing up. Well, uk was an example. Now, they talk about sweden, but sweden is suffering very gravely, you know that, right . Sweden did that. The herd, they call it the herd, sweden is suffering very badly. It is a way of doing it but you know, everybody has been watching everybody else and so far almost every country has done it the way weve done it. Weve chosen to do it. If we didnt do it that way we would have lost hundreds of thousands of more people, okay . Reporter mr. President , voting going on today in wisconsin. There were reports of thousands of people waiting in hours long lines as to their own personal health and civic responsibility. Do you think the Supreme Court was right in voting should go forward and absentee extension should not take place . Look the Supreme Court, of course they were right because what the democrats wanted, and you know what this happened, i supported a man named justice kelly, who is daniel kelly, highly respected justice, and i supported him just the other day, social media. I know of him. He is just, fantastic judge, justice. And i endorsed him. And as soon as i endorsed him they wanted to move the election. They didnt want to move the election. As soon as i endorsed him wisconsin democrats, lets move the election to two months later, they didnt mind having the election until i endorsed him which is very interesting. Now they talk about oh, safety, safety. Well, it was 15 minutes after i put out an endorsement that they said we have to move the election. They didnt want to move the election before that. The other thing they wanted to do which is crazy, at the end of the election they wanted to have one week for proxies to come in or mail ballots. Now mail ballots, they cheat. People cheat, mail ballots are very dangerous thing for this country. They are cheaters. They collect them, theyre fraudulent in many cases. You have got to vote. They should have voter i. D. , you want to do it right with voter i. D. The democrats was turned over in the Supreme Court yesterday, this was i give great credit to the court. They didnt want to have election day. Then a week after election day you choose your but all these ballots come in, these mailed ballots come in. The mail ballots are corrupt in my opinion. And they collect them. And they get people to go in and sign them and they are forgeries in many cases. It is a horrible thing. So what happened is, the democrats in wisconsin, they had no problem with the election being today until i endorsed the republican candidate justice kelly, daniel kelly. As soon as i endorsed him, they went crazy. They went crazy. And you know thats true. And now all of sudden, because go back two weeks, go back two days. They didnt want to move the election. They were having the election. They were fine because they thought they were going to win the election. Then i endorsed him all of sudden theyre not. Now i understand lines are going back a long way. I hope they vote for justice kelly. Okay . Go. Reporter with millions of hydroxychlorquine donated is there a plan or system in place to track the potential sideeffects . Well you saw the representative reporter serious harm. Is there a plan sideeffects, sideeffects are least of it. People are i doing all over the place. Generally the sideeffects are really with the zpack having to do with the heart, the zpack, that is the antibiotic, not with hydroxychlorquine. So, so a woman last night i watched her on one of the shows, good show, laura, and she was she thought she was dead. She was a representative from michigan. She was, just in horrible shape for 12 days, 14 days. She thought she was dead. I think she said her doctor said, it will be very tough. She saw me talking about this and she asked her husband to go to the drugstore. This is a democrat representative, a person that you know, perhaps wouldnt be voting for me, i think she will be voting for me now, even if she is democrat, even if she is a democrat representative, and they went to the store, which i made available because we have millions of doses. We have i think 29 million doses of this drug and she asked her husband, please go out, im not going to make it. You have to hear her story, please go out and get it. He went 10 00 in the even together drugstore. He got it. He gave it to her. Now you know, i dont say it works like this in all four hours later, she awoke and she said i feel better. And then shortly thereafter she felt great. This is woman thought she was going to die. Its, i mean, she is a democrat representative, highly respected woman, africanamerican woman. I dont know if you saw it. You asked a question about africanamericans. She was an africanamerican woman, a great woman. A, her, manner of speaking her, the way she told the story was beautiful, i asked my husband to go and get it. He got it. She is now okay. I have mean she was interviewed last night on television. And she thanked me. She thanked me even in a tweet. I want to thank President Trump he saved my life. Look, i dont say that happen with everybody. That is a beautiful story. There are many of those stories. I say try it, please. If youre in trouble, youre going to die and i mean, youre not going to die from this pill. Now, there could be some sideeffects but the side effects is really more so from the zpack. Reporter those side effects . No, doctors have to recommend it. I want doctors. Im not saying, im not a doctor. Im just saying we hear great results. And some people say lets go to a lobber to, lets test it for couple years, no, we got people dying in this country and all over the year, as we speak people are dying and i really, think its a great thing to try. Just based on what i know. Again im not a doctor. And i say get a physicians approval. And they have physicians in these hospitals, great physicians, brave physicians. They also say it is good for the hospital workers to take them. That it is, its, keeps it away, keeps it out of your system. I dont know but there is a lot of good examples. You know we have a 1500 case study going in new york and it is almost complete. So it will be very interesting to see what happens. Go ahead. Reporter thank you, sir. I appreciate that woman. She was great. You have to see it to believe it, the way she spoke. It was like, a miracle. And this was not a fan of mine. But she is a fan of mine now. Im very honored by it. Go hoed. Reporter can you talk about the decision to remove glen fine from Pandemic Response and criticism you level at igs, how does the American Public have confidence there will be oversight . We have a lot of igs from the obama era. It is a president ial decision. I left them largely. Changed some, but i left them. But when we have, you know reports of bias and when we have Different Things coming in, i dont know fein. I dont know that i met fein. I heard the name, maybe he was from clinton. Check that out. Maybe he is from clinton but we did change him. But we changed a number, we have about seven nominations in. I believe we put seven, very, highly qualified people for the i. G. Position. That is a decision that i could have made three years ago and i could have made two years ago. But were putting in, not so much for him, were putting in seven names. I think it was seven. And theyre going in now. Yeah. Reporter when you talk about the w. H. O. Being china centric, what exactly are you talking about . Because they seem to come down on the side of china. Dont close your borders to china. Dont do this. They dont report really what is going on. They didnt see it, yet they were there. They didnt see what was going on in wuhan. They didnt see it. How do you not see it . They didnt see it. They didnt report it. They must have seen it but they didnt report it. Please, go ahead. Reporter mr. President , turning back to the voting in wisconsin and those long lines, who can be responsible, who should be held responsible if people get sick after they voted . Look all i did was endorse a candidate. I dont know anything about their lines. I dont know anything about their voting. I love the state. Reporter you also people encouraged to get out to vote today as well. Dont you take responsibility won the state, a rare for republican to do. I won the state of wisconsin. I will do it again because weve been great to the people of wisconsin with our policies. They like me and i like them. But, all i did was endorse a candidate that is highly qualified. Very respected person. And all hell broke loose. Soon as i did that then all of sudden they want to change. Before i endorsed him they didnt want to chuang this voting area. There was no problem with the democrats voting until i endorsed the candidate. Then they said, lets move it two months. Lets move it three months later. Safety, safety, safety, right. All of sudden they want safety. Before i did the endorsement they didnt talk about safety. For month, for months it was fine. Now i endorse they want safety. So you know. [reporters shouting questions] reporter just to follow up on that, how does the election, them holding this election in wisconsin line up with the social distancing recommendations that have come from your administration. You have to ask the people that, you have a democrat in wisconsin as governor. Ask him. That is his problem. Okay, he should be doing it. Again, some governors fail, and i wont let them fail because when they fail i will help but that is run by democrats right now. Okay . It is run by democrats. You had a great republican. Reporter is it possibly to socially distance when youre voting . You have to speak to the governor. What you should do call the governor of wisconsin to ask him that question. Also ask him how come it was okay to do this until i endorsed a candidate. As soon as i endorsed him these lines are formed. Mike i hear the lines are through the roof. Hopefully they will vote for the right candidate. Reporter check in on the oil again today. Oil . Where is it today . Reporter well, i was wondering where is the price . Give me the price . Reporter im not sure to be honest. How can you ask a question you dont know the price. Let me get to somebody else. Reporter you were highly critical of mail in voting, mailin ballots i think mailin vote something horrible. It is corrupt. Reporter floridas election last month. Sure i can vote by mail. Because im allowed to. That is called outofstate, you know yes voted because i happened to be in the white house. I wont be able to go to florida to vote. Reporter mailing within the state or mailing outside the state . Somebody that is outofstate and does a ballot and everything sealed, certified Everything Else. You see what you have to do with the certifications. And you get thousands and thousands of people sitting in somebodys living room signing ballots all over the place. No. I think that mailin vote something a terrible thing. I think if you vote, you should go and, even the concept of early voting is not the greatest much. Because a lot of things happen. But it is okay. But you should go and you should vote. I think you should go and you should vote. Look at what they do where grab thousands of mailin ballots and dump it. I tell you what, i dont have to tell you, you can look at the statistics there is a lot of dishonest think going along with mailin voting. Mailin ballots. Reporter state officials buy their own medical equipment the federal officials are swooping in, scooping up the orders. How are you insuring fairly and were getting great prices on equipment. Were getting great prices on equipment. Were helping the states. And the governors are very thankful. Mike pence had a call yesterday with every governor on the call. It was like a lovefest. Theyre very happy. I have dont know if they tell that to the press. Some of them dont. Some of them will never say good to the press. They know we have done a great job. Not a good job. A great job. Reporter officials sometimes it does, what we say is, let us know and we will immediately drop out of the bidding. Let us know, and we do that, we drop out. Sometimes we tell them to drop out because we have got good price. Well deliver to them. Go had. No, no. Not you, in front, please. Reporter some states have had trouble with getting accurate test counts particularly because of lack of testing or death counts . Reporter because of lack of testing and no uniform system to when you say death counts, i think theyre pretty accurate on the death count. Somebody dies i think states have been pretty accurate. What youre just saying. Death counts i think theyre very accurate. I do say this, i think if you look at china, if you look at some of these very large countries, when you talk about cases, number of cases i would be willing to bet they have more cases than we do but they dont do the testing like we do. But you look at, you know, you look at some of these certain countries, and i would be willing to bet a lot that they had more cases but were more accurate. Our testing is done very accurately. We have a good process. Did you have one, please . Reporter mr. President , recently supportive of a payroll relief tax. What . Payroll . Reporter payroll relief. Still busy implementing phase three, but as we move towards phase four, are there still obstacles to that . That would put money in americans pockets good question. I would love to see a payroll tax cut and i think, on behalf of the people it would be quick. Now it is a longer term, you know it is a longer time because it is over a period of a year or whatever you want to make it but i would love to see a payroll tax cut. There are many people who like to see it as permanent tax cut, payroll tax cut. Reporter what is stopping isnt. Democrats are stopping it. Reporter what are their reasons . I dont know. Maybe they think it is good politics to stop it but you would get a lot of people a lot of money immediately. Payroll tax cut would be a great thing for this country. I would like to have it regardless of this but this would be a fantastic time to have the payroll tax cut. The democrats are stopping it. But i dont think theyre, you know, i think it is, i think there is certain flexibility. I think it is something we should do, both for business and the people but this would get, money into the hands of Small Business immediately. Money in the hands of people, workers and people immediately. And it would be over an extended period and simple to do. So easy to do. It is a great tax cut. I would love you to speak to the democrats, lets get it done. I will give this to Vice President pence. They will go over some very good at that stays statistics with everybody. Well have a couple answers on that, were working very hard with the Africanamerican Community with respect what is going on. It is not good. I dont like it. Well have some very good statisticses, tony next couple days. Thank you awe you will very much port. [reporters shouting questions] thank you all, a few updates, then i introduce dr. Deborah birx what were seeing around the country. What the data is telling us. Suffice it to say as the president said several times this is very tough week in america. And our hearts go out to all of the families that have lost loved ones to the coronavirus up, i know i speak for the entire White House Coronavirus task force, when i say, our hearts are with the people of the Greater New York city area today. As we stand here today, in the midst of heartbreaking numbers of losses in new york city i also want to assure the American People that their is reason for hope. As, as dr. Birx will enumerate in just a few moments despite the increase in losses, as Governor Cuomo articulated today, hospital admissions continue to decline and in our report early this morning from dr. Birx we continue to see evidence of stabilization in some areas around the country of the most significant outbreak, the new York Metro Area, including new jersey, long island, connecticut. New Orleans Metro area, detroit, boston, chicago and denver as dr. Birx will sprain continue to give evidence stabilization which in very real sense is evidence that the American People are putting into practice social distancing, the president s guidelines for our nation, and for that, as the president said earlier today we thank the American People, even in the midst of hardship and loss at a time when we see more than 385,000 americans test positive for the coronavirus and more than 12,000 succumb to this illness, the evidence that dr. Birx will describe to you will show that the American People know the future is in our hands. Let me allow you simply to continue to urge every american to put into practice the guidance youre receiving from your state and local authorities, take it to heart, take it seriously, share it with your family and your friend and, and know that youre making a difference, america, because you truly are. Today for my part i spoke to over 500 Small Business owners in a Conference Call and there i heard about their enthusiasm for the paycheck protection program. And that call took place before the president had the secretary of treasury indicate our interest in acquiring another 250 billion for that program. As of this morning more than 60 billion in forgivable loans that would cover two months of paychecks, at Small Businesses already had been distributed and the number is going to grow literally by the day. But we also had a very productive call today with, with some other american heroes. You know the, we all have in our hearts and in our minds our Health Care Workers and ill speak for a moment about the supplies and resources were working to provide for all of them. Right below the Health Care Workers are people working in Critical Infrastructure around the country and, some of the most important people are working in food supply, from the farmers, and the ranchers, to our processers to our distributors to our truckers, to our grocers, americans are keeping food on the table for our fellow americans. Let me begin by just saying what i said to some of the most prominent ceos of meat and grain Industry Companies in the country, Companies Like tyson food and hormel today, not just these companies but to all the hardworking people working in food supply today, thank you, thank you for what youre doing to keep those Grocery Store shelves stocked. Thank you for showing up to work every day and working hard to keep that food supply rolling in america. You know it was more than five weeks ago that the president brought in all of the Grocery Store leaders in the country and there he received a commitment that no Grocery Store in america would close and they havent but it is these heroic americans from the farm to the fork, that have made it possible for americans to have one less worry, and they are truly inspiring heroes. Now that being said i did hear from the industry today there have been reports of some plants having reduced capacity because of people having concerns about exposure to the coronavirus. In fact over the last several days there is, been some incidents of worker absenteeism and some plants have actually been forced to close temporarily. So on behalf of the president , on behalf of our entire team, on behalf of a grateful nation, let me say to all of you are working in the Food Industry at every level across the country, just understand youre vital. You are giving a Great Service to the people of the United States of america. And we need to you continue as a part of what we call our Critical Infrastructure to show up and do your job, and know were going to continue to work tirelessly working with all your companies to make sure that work place is safe. That being said let me talk about the other heroes we always mention at this podium today that, dr. Birx and dr. Fauci invariably mention and that is our healthcare workers. At the president s direction weve been working tirelessly, literally around the clock to identify resources around the country and around the world to make sure our Health Care Workers have the support that they need with some 51 major disaster declarations, most recently minnesota being approved, states have stood up 27,000 National Guard but personnelwise before the end of Business Today there will be more than 3,000 department of defense and health and Human Services medical personnel on the ground in the Greater New York city area. Those people will be redeployed once that region of the country moves through the coronavirus epidemic in that area and, we salute those extraordinary, patriotic americans for stepping forward to bring real relief to our Health Care Workers. With regard to equipment, admiral admiral polowczyk reported that wee continue to distribute ventilators across the country. We sent ventilators from the Strategic National stockpile. Marylander will receive 50 vent regulators. Delaware will receive 50 ventilators that leaves more than 4800 ventilators in the national stockpile. One correction after yesterday, after our press briefing yesterday, fema made a different decision with regard to what the state of california generously made available and the ventilators, some 500 ventilators that we again want to thank governor gavin newsom and the people of california for donating to our nations efforts, 100 of those are being deployed to new york, 100 to new jersey, 100 to illinois, 50 to maryland, 50 to washington, d. C. , 50 to delaware and 50 to nevada. With regard to the remainder of what we call personal protective equipment, again, weve been literally leaving no stone unturnedded anywhere in the country, anywhere around the world. As admiral polowczyk described a couple days ago, we established not just an air bridge but a control tower system modeled after military logistics out of fema. While fema is acquiring a small portion of whats being acquired, 90 percent of the supplies are being, are being routed directly into our massive Distribution System and fema is using data dr. Birx provides to target those resources to areas most in need. I asked them to break out a few details about resources just in the last five days have been distributed and i hope it is and encouragement to Health Care Workers all across these regions around the country about these efforts being made to make sure they have what they need. You can see the new York Metro Area including new jersey, just in the last five days, more than 6 million n95 masks, more than 6 million surgical masks. When Governor Cuomo and i last spoke he told me there was a real challenge for medical gowns in the new york city area and in new jersey as well. And 2. 8 million gowns were distributed to that region as well. Going next to new orleans where again, while we see some encouragement challenges remain in that community. Some 837,000 n95 masks for Health Care Workers. 165 surgical masks, other items including almost six million gloves have been distributed. Detroit continues to be a real focal point. Were working closely with governor Gretchen Witmer and mayor mike duggan to meet needs of Health Care Workers in detroit. Last five days 1. 6 million n95 masks have been routed into the Health Care System in detroit. Nearly 700,000 surgical masks and 24 million gloves, just as portion of whats displayed. And in the chicago metro area which we continue to focus on each and every day more than 1. 7 million n95 masks have been routed into their Health Care System, 900,000 surgical masks, 25 million gloves. I share these details in the hopes Health Care Workers looking on will be encouraged. With the president s effort were making every effort to insure that you have the resources you need to do your job, to do it safely and go home safe to your family even while you provide that extraordinary and courageous care that our Health Care Workers are providing literally around the clock in the midst of the coronavirus challenge. The last slide is just cumulative numbers that we have distributed. Im happy in a few moments to answer any questions about that. Again, the system that we have in place is, is one that is, is essentially infusing our Major Distribution Networks with millions of items and then fema is directing on a daybyday and often times hour by hour basis where those resources are most needed and well continue to go dough that as the coronavirus continue to do that as the coronavirus makes its way through communities panned through communities very much on our watch list today. Let me lastly say again i want to thank the American People for stepping up, doing your part. We continue to be overwhelmed with one story after another where people are doing social distancing, where people are looking after one another, where theyre checking in with a phone call to an elderly friend, a Family Member to make sure theyre okay. We are on the front end of 30 days to slow the spread. And i will tell you, as a nonscientist up here, that i see glimmers of hope. In the early numbers that were seeing come out of the Greater New York city area, new jersey, even new orleans and detroit and chicago, there does appear to be as dr. Birx will explain in more detail, there appears to be evidence of leveling, evidence of progress but this is exactly the time for all of to us redouble our efforts to do everything each and everyone of us can, not just to protect our own health, that of our family and our loved ones but to do our part to insure that we lessen the impact of the coronavirus on america as a whole but even more importantly that we lessen the impact on lives by insuring that we do our part to make sure that no one that is vulnerable is unnecessarily exposed to this virus. With that let me yield to dr. Birx and seema verma and dr. Fauci will take all of your questions. Thank you, mr. Vice president so hopefully you can see from those numbers that we have taken a data detail approach really bringing the power of granular data to the supply chain, moving supplies, based on what you would call burden of disease and need. I can take, start out by not just going to the numbers at the beginning but really talking to the community of health advocates, to the community that works on social determinants of disease and communities of historic black colleges and universities. We really need to improve messaging and im asking them to help us to increase the messaging around this. Which dont want to give the impression that the Africanamerican Community is more susceptible to the virus. We dont have any data that suggests that. What our data suggests theyre more susceptible to more difficult and severe disease and poorer out comes. We really need to make sure every household is aware of what it is going to take to protect the individual in that household have preexisting conditions. We would call on the indigenous nations, tribal leaders also be working very closely to protect the elders of their communities. We know this is more difficult and multigenerational. Households it will call for really unbelievable attention to details of hand washing, protecting others from each other, particularly if you dont feel well. This is a really a call to action to the communities to make sure we get messages appropriately out there, so everyone understands what it is going to take for us all to protect one another. We know it can be done because we can see these changes. Wanted to go through the numbers at a high level so you understand why particularly these supplies went to these areas to begin with. We talk about attack rates or the cases per population. So in the new york, as a state they have seven cases per thousand. This is the highest in the country. New york city itself is closer to almost twice that in new york city. New jersey is four per thousand, louisiana three per thousand, massachusetts two per thousand, connecticut two per thousand, michigan 1. 5 per thousand. District of columbia, Baltimore Area 1. 5 per thousand. Were watching them closely. Pennsylvania, one per thousand, were concerned about philadelphia. What is allowing to us move supplies based on burden of disease and need is the extraordinary west coast that has had very low numbers from washington, that was less than one per thousand, california less than. 5 per thousand, and oregon that is even less than that. And it is those state where there is large populations because of the enormous work theyre doing to prevent expansion and spread of the virus, that is allowing resources to go to these states and these communities and these counties that need more support. And so this kind of Data Analysis is allowing us to make very Intelligent Decisions about need, but also really understanding what is happening across the country in the development of curves you know about. There is some times decrease in case reporting. There were series of increasing in communities on monday. Were seeing that stablize again and when you look over three days youre starting to see we may be actually in a series of communities outside of new york and new jersey and connecticut creating a much flatter graph, a much flatter curve. So you saw new york increase as you saw, as Governor Cuomo and the mayor decided theyre getting to a steady state where the next outcome is going down but we see across the country in detroit in chicago, some real, not this extreme going to seven cases per thousand but staying in the more two cases per thousand, and a different curve parameter then. It really shows the amazing, amazing activity of every american in those cities to really insure that there is social distancing. Really importantly, to insure there is less socialization between households and really insuring that the household really remains independent and protected and not really at this moment going out into the community or socializing anywhere but virtual way on computers, by zoom, by face time. And i think we can really see that in the data. That is given us great heart. I want to finish to talk to my Laboratory Directors because youre extraordinary and youve done amazing amount of testing. Those two million tests were getting to, those were all done in the last two to three weeks but we do have excess capacity. If all the Lab Directors could look in the laboratories if they have an abbott m2,000, get that up and running we could double the number of tests were doing today. That is high throughput. The machines are throughout the United States. There are hundreds of them. Right now about 80 of them are idle. Were going to have a call with the Laboratory Directors of these laboratories to really insure this is an automated, robotic situation that they can run this over a million tests sitting, test kits sitting, ready to be run. We have five platforms of tests this is one of our really high volume platforms like roche and were really calling on them to really increase that capacity so that we can do not only increased diagnostic testing which i think were doing quite well right now but also increasing the ability to do more Health Care Workers, firstresponders, Community Testing and surveillance. Final i you will see and heard about it liz im elizabeth macdonald. Youre watching the earning edit edit the evening edit on fox business. Thanks for watching. Join us tomorrow night as an uptown apartment under siege. Are you kidding . All of these . Doesnt every new york city apartment have a soldier room . Its one of the biggest collections in the world. One mans army four decades in the making. When i first saw it, i was absolutely amazed. He had every soldier placed in their position. Every general was placed in his position. But he doesnt want to leave his wife with all this. Bob wanted to sell off the collection so carole wouldnt have to deal with it. Whats an heir to do . Turn to strange inheritance. What did you think when you saw the episode about toy soldiers . I was knocked out. So, i reached out