Confirmed by the news which doesnt mean anything to me because they dont tell the truth. But cdc reported january 31, not one person has died, and i issued a travel restriction from china. Think of it. So nobody died, and i issued. You cant get earlier than that. So we have nobody died and i said china, you can come in. Im sorry. Because i saw what was going on. It wasnt so much i was what i was told, it was that i saw what was going on and i didnt like it. But i didnt speak to tony about it, didnt speak to very many people about it. I didnt like it. So what did i do . Ready . January 31 in the United States not one person had died because of the, again, the wuhan virus. So i issued travel retractions on that date even though nobody died and i got brutalized over it by the press. Because it was way too early. I shouldnt have done it, brutalized by the press but you know, sort of ive been brutalized for the last four years. I used to do well before i decided to run for politics. But i guess im doing okay because to the best of my knowledge im the president of the United States despite the things that are said. So then first manager a quarantine in than 50 years we did, first mandatory in 50 years. The same restrictions that the democrats and the media called xenophobic, no joe biden said he is a racist. Called me a racist because i said we are shutting down entry from china. We are shutting it down. He called me xenophobic and he called me a racist and other things. Since then, on a friday night two weeks ago, joe biden issued a statement, it wasnt him. He didnt right it. Im sure he doesnt even know it was issued both the people from his campaign who are smart, the people who right those p. R. Releases are pretty smart, recently good, not the best but theyre not bad. The issued a statement saying that joe biden agrees that President Trump was right to close it down to china. He did that. He issued it on friday night. We have all heard about that, john, friday nights, right . Hes was later friday night and i have release my on friday nights. So he did it pretty late. You know, like at 11 00 in the evening. Pretty late. So joe biden issued and its one of those things but in february, nancy pelosi said we should come to chinatown, late february, come to chinatown. We think its safe for me come here and lets have a big parade. Chinatown parade. Probably referring to san francisco. And thats it. I took this action early and so the story in the New York Times was a total fake. Its a fake newspaper in the write fake stories. Someday hopefully in five years when im not here, those papers are all going out of business because no ones going to rot want to read them but now they like them because they write about me. We have a few clips we are going to put up. We can turn the lights a little bit lower. I think youll find them interesting. And then we will answer some questions. I will ask you some questions because youre still guilty but forget it but most important and were going to get back onto the reason we are here which is the success we are having, okay . Please. You can put it up. People should be more concerned right now. People are concerned about the coronavirus because they are hearing news about it right now but the reality is comparing it to the flu for example, its not even close to being at that stage. What if it is worse . Is this a moment where maybe countries put politics aside, little bit of pride aside, and do we have u. S. Officials . Should u. S. Professional such as yourself get involved . How worried should americans be about coronavirus . Coronavirus is not going to cause a major illness in the United States. We have asked them to accelerate whatever they are doing in terms of a vaccine. We will be suspending all travel from europe to the United States for the next 30 days. To unleash the full power of the federal government with this effort today i am officially declaring a national emergency. Medicare patients cannot visit any doctor by phone or videoconference at no additional cost. Stick with the first 1 Million Masks will be available immediately. As they were more cases and it was clear that it was spreading out of china where it originated, the president took this move that he was widely criticized for by democrats and even some republicans at the time which was he halted a number of flights from china into the u. S. The idea was to halt the spread of the disease, keep transmissions to a minimum. He was accused of xenophobia. He was accused of making a racist move. At the end of the day, it was probably effective. Because did actually take taken a aggressive measure. Against the spread of the virus. His team is on it. They have been responsive, late at night, early in the morning. They have thus far been doing everything that they can do and i want to say thank you and i want to say that i appreciate it. He returns calls. He reaches out. He has been proactive. We got the mercy ship down here in los angeles. That was directly because he sent it down here. 2,000 medical units came to the state of california. Fms, these field medical stations. That has been very, very helpful. The president has been outstanding through all of this, the Vice President has been outstanding. Members of the Coronavirus Task force, very responsive. Reid asked if we could, if new jersey could have a access to the piece of the beds on the usns comfort and the president came back and called me a few minutes before i walked in to say indeed i would granted to new jersey. Thats a big step for us in addition to all the other capacity. That news is literally hot off the press, and i think the president and Vice President who were on the call together. President trump approved arizonas request for a president ial major disaster declaration. I want to thank the president for quick turn around. We requested this on a wednesday and we had approval by saturday morning. We are grateful to the administration for their continued support and responsiveness. First of all, i want to thank the president and Vice President for doing a really good job of communicating with all the governors. So we could give you hundres of clips like that from governors, including democratic or democrat as i call them governors which is actually the correct term. We can give you hundreds of clips just like that. We have them. We didnt want this to go on too long but i just want to say its very sad when people write false stories, like in that case i guess it was mostly from the New York Times which is a highly i mean, if you had libel laws, they would have been out of business even before they will end up going out of business. Its too bad. We could have given you more statements, we have hundreds of statements, hundreds of statements, including from democrats and democratic governors. If you look, they were all saying we need ventilators. We need you dont hear ventilators anymore. They have all the ventilators they need which we were right about. We said youre asking for too many. You dont need that. In all fairness, these two people right here, dr. Birx, dr. Fauci, they said i dont think they need that many ventilators. I said i agree. At one point and im not talking new york for this but they were asking, you remember, 40,000 ventilators. Thats more than they have all over the country. We got them, a lot of ventilators, no one has complained. We got them, as you know, beautiful. We built hospital rooms all over the country. The governor of louisiana, john bel edwards, was very nice. He said you know what, you dont have to build a Second Hospital. Good news is happening. They are not able to fill the beds. Donated to hospitals. We built one. It was perfect. We started the other and i called him up and i said do you think we should build the second one . I dont think youre going to need it. He got back and she didnt need it. When a call mall. In all Good Spirited faith, he wanted to have the Javits Center done and we built 2,900 incredible beds, incredible. Then we made it covid or to be exactly accurate, covid19. Which was a lot of work. We had to change the ductwork. We had to seal up certain areas. We had put areas of rooftop things over the beds. We did a lot of work, and we had it. But they never really had too much use for it. They called also, mayor de blasio, rightfully called and he said would it be possible to get more medical help . So now not only are we building facilities. They are asking us for help because they are unable to man it. And we got him to help. We got mayor de blasio a lot of help. Then when the Javits Center wasnt used much and then as you know the mercy we took the mercy and we took the comfort and we made them both los angeles and new york and we made them covid adaptable which was not easy to do. And we didnt get almost any people sent they are. They didnt need them at the beginning because they didnt need it for anything but this. There were fewer accidents, fewer motorcycles, if you are everything. We did like an incredible job but they did need them. It turned up they were there we were ready. You know the expression, they have an inspection. Ready, willing, and able. We were ready, willing, and able but the army corps of engineers, what they did was a miracle. What fema did was a miracle. But the doctors did. I got a call two days ago from the mayor of new york, he said could you help us even more with medical personnel . And we sent, i think it was 448 doctors, nurses and respiratory experts, real experts. I got a call from the mayor and he said i wanted tell you, incredible, these people are incredible. He said they lifted the spirits of the hospital workers from new york city like nothing ive ever seen. It was unbelievable what he said, really appreciated. I let them know that. Out of the military people. He said they went in there so bread, so incredible. That they lifted the spirits of everybody. We did all this work. But when you read the phony stories, nobody, nobody acknowledges this. And it doesnt have to be acknowledged from my standpoint but it does have to be acknowledged in the great work that these doctors, nurses, the army corps of engineers, all these people, they have done this incredible job. They shouldnt be abused. You take a look at whats happened. Nobodys asking for ventilators except outside of our country. Outside of our country, they are calling me, every country, they are calling me, so many countries. Im going to try to out them because we have thousands of ventilators being built. But nobodys asking for ventilators. Nobody is asking for beds, because we built hospitals practically built 20,000 beds in the period of a couple weeks. The job they have done is incredible. With all that being said, im getting along very well with the governors and if i wouldnt, mike pence had a call today with the governors, and it was like. I said how was it . He said it was a 10. Use one of my expressions. He said it was like a 10. I am sure you people are probably on the callable you werent supposed to be but you are sitting at sundays office listening to it because every time we have these and you would know that for weeks those calls been very good. There wasnt a raised voice. It wasnt even a statement of like we think you should do this or that. I heard was like like just a perfect phone call. It might not be reported that way. I thought that somebody may be slightly raised didnt even raise a voice. My only point is saying this, i want to get back to why we are here. The press has not treated these incredible people hooked on such a great job, they havent treated them fairly. They are way off. We were way ahead of schedule. The times story was a fake. Remember this, everything we did i was criticized because i was too early. If i waited longer it would have been, you wouldve been critical. If i went way early, three months earlier, i wouldve been criticized for being way too early. So with all of that said, we understand it. I think i have educated a lot of people as to the press, and i would love to be able to say that we have very honest press. Honestly, john, theres nothing i would be more proud of if the press would work. I dont mind being criticized but not when they are wrong. Not when people have done a great job. Ive never seen a video like that played in this room. He looked a bit like a campaign ad. Who produce that video . That was done by a group in the office and it was done just we put some clips together. I could give you i bet you i have over 100 more clips even better than them. They were pieced together over the last two hours. We are far better than that. Thats nothing compared to some. It was produced here in the white house . Think of this was done by dan and a group of people and they just put it together in a period of probably less than two hours. Reporter why did you feel the need to do that . We are getting fake news and i like to have it corrected. They are saying what a good job we are doing. The governor of california, new york, new jersey. In new york, we work very closely with andrew. Ventilators were going to be a problem and they didnt have a problem. We got them tremendous numbers of ventilators. You dont hear about the problem. Guards were going to be a problem. Im happy about it. The Javits Center which is incredible is almost empty. Im not saying i wish i there were more people there. We brought in the boat, the comfort. The comfort was originally not supposed to be for this at all. The coronavirus. He was not supposed to be flat at all. They called and said could we havent. That was a number of weeks ago. We say we dont think you needed but if you needed, well do it. Then they said could you get the medical personnel to run the Javits Center . Could you get the medical personnel to run the ship . We said of its necessary will well and we did. There were military personnel. The ones mayor de blasio was great to in terms of his statements. I really appreciated his statements. I am too. The level of genius and bravery, they are great people. The military people. We pieced it together. I would say it took less than two hours. It was done in house. Reporter this was produced by government employees, by people here at the white house, this Campaign Style i wouldnt use the word produce. They took some clips and they ran them for you. The reason they did is to keep you honest. I dont think thats going to work. Its not going to have any impact which is think of it. You heard the clips. You heard what i said. They set i acted late on closing down the country . Some people wiedd nev closed it down. If we didnt, wouldve lost hundreds of thousands of people. Interestingly, everything we did was right. If you wouldve close reporter you think everything you did was right . Low, governor should have had ventilators. They chose not to have them. We were able to get them ventilators. You havent heard. Other than there was a lot of panic, a lot of we won ventilators. They got the ventilators. You dont have that anymore. And the surge as opposed to becoming now and if they need ventilators, we got almost 10,000 ready to rock. We have people standing with us with those ventilators right now. If you needed 2,000 in new york, which you dont, but if you did, we could have them here in less than 24 hours. We are ready to rock. This was a great military and beyond that operation. Lets get back to the regular. Should we get back to the regular . We could talk about this but all im doing is this, i couldve given you like those are far five clips we just play for you, i couldve given you hundreds of people. Gavin newsom was on Television Two days ago with one of your competitors singing praise. He said look, the question was asked in a negative way and he said look, and what you want to save i know what you want me to say but hes been really good. Its hard for me to say that. In fact its impossible for me to say it. Gavin newsom, the governor of california. I have many clips from many i have some clips from anthony that i didnt want to put up which were really good. I think anthony would be the first one to say when i closed the country to china, the china band, whatever you want to call it, anthony said i saved a lot of lives by doing it. Am i correct . We dont want to put words in anthonys mouth by the way and i like him. Today a walk and i hear im going to fire him. Im not firing. I think is a wonderful guy. Reporter fire dr. Fauci. I retweeted it. Reporter did you notice it when you retweeted it. Its an opinion. No. I said im not firing him. If you ask your friends in the office of the Public Relations office, i was immediately called upon that and they said no i like him i said no i like him. I think hes terrific. This was a persons view. Not everyones happy with anthony. Not everybody is happy with everybody. But i will tell you we have done the little we have done a job the likes of which no one has done. Mobilization, getting equipment, although things, nuanced on a job like this. We have 50 governors and territory is, by the way, territories. We have territories. 50 governors and territories and many governors are democrats and they cant find anything to complain about. Many of them didnt do their jobs. I will let you know someday lets see what happens but i might let you know whos not doing a job. I can tell you once are good, republican and democrat and the ones who dont what theyre doing. We help some of the ones that dont know what theyre doing. They shouldve had their own stockpiles. Now we can build them stockpiles of ventilators. The hardest thing is the ventilator because its expensive. It takes a while to get. Weve got them. Nobody believes we did. Many of the governors were asking for far too many and we said they were asking for far too many. We talked we said you said very strongly that they just dont need that many. He said they dont need that many beds. Deborah. Reporter that you and dr. Fauci are on the same page . We have from the beginning. Out know what it is. If i put some of these opinion up, i dont mind controversy. I think controversy is a good thing, not a bad thing. I wanted to be honest controversy. I got a call. Not very quickly and nobody saw that as being any big deal they sent, how are you doing with dr. Fauci and i said im doing great. I didnt talk to dr. Fauci until we just got here. Dr. Fauci asked one of the people if he could get up and speak. Emily did. And they totally misinterpreted him. I thought they didnt. Reporter he said a question was hypothetical but what he was acknowledging is that wives would have been saved if mitigation practices were put in place earlier. That seems obvious. Do not agree with that . Speak what he really is saying, how could you have done it . Look, i just went over all the stats with you. How do you close it up . You have no depths and no cases on january 11. Doctor, would you recommend closing the United States of america . This must be terrible. How many cases do we have . None. How many deaths . None. January 17. On january 17, 10 days before i did the little bit less than ten days before i did the ban. I did a ban on china and then on europe. A lot of people said that was an incredible thing to do because you look at spain and by the way, we are doing very well because when you look at all those flat graphs and you add it all up, the United States and very low and per capita we are very low. We are doing very well. How do you close up the United States of america. On january 6, no deaths. January 11, no deaths. No cases. January 17, no cases, no cases. No deaths. I am supposed to close up the United States of america when i have no cases . Reporter should you have closed it down earlier . I closed it down from china. I closed it down from china. By the way some people think i shouldve waited longer and maybe you written it out. I disagree. A lot of people wouldve said lets ride it out. I will give you the good news. If i wouldve done that i think it wouldve been catastrophic. The numbers, 1. 6 to 2. 2 Million People would have died. And i did this last time. Cut it in half. Dont say 2. 2 million. Cut in half. Same Million People die. Thats more than the civil war. Cut it in half. Take the million and cut in half. Thats 500,000 wouldve died. That number we wouldve reached. That wouldve been easy to reach if we did nothing. Our timing was very good. When you ask me, why didnt you do this, how come when i did the ban on china and some very, very instituted instituted some very tough things, how come nancy pelosi a month later is in chinatown so lets all march. This is not going to happen. How come we have many of the experts from cnn and many other networks if you call cnn a network. I dont personally. If we have cnn and many other places and they are all saying he doesnt need to do it. He doesnt need to do it. All im saying is this, how do you close down the greatest economy in the history of the world when on january 17 you have no cases and no deaths. On january 21st, you have one case and no deaths. One case, think that. Now we are supposed to close down the country . Heres what happened. January 31, instituted the ban, joe biden went crazy. He said you dont need the ban. Here you go. He didnt even know what they held the ban was. He didnt go crazy. He called me xenophobic. He called me a racist because he has since apologized and he said i did the right thing. I saved tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives. The argument is you bought yourself some time. You didnt use it to ramp up testing. 20 Million People. Youre so disgraceful. Its so disgraceful the way you set it. I just went over it. Reporter the unprecedented crisis. Nobody thought we should do it. When i did it. Reporter what did you do with the time that you lost . The month of february. Speak a word do you do when you have no case in the whole United States. Excuse me. You reported it. Zero cases, zero deaths. January 17. January. I said in january. Reporter complete gap. What did your Administration Due in february and the time that your travel ban bought you . A lot. Well give you a list. We did a lot. Look, look. You know you are a fake. You know that. Your whole network, the way you covered is fake. Not all of you but the people are wise to you. Thats why you have a lower Approval Rating than you ever have before times probably three. A new asked me that question. Let me ask you this, why didnt biden why did biden apologize question of why did he write a letter of apology . Why did democrats thing by think i acted too quickly . We have done a great job. I could have kept it open. I could have done what some countries are doing. They are getting beat up pretty badly. I could have kept it open. I thought of keeping it open because no ones ever heard of closing down a country, let alone the United States of america. If i would have done that, we would have had hundreds of thousands of people that would right now be dead. We have done this right and we really have done this right. The problem is the press doesnt cover it. One more question. Reporter the debate over what authority you have taupe in the country. What authority . I have the ultimate authority but we are going to get to that in a minute. Were going to tell you about other things we have done right but i will say this, had we said lets just keep going and lets not do a closing, whether its 2. 2, that they at one point predicted as an outsider 1. 6 at a lower number, you covered all the way down to six or seven or 800,000. Take a fraction of the number that couldve happened. It literally would have been more than the civil war. It wouldve been a disaster. So the minimal number was 100,000. I feel pretty good that we are going to be substantially below the 100,000 in the hope we well. So today the department of health and Human Services announcing five new contracts each to procure new contracts for ventilators under the Defense Department act which we used a lot. In addition to the 1,300 we received today. We received today at 1,300 additional ventilators. Now, we are probably not going to need them but we can add them to the stockpile which is very big and we can move it around, should the surge take place and should be a substantial surge. We are ready to rock. The contracts with generally electron, medtronic, combined with other contracts that we announced with General Motors and phillipson either contracts, we are adding 6,190 ventilators to the strategic naf which we have a lot already, thousands, close to 10,000. This will be added by may 8th, another 29,000 by the end of may in more than 120,000 total we will have by the end of the year. Were going to help other countries. We are going to help states if they needed. We may help some states stockpiles. They have states stockpiles they are supposed to be using. Many states where they are to live people dont want to talk about it but they were they or we will talk about it at the wait time at the right time if you want to. Im more focused on getting past this nightmare of an epidemic or a pandemic, anything you want to call it. Weve got to get past it. No one who has needed a ventilator has not gotten a ventilator. Think of that. You hear all about ventilators, we need ventilators. Because they didnt happen because the state should have had them. No one who has needed a ventilator has not gotten a ventilator. No one who is needed a hospital bed has been denied a hospital bed. Thats not even really our responsibility. If we can help, we will do it. Thats where the army corps of engineers did such a great job. We built over 20,000 beds. We built thousands more than we needed to be safe. We wanted to be safe and we really they rose to this credible occasion. We felt more vents than we thought. We thought in louisiana we were going heavy and when i called the governor i said maybe we shouldnt build that Second Hospital because we dont want to build it if you dont needed any call back and he said i dont think youre going to need it. They had a thousand beds and they used a lot of them but they didnt need the other ones so we stopped it because we dont want to waste. We are prepared to build thousands more should we need it. I know that we are going to need it because it looks like we are plateauing and maybe even in many cases coming down. In addition, weve ordered a total of mobile decontamination systems. The decontamination system from ohio is an incredible thing because it takes the masks, up to 20 times you can decontaminate a mask. Ive been asking from the beginning, why cant we sterilize or sanitize these masks . It turned out we can. It was a Great Company in ohio. They sent us some great equipment and they are doing that now. Now we are going to have more than 33 million n95 masks per week will be cleaned, decontaminated, and it will be great. Its something that frankly i think people should have thought of a long time ago. Five more flights landed today as part of a project air bridge. Our massive airlift operation to bring personal protective equipment into the United States which is now delivered nearly half a million n95 masks. 370 million gloves, 25 million surgical masks and 4. 19 million gallons. We have millions of gowns, gloves, masks, all Surgical Equipment coming in should the states need it. Their estates are supposed to be buying their own stuff but should they need it, we are ready to give it because we are building up our stockpile again like crazy. The member and he saw the stories, i inherited, this administration, mike, myself, the whole administration, we inherited a stockpile where the cupboards were bare. There was nothing. I say it and ill say it again just like we didnt have ammunition, we didnt have medical supplies. We didnt have ventilators. We did melt a lot of things that shouldve been had a new can read your own stories because you know what happened. They didnt want to spend the money. But we did. To date we have facilitated the supply of more than 38 million n95 masks nationwide. This week will be sending 2 million n95 masks to the commonwealth of pennsylvania. The Vice President will go into more detail. Hes got great detail on that and i think its pretty amazing. We have a lot of masks already in stock and we have more comi coming. We are further expanding hospital surge capacities. We have a portion of certain va hospitals and nonveteran coronavirus patients including at the east orange, new jersey, Medical Center is 12 facilities in as well as facilities in manhattan and brooklyn. Hopefully we dont need to many of them because we have built everything the governors wanted and in many cases its too much. We told them it was too much but we wanted to err on the side of caution for the United States has conducted nearly 3 million tests for the virus. 3 million, the most of any nation. We are performing approximately 158,000 tests every single day in our rate of testing is especially highend areas hardest hit by the virus. If you look, its hit some per capita testing in new york is higher than the rest of the world. Nih, cdc and fda are validating several antibiotic tests that will allow us to determine whether someone has already had the virus and potentially become immune to infection. Were looking at that. The antibody tests are going to be very interesting over the next short while. A lot of things are being developed as we speak. In the race to develop effective treatments, the Drug Company Gilead announced its drug remdesivir has shown very promising results in compassionate use settings. The fda has granted emergency authorization for a device that removes certain proteins from the bloodstream possibly preventing a patients immune system from overreacting to the virus and damaging vital organs, which is a big problem. Furthermore over the last 70s by the administration is employed roughly 20 million doses of hydroxychloroquine from our national stockpile. We have millions of doses we bought and many people are using it all over the country and just recently, a friend of mine told me he got better because of the use of that drug. Who knows. Combine it with deepak and you combined with think, depending on your doctors recommendation and is good results. You think if anybody recommended other than me it would be used all over the place. The fact that i recommended it probably set it back alive. A lot of good things are happening with that, good test. Scientists are producing blood therapy known as convalescent plasma, convalescent plasma. This therapy uses antibodies from the blood of recovered patients to treat those who are sick. This is something that actually is a very old procedure but its done in a very modern way. During this difficult time we are also working to ensure that the 20 20 census is complete did safely and accurately. We may be asking for a extension because they cant be doing very much right now. They wouldnt even be allowed to do it so the census, we are going to be asking for a major delay. How can you possibly be knocking on doors for a long period of time now . The Census Bureau made the decision to assist temporary millions of americans continue to complete their questionnaire, the Census Bureau asked congress for a 120 day extension. I dont know if you have to ask them. Its called an act of god. This is called a situation that has to be they have to give and i think 120 days isnt nearly enough. My administration is taking bold action to help American Workers. Americans began receiving Cash Payments on friday authorized by the 2 trillion relief bill. By the end of the week, nearly 80 million americans will receive a total of 147 billion and from what the secretary of the treasury tells me is very much on time and going very nicely. He will be speaking in the moment. Payments go directly into the Bank Accounts of these people. Millions of additional payments will follow. The typical family four received 3,400. Thats for a family of four. Thats something. To our Paycheck Protection Program which is a tremendous success and they should extended an increase it. This has been a tremendous success. So successful that the banks are taking a little bit longer to distribute the money but is going rapidly. We have processed over 200 billion in loans to help Small Businesses retain their workers. We urgently need lawmakers to set aside the partisan agendas and replenish this program because its really something thats been an incredible success. They need more money to keep it going to take care of these businesses and keep them open. I want to think the memo governors, health professionals, scientists and Business Leaders for their hard work and input. Weve been working together with a lot. Ive been having many discussions with my team and top experts. We are close to completing a plan to open our country hopefully even ahead of schedule. Thats so important. We will soon finalize new and very important guidelines to give governors the information they need to start safely opening their states. My administrations plan and corresponding guidelines will give the American People the confidence they need to begin returning to normal life. Thats what we want. We want to have our country open. We want to return to normal life. Our country is going to be open. Its going to be successfu succy opened and will be explaining over short number of days exactly whats going to be. We as you probably heard developed a committee. We are calling it a number of committees with the most prominent people in the country and we will be them tomorrow. This weekend the United States also help facilitate an unprecedented agreement among where 23 nations of opec plus. Thats opec plus Additional Energy producing nations for presenting many of the Worlds LargestOil Producing countries to stabilize markets. We have in fact and i think youve seen a big stabilization over the last couple days. Together countries around the world will cut Oil Production by approximately 20 Million Barrels. People are saying 10 million but we think the number they will actually hit is going to be closer to 20 Million Barrels a day and that will help a lot with saving jobs all over texas and oklahoma and north dakota and many other big energy states. This historic action will help nearly 11 million American Workers who are supported by the u. S. Oil and gas industry. Its a very monumental agreement. I want to think saudi arabia, the crown prince of saudi arabia, the king both. Want to think president putin of russia and i want to think a very good friend of mine, man is become a friend of mine, the president of mexico showed great flexibility, presdient lopez obrador. He showed great flexibility. And tremendous intelligence doing what he did. It was not that easy for him and i want to thank mexico and the president. Its a very historic deal. Very historic credit we will see how it all goes. In this time and challenge and we are certainly in a time probably like we havent been in many, many decades. We are strengthened and sustained by the bonds of love and loyalty that unite all americans. Im so proud of the American People. Everywhere you look, you see the patriotism of our people shining through and the courage of our doctors and nurses on the front lines, the dedication of our food supply workers, and in the commitment of every citizen to achieving victory over the virus. Thats whats going to happen. Its going to happen sooner than people think and we are going to be smart about it, very, very smart about it. Were going to be safe about it. We will be listening to the great doctors and medical professionals. Together we are beating back the invisible enemy and we are paving the way for great resurgence, really a great resurgence of american prosperity. Our country wants to go back. They want to go back to work. They are going to go back safely and thats what we want. Id like now to ask Vice President pence to say a few words, followed by dr. Fauci and dr. Birx. I think before we do this, because i know theres an emergency where they want steve to come so what ill do is ill ask steve to come up, secretary of the treasury. You can talk a little bit in the navy dig a couple questions about whats happening. Tell them the success we are having. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. President and mr. Vice president. We are pleased that we are ahead of schedule on delivering the Economic Impact payments. These were what was known as the checks in the mail that we wanted to deliver in direct deposit. This is ahead of schedule. We started processing those last friday. We expected over 80 million hardworking americans will get the direct deposit by this wednesday. And we know how important that is to all of those hardworking americans, many of which are at home not working at the moment. If you do not receive them by wednesday, on wednesday will be launching an irs. Gov. Click on irs. Gov, go to get your payment. Because what if you filed a tax return in 2018 or 2019, have that Information Available and you will be able to i. D. Yourself and put in your direct deposit information and within several days we will automatically deposit their money into your account. We want to do as much of this electronically as we can. Its very important in this day and age, more secure and you dont have to go to the bank. If you are a Social Security beneficiary, you do not need to do anything. You will get a direct deposit. If you have not filed and did not need to file a 2018 or 2019 return, you can go to irs. Gov now and enter your information and authenticate yourself. Again, we are very pleased that that is ahead of schedule. I would also like to announce the progress were making on the new sba program, the ppp. Let me remind everybody, its a new program thats 1weekold. We have distributed and confirmed 230 billion of loans to over 4600 lenders participating. Thats multiples and multiples of anything that the sba has ever done in one year before. And i especially want to thank the broadbased Community Banks that are participating. Over 4600 bank. If you havent had your loan process, you will get it processed this week. As the president ten, we have gone back to comments and ask for more money to make sure every business has access to this. Let me also, for the states, we are distributing out half the money this week to the states. Thats a week ahead of time. We will deliver the other half of the money to the states next week. Let me finally comment, we have been working very closely with the federal reserve. Last week we announced expanded facilities and new facilities that totaled 2. 3 trillion of liquidity and in particular i would like to highlight a mainstream Lending Facility that will be for companies between one worker and 10,000 people. Midsized businesses. Also a municipal facility for states and local governments to be able to access funds given the shortages they have. So with that, happy to answer any questions. Do you have any questions for steve, please. Reporter thank you, sir. Speaker pelosi and minority leader schumer has said that they are in negotiations with you right now on additional funding for the Small Business loans and that package. Leader mcconnell has said nothing should be added to the package. They should just be specific to Small Business loans. What is the opinion of your administration . Shiva just be Small Business loans . The president s view and nice president s in my view was it was a bipartisan program. The sba program wasnt a republican program. Wasnt a democrat program. It was a bipartisan program. We are committed to Small Businesses and we should top up that program now. The democrats want to talk about more money for hospitals and states. Right now we are sending the money to hospitals and states. They havent come close to using that money. I know the president and Vice President have said once we get the sba done, we can go into another funding bill. The president has talked about potentially adding infrastructure and other things. We think there is a likelihood we will need more money, and we will sit down and try to get a bipartisan bill. This is important we deliver on Small Businesses. 50 of the people work for Small Businesses. Reporter what is the emergency the president said you had to go for . The president said you had an emergency. Negotiation. Reporter over this bill . We dont want to run out of money. Weve used 220 billion. We dont want to run out of that money. We dont want to create panics that people wont get it. Thats why we want to top it up and weve asked for another 250 billion for that program. Let me remind you every dollar we spend in this program we save a dollar of unemployment insurance. So even though we are asking for 250 billion, it really wont cost that much. Reporter do you have concerns about listing the guidelines too soon . What is the Economic Impact . I understand the argument for getting people back to work obviously but what is the economic risk of lifting it too early and seen a spike in cases . There are Economic Risks in both directions. We reviewed with the president a broad list of over 100 Business People that are going to help advise the president on what needs to be done to reopen the economy. We want to make sure the combination of Economic Impact payments, Small Business payments, enhanced unemployment insurance. The president made very clear we want to make sure that hardworking americans of liquidity while we wait to reopen the government. Reporter do you believe that country should be reopened on may 1st . Ive had discussions with the president. I know he is considering into and i believe hes going to make a decision later in the week. Reporter what is your advice to the president . My advice is as soon as its ready to open and based upon the medical professionals and again we are working very closely with the president and outside Business Leaders to develop a plan. Reporter could you sketch for us what reopening the economy looks like . Do you think its going to be everything open . President trump will probably be making a statement about that and what it looks like. I know what that looks like but i also want to get the advice, innocence. We have some of the biggest from every business on this we are setting up Different Councils or committees i guess you could call them. Weve a lot of smart people. I think they will give us some also good advice but we want to be very, very safe. If the same time, we have to get our country open. Reporter is there a possibility that what you do is open it incrementally. Do you think people will go back to restaurants, concerts, the cinema. President trump eventually they will. I think eventually they will. I think we are going to i think its going to go quickly. Our people want to get back to work and i think there is a pent up demand like that hasnt been in a long time. Thats why you see the stock market, i need to think that the stock market is at the level it is right now with all that this world in this country, and look at the european union, have badly decimated they have been. Look at other countries. Look at china, by the way. Ive seen the numbers. Look at china. Look at how these countries are just been decimal or buy this on to think the stock market is at this tremendously high number. Not that much it was looking bleak for a while but it hit a certain point and then started going out. I think thats a great tribute to the fact that theres a demand. Reporter mr. President , thank you, sir. In regards to some of your tweets earlier today, my question to you is what provision in the constitution gives the president the power to open or close state economies . President trump numerous provisions. We will give you a legal brief if you want. Reporter will be looking forward to that, sir. Following up, what happens if you say for instance we want states to reopen but california or new york do not open. What would you do then . President trump i think of a buddy wants to open. I guess that could everybody wants to open. I guess that could happen. Reporter states that have ordered schools closed, businesses and restaurants. President trump i let that happen. I let that happen. If i wouldve wanted to i couldve close enough. I let that happen. I like the way theyve. The seven that remained in the semilocked down, theyve done a very good job. Very much different from a new york or other places where they been hit very hard. Reporter to open schools, i order you. Reporter following up, two consortiums of states today, california, oregon and washington. Northeastern states. Representing about 100 Million People who said they are going to cooperate and decide when to reopen. President trump they can decide. Reporter under mount what you are trying to do . President trump not at all. Ill put it very simply. The president of the United States has the authority to do what the president has the authority to do, which is very powerful. The president of the United States calls the shots. If we werent here for the states he wouldve had a problem this country like youve never seen before. We were here to back them up and we have more than backed him up there we did a job nobody ever that was possible. Its a decision for the president of the United States. With that being said, were going to work with the states because its very important purity of local governments, they are pinpointed. Its like a microchip. They are pinpointed. We have local government that hopefully will do a good job. If they dont do a good job, i would step in so fast but no, they cant do anything without the approval of the president of the United States. Reporter if the state refuses to reopen a new order them to, the constitution says all powers that dont reside with the president or congress reside with the states. President trump of some states refused to open, i would like to see that person run for election. They are going to open. I think that something thats not going to happen. They have to get open. Everyone of those states, people want to go and they want now, some are a different situation. You have, i wont name states but i will over the next two or three days. Im going to be very specific. You have some states where this is not the kind of problem that it is in new york or louisiana or michigan or other places they got hit very hard. Illinois. Got hit very hard. All states want to open and they want to open as soon as possible. They want to open safely and so do i. Reporter thank you, mr. President. Today the french president emmanuel macron. Will the u. S. Keep the ban . France got hit hard. He has to do what he has to do. Hes a friend of mine. France, spain and has just been decimated. You look at whats happening in italy, they very well known fact what happened in italy. They were hit very hard. Reporter a question for secretary mnuchin, has everybody that you would like to have, the 100 Business People on the Economic Council have they all been invited already . They havent been invited yet. We just reviewed the names. Reporter are they from all sectors . Every single area of the economy we want to be represented. Reporter is there anything else that needs to be done to work on Oil Industry Jobs . Theres always things. Working with larry kudlow. We have economic plans for every single part of the economy. Obviously in the case of the oil industry, theyve been hit especially hard because you had the supply issue and youve had the demand issue. Reporter have you figured out the bailout money from the airlines, allocations for the airlines . I am pleased to say weve worked very hard i think as you probably have seen, we put out a press release that weve now had discussions with almost all the airlines. I personally had discussions with all the Major Airlines ceos. We created an exception for Small Airlines that we could process very quickly and i think youll see very quickly decisions coming out on a very pleased with the discussions weve had. Reporter mr. Secretary, [indistinct] President Trump we have had very good discussions with the airlines. Very good discussions. Reporter is impossible to reopen the economy on may 1 . President trump i dont want to say that. Youll be hearing over the next couple days. Reporter in lieu of another stimulus. Let me comment. Congress on a bipartisan basis approved an unprecedented amount of money to help American Workers and american business. It was no fault of their own that business was closed down. We have been very diligent lee executing on that. Everybody said it was going to take months to get people money. We are executing very quickly. We created a whole new sba program in a week. Our job right now is to execute the 2. 3 billion which we can add several trillion dollars with the fed. One area we are particularly concerned about is the Small Business program. Quite frankly its even more incredibly popular and successful than we anticipated. So the president wants to be very clear we have money for that and once we get none of that we will review with the president. If there is more money than needs to be to support this economy, to support hardworking americans, we will with congre congress. Close mike d wants to talk about phase four . The president has talked about infrastructure for a long period time. To the extent hospitals need more money because of the medical issues, we will monitor that. We want to make sure there are incentives for restaurants, entertainment, people to get back to those types of things. We will be looking and very specifically provisions to stimulate parts of the economy. Some of them may be money issues. Some may be regulatory issues. Reporter to clarify your understanding of your authority visavis governors, to be very specific. If a governor issues a stayathome order President Trump when you say my authority, the president s authority. Its not me. When somebody is the president of the United States, the authoritys total and thats the way its got to be. Its total. The governors know that. The governors know that. Excuse me, excuse me. You have a couple bands of democratic governors but they will agree to it. They will agree to it. The authority of the president of the United States having to do with the subject we are talking about is total. Please go ahead. Reporter one of the things we saw your video come the travel ban from europe. Part of reopening america, do you want to reopen the border so people from europe, the u. K. President trump at the right time. Im going to have to take a look. I wouldnt say italy is doing great right now and i wouldnt say spain is doing great right now and we just heard that france is extending its stay inside order, right . They have extended. For a short period of time. We want to do it quickly but we want to make sure everything is good. Right now i have a very strong ban and were going to keep it that way until they heal. Reporter weeks, months . President trump i cant tell you that. After see how they are doing. France just went for another two weeks. Report back he said that you took his advice. As you make this next decision President Trump im not sure who gave me advice on the ban. I think i took my own advice on the ban. Reporter social distancing that im talking about, shutting down, not of travel but of activity. My question is as you make this next decision what youve said may be the most difficult or important decision of your presidency, will you ensure the American People that you will again take the advice of the doctors, dr. Fauci and dr. Birx . Will you take the advice of the Health Experts . President trump i will and many other people. I will absolutely take their advice. Reporter would you go against their recommendation . President trump i dont think it will be likely. I dont pick we are very far from being on the same page. Reporter Governor Cuomo said states do not have the capacity to do mass covid19 testing ahead of the reopening. President trump where they have to do it. Reporter purchase the diagnostic tasks and equipment, they need federal help. President trump they may need help but they are there on the ground. Local mayors and local representatives. What we did last time is unprecedented. We literally rebuilt tests. We rebuilt a whole industry because we inherited nothing. What we inherited from the Previous Administration was totally broken. Somebody should eventually say not only when the cupboards bear, as i say, but we inherited broken testing. Now i have great testing. I just left the top executives at abbott. Who wouldve thought that would have happen where they had such a great test. What i will do, i think unless you have any further questions for the secretary of treasury, do you have anybody for steve, anybody . If its for me, we can wait. We have to get him back to work. Reporter secretary mnuchin, a question from one of my colleagues. They are curious about the sp rule that prevents the sba rule