Face covering, theyre wearing it to protect their neighbors from getting the coronavirus because, again, they could have asymptomatic spread. So mr. President , thank you very much for that. Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity to update everybody. Great job. Okay. John . Mr. President , dr. Fauci last night said that every state should have stayathome orders right now. Do you agree with that . Should every state have the stayathome orders . I leave it up to the governors. The governors know what theyre doing. I guess were close to 90 anyway. And states that were talking about are not in jeopardy. No. I would leave to it the governors. I like that from the standpoint of governing, and i like that from the standpoint of even our constitution. Please . Mr. President , to address the shortage of the blood supply, the food and Drug Administration a different voice. A much different voice. Go ahead. Well get you later. Going to the oil meeting previously, is the u. S. Willing to cut economic Oil Production . What came out of the meeting . What was the consensus . Well, a lot of things came out. Its a great industry. Its an important industry. Its a tremendous job producing industry, and its just vital. And it was also very interesting because they all were given the test before they came into the room. So you have the head of exxonmobil, you have all these guys taking the test, and they all passed with flying colors. So that was good. They left happy in that respect, at least. Its just an overabundance of oil right now, oil and gas. Tremendous overabundance. And it was caused they were doing a great job. They were producing a lot of energy. But then you had the virus come along. And it knocked another 35 , maybe 40 off of the market. So there is too much oil. There is a glut. And these are great companies. And theyll figure it out. Its a free market. Well figure it out. You spoke to president putin. Whats on the table here with
him . They were having a competition. Well see how it all works out. I think its going to work out very well. Its going to take a long time to get rid of that. There is massive excess amount of oil and gas, massive. Like probably there has never been. So where that does work out well, i guess you could say is for drivers. I think in certain locations its down to 90 and 95 cents a gallon right now on the road. But we have a tremendous industry, a great industry, a tremendously important industry from the standpoint of jobs. And were energy independent. We have to make sure we keep it that way. All right, please . Mr. President , as i was saying, the food and Drug Administration to address the blood supply announced yesterday it would ease the restrictions on certain donor, including gay men now required to be answer meant the for three months instead of 12 months. Did you a hand in that . No, i had nothing to do with
that. That was done by the fda, very capable people. Both the Government Of Canada and 3m are pushing back on this dea not export n95 respirators. 3m i dont blame them. They can push back if they want. Were not happy with 3m. Were not happy. The people that dealt with it directly are not at all happy with 3m. I heard what he had to say today. I dont know the gentleman. But were not happy with 3m. Go ahead. And where is dr. Fauci . I dont know. But every time you ask that question, whenever he is not here, look, you say where is he . And youll say is there a problem . No problem whatsoever. Every time he is not here, sometimes ill ask him to come because thats the first question you and a couple of others from the fake news establishment ask is where is dr. Fauci. Were doing great together. Different subject if i may ask. Were covering a different subject . Go ahead, jim. Mr. President , you have said nobody could have seen this pandemic coming. But in fact Secretary Azar at a Biodefense Summit in april 2019 said of course the thing that people ask what keeps you most up at night in the biodefense world, pandemic flu, of course. I think everyone in this room probably shares that concern. Your own health and Human Services secretary was aware that this had potential of being a very big problem around the world, a pandemic of this nature. Who dropped the ball . Well, i always knew that pandemics are one of the worst things that could happen. There has been nothing like this since probably 1917. That was the big one. In europe, it started actually here and went to europe, probably. Ive heard about excuse me, wait a minute, let me finish. Ive heard about this for a long time, pandemics. You dont want pandemics. And i dont think he was talking about a specific pandemic. He was talking about the threat of a pandemic could happen. And it could happen. Most people thought it wouldnt, and most people didnt
understand the severity of it. This is a very severe. Whats happened is very severe. But id let you answer that. I assume that he was talking about the concept of a pandemic. Thank you, mr. President. Absolutely for 15 years now this country has had a massive effort at the federal, state and local level of preparedness for pandemic. Now that largely has been, as i said in those remarks, about Pandemic Flu Preparedness. We knew about sars. We knew about mers, which were earlier modifications or variants of the coronavirus. None of those achieved anything like what were seeing today. But thats why for successive presidency, including the leadership of President Trump, there has been a great focus on pandemic preparedness. In fact, it was just in november, i believe, that the president signed the Pandemic Flu Preparedness executive order that we have and we have also updated the pandemic Crisis Action plan, which has been the playbook from which weve been working, the pandemic flu plan. Again, the action plan from which we have been working that coordinates the whole of government, the whole economy approach here. So weve all been very focused on pandemic preparedness. Its what we do. But this particular strain of pandem pandemic, who would have known this particular strain. If you were preparing for pandemic, if this government were preparing for pandemic, why is it we dont have enough masks . Why is it we dont have enough medical equipment . Previous administrations gave us very little ammunition for the military and very little shelf let me just tell it. You know it. You know the answer. The previous administration, the shelves were empty. The shelves were empty. So what you should do is speak to the people from the previous administration, jim, and ask them that question. Because the shelves were empty. You know what else . The Military Shelves were also empty. We had no ammunition, literally. That was said by one of your favorite generals. We have, sir, we have no ammunition. Guess what . We had very little medical supply also. All right go ahead. Well get you back. Well get you back. Please . Jim, well get you back. Please, go ahead. The dpa, you said there will be a ban on exporting of all what does it cover . Masks . Gloves . But if somebody ordered if italy, if spain who has big problems, these are countries with tremendous problems, france, if they ordered, if they have longterm orders and theyre in there and they want to get certain things, id let them go out in certain instances because i think its only fair. They have problems that are proportionately or relatively bigger than our problems. So if they ordered something and theyre waiting for something for example masks made here, and going to italy, im not going to be stopping that. I think it would be very unfair. And by the way, speaking about being fair and unfair, two very big cruise liners, as you know,
i allowed them to dock today. We worked with the governor of florida, ron desantis, and we worked on it. And we had tremendous security. And we took the sick people and were working with them. We have doctors. We have great doctor, military doctors. And from a humane standpoint, not that were in love with this, these are two massive ships, but we have to take care of people. We have to take care. We sent many back to canada. The canadians came and worked very closely with us, as did the uk. We had a lot of people from the uk. And we took care of the americans. We took care of the sick. We had some people very sick. I think we have three to four, maybe five people that had died on the boat, one of the boat, actually. And we had to take care of these people so we couldnt let them float aimlessly into the ocean looking for port, as they have been doing for a long time. I made the decision we had to take them in. Homeland security and a lot of other people did a great job. But we have to help people. These are people that were very, very sick. Some were dying. Some died. Please . Go ahead. Mr. President , your staff today said that people in close proximity to you and the Vice President will get a coronavirus test. Im wondering, are you concerned that the people youve been hanging around with may have the virus . No, im not concerned, no. I had a test yesterday. Whats the reason for the order for people who meet with you and talk with you . I dont know. I heard from the oil executives. These are people most of them had not had the test. And frankly, i think they left the room feeling good about a lot of things. But they felt good about the test. This was a test that took i guess 13 minutes to visit finalized. They took the test. I dont know. I didnt know they were doing that. Maybe they did it just for them. I dont know. But it seems that a lot of people, because now we have tests that really work well, in this case, abbott. We have other tests being developed right now that are also fantastic. The original test, the ones we
inherited, jim, as an example, they were broken. They were obsolete. They were not good tests. And thats what we got stuck with. Weve developed some incredible tests. But this took 13 to 15 minutes. And they were all fine. Go ahead, finish your question. The problem some people have raised is if the u. S. Stopped exporting, what you could have is other countries deciding that they are going to stop exporting, and the result of that then will be a net decrease in the amount of supplies that american doctor, american hospitals have. How do you address that . Well, i address it in the following manner. We really are very well supplied. We are not the principle. Its the hospitals, the states, the cities. They were supposed to get everything they can and stock up in case Something Like this happens. But nobody could have ever assumed that Something Like this happened. So we started supplying. We brought tremendous amounts to new york today, and over the last few days we brought them to louisiana. We brought them to michigan. We brought them to los angeles. A lot of equipment. You read the amount of masks that we had. I think i said over 8 million masks. The n95 masks, the more expensive, more complicated, better, whatever, masks, the ones they use in the hospitals. We have millions of them now. And weve given them to a lot. We sent to bellevue in new york today. That was from mayor de blasio, 200,000 of them. But we have 8. 1 million. Were going have more than that. And were getting them from various source, including the military. Were rapidly then replacing them, because we have to replace them, in case there is another emergency. I would be gowns too. We have many gowns being delivered and have been delivered. Our people have done an incredible job. Most people have said, and i said this yesterday, governors have said thank you very much. Great job. If theyre a democrat governor, in some case, not in all cases
at all, if i said here is a thousand ventilators, how many do you want . We want one thousand. Here is a thousand. You got them. But you know what were going to do . Were going add another 5,000. That good . They said wow, thats great. And if jim acosta goes are you happy with the president . No, he should have given us 10,000. Thats whats happening. Thats a standard political answer, and thats a shame. Because we have done a job like nobody has ever done a job. But we just delivered a lot of masks. We just delivered a lot of gowns and protective gear. But, you know, youre talking about a massive number. As of this morning, people were very, very happy. Steve . Executives ask you for a bailout . No, they didnt ask for a bailout. What did they ask for . It was really more of a discussion than asking. We did discuss the concept of tariffs. Because as you know, this was a dispute among a couple of countries that i think they want
to be able to get it solved. And they had a dispute. They had a competition. But they want the get it resolved. Russia and saudi arabia. I think they want yeah, i think they want to get it resolved. Theyre working very hard. They told me, they want to get it resolved. Theyre working very hard. Go ahead. Thank you. Yesterday Jared Kushner said the notion of the federal stockpile was it was supposed to be our stock prime minister. Its not supposed to be State Stockpiles that they then use. What did he mean by our . And even the fact that taxpayers i gotcha, gotcha. You know what our means . United states of america. Thats what it means. The states . Our, our. It means the United States of america. And then we take that our and we distribute it to the states. Not supposed to be State Stockpiles. Because we need it for the government. And we need it for the federal government. But when the states no, to also who are you giving it to, if
its not for the states . To keep for our country . Because the federal government needs it too, not just the states. But out of that, we oftentimes choose, as an example, we have almost 10,000 ventilators, and we are ready to rock with those ventilators. Were going bring them to various areas of the country that need them. But when he says our, he is talking about our country. He excuse me. He is talking about the federal government. I mean, its such a basic, simple question, and you try and make it sound so bad. Its not bad. Im just trying to understand. You ought to be ashamed. Its such a simple question. He said our. And our means for the country. And our means for the states because the states are a part of the country. Dont make it sound bad. Dont make it sound bad. Go ahead. Steve. Back here. Just even change the language. You just asked your question in a very nasty tone. I didnt think it was nasty. You didnt give me an answer. Please. I gave you a perfect answer. You know it. Go ahead. Just to follow up on that, when we have the federal stockpile, i mean, isnt that designed to be able to distribute to the states . Sure. Its also needed for the federal government. We have a federal stockpile and they have State Stockpiles. And frankly, they were many of the states were totally unprepared for this. So we had to go into the federal stockpile. But were not an ordering clerk. They have to have for themselves. Now some of the states were in good shape. Some of the states were not in good shape. Thats probably something you could expect. We have been helping states. We have been spending a tremendous amount of time, effort, and billions and billions of dollars on making sure that they have what they have. I mean, take new york. We built them hospitals. I built them four hospital, built them medical centers, sent a ship with a thousand rooms and 12 operating rooms. And then on top of that, gave vast numbers of ventilators and
vast numbers of surgical gowns, equipment, masks, everything else. Now they had a chance to order ventilators over the years. They had a chance to order very big, but they didnt choose to do it. We were there and we helped them. And i think the governor of new york is very thankful for the help that we gave. But we have a stockpile. Its a federal stockpile. Well can use that for states or use it for ourselves. We do use it for the federal government. We have a very big federal government. Have you decided not to use your powers to be essentially a traffic cop for all the essential medical supplies were not a traffic cop. Were a humanitarian cop. We help. Its like the ships. Do you think we wanted to take two big ships into our country that have obvious problems, and you know the problems im talking about . So i have a decision to make. Do i take them in or do i save lives . Do i take them or do i save. I decided to take them in. And we have tremendous
protection. We have great doctors there to help the people. They had four or five people that died. That was as of last night. They died on the ships. We took care of it. And now the people are in the process of and many are already back in canada. Theyre back in the uk, united kingdom. And many of them were american citizens. Some were very sick. Were taking care of the sick people. Were testing all of the others very, very carefully. Very, very carefully. They are being tested like you wouldnt believe. And we solved a humanitarian catastrophe. You know why . Nobody else would take the ships. Nobody else would take them. We docked them i think in ft. Lauderdale. Why you dont say were the federal government and there is a shortage of masks. We do say that. And were going to we do say that. We say and we use the act. Excuse me. We do say that and we use the act. And weve used it a number of times very powerfully, and a lot of times we dont have to use it, because we say were going to use it if you dont do this or that. And then we also have companies that act incredibly well. We have plenty of them. Mostly them. But weve used the act very powerfully. And a lot of times you dont have to exercise the act. All you have to do is tell them, look, if you dont do this, were going use the act. And weve done a good job with it. Maybe great job. Yeah . Mr. President , there are new reports that you want to sign the Stimulus Checks that are going out here in several months. That right . No. There is millions of checks. Im going to sign them . No. Its a Trump Administration initiative, but do i want to sign them . No. The people are getting their money. There is a lot of stimulus going in a lot of different ways. There is also stimulus going for companies that were, if it werent for our government, and some companies who were very strong a month ago. Again, we had the strongest
economy in the world. We had our best effort. We had probably the best economy in the history of the world, bigger than china, bigger than anybody. And n one day we have to say close it up, stop. Everybody go home. And you know what . Thats pretty tough to do that. Thats another thing. There are rumors that the checks may not go out for another four months. I dont know. All i can tell you is the Small Business today is were way ahead of schedule. There is a problem, which i pointed out. I said you shouldnt do it this way, with unemployment where 40yearold equipment by the states were sending the money to the states. Once the money is sent to the states, then the states, whether theyre republican or democrat have to get the money out to the people. Hopefully theyll be able to do it. But many of those states have 40yearold computers. I dont know that theyre equipped. I wanted to give the money direct, if thats what youre talking to. I wanted to give the money out direct. It would have been much easier. But the democrats and some people said no, lets do it the complicated way. Im talking more about the
Stimulus Checks. Well, i with us talking about both. They will. Go ahead, please. Thank you, sir. Id like to ask questions both for myself and some of the other reporters who are in the room, Social Distancing. First of all, this is for yourself and dr. Birx. What percentage of the population do we suspect to be asymptomatic at this point . Is there a way to figure that out . It seems like the Antibody Test might be able able to assist in determining that. Thank you. So while were working diligently in the midst of the crisis to make sure that the Health Care Workers and everyone who is sick gets provided for, at the same time were working on tests and assays that will be critical for surveillance. And at the same time, working on plans for what we need to do as this moves through the population and we get on the downside, which were not there
yet. And hopefully, most of the states will say like california and washington, and then what we need to do to be prepared for fall. So all three of those things are happening simultaneously. And there are people working on each one of those work streams. The Antibody Piece is critical, as you described, because at this time, we cant if we have lets say asymptomatic status is inversely asymptomatic status is inversely related to age. So the younger you are, the more likely youre to be asymptomatic. We have to know that, because we have to know how many people have actually become infected. So when we talked about five days ago, i think on monday, i called on universities to work on an elisabased test to test for their Health Workers and really get through that. At the same time, the private sector is working on tests. And what do we want those tests to be . We want those tests to be like what we use for hiv and malaria. Finger prick on to a cassette. You get a line if youre positive and you get a control line. Negative the line is there. Thats our dream assay because its a finger prick. In the meantime, were not waiting. Were pushing for that and asking to develop the elisabased assay, which requires a tube of blood. And thats why were also talking about could we use dried blood spots. We also put a call directly out to the military because of the roosevelt to really test all of the sailors on the roosevelt with an Antibody Test to get to this critical issue of asymptomatic and already preexisting antibody. That would be if the First Responders knew they already had had it and they had protective antibody. If the nurses knew, the doctors knew. If your School Teacher knew, then its a very difficult dialogue. So we understand the importance
of that, and we understand how important it is in relationship to understanding this epidemic. One other comment, because i know were always saying who knew what when. I just want to make clear, there is 150 plus countries working on this collectively together. Its devastating for every single country. When we get through this, we could go back and look at happen happened and where and what does this epidemic look like. When you get through it, then you can validate every model there is known to man. When youre in the middle of it, you have to concentrate on serving the needs of each american and what that need looks like. At the same time, you have these other work streams on surveillance and how to be prepared both scientifically and therapeutically and vaccine wise for the next fall, if it happens again. So i think these things are happening together, but i just want us to really concentrate on the fact that all around the
globe, country after country is dealing with this. And we can talk about why didnt italy do something or spain do something or germany do something. Or we can really say right now we all can do something. We can do the Social Distancing and all of the pieces that we know is starting to work around the globe in country after country. And then when we get through all of this, we can ask the questions about could we have done some piece of this better as a global community. I will remind you that on february 3rd, the head of the w. H. O. Said there was no reason to ever do a travel ban. You know, it wasnt until january 14th that we knew that there was humantohuman transmission. Remember . Dr. Birx, the president was saying this is going to go away. Its april. It is going to go away. It is going to go away. You said it was going to go
away in april. I said it is going away. It is going away. A good answer to your question. No, no, no, no more. That is a long but very good answer. That was enough for you. Mr. President , on the Insurance Coverage for treatment, when your government trying to make sure the people are covered on the treatment. Were going to do that. Does that include the 11 Million People who are in this country illegally . Are they going to be covered as well . Well be talking about that at a different time. Please . Mr. President , will you release, authorize the release of the underlying data for the conclusion of the 100,000, 240,000 people succumbing . Perhaps dr. Birx . Thats up to dr. Birx. We can release all of some Disease Experts have expressed concern that they havent seen the underlying data. Im sure theyll talk to that, and dr. Fauci too. Please . Thank you, mr. President. This is for you and dr. Azar. 10 Million People say theyve lost their jobs in the last two weeks. How is this Stimulus Money for free treatment going to absorb the number of uninsured and would it not be easier to reopen obamacare or expand medicare . What i mentioned in my remarks, if you were employed and had insurance through your employer and you have now lost your job and lost that insurance, you now do have a special Enrollment Period where you may enroll in the individual exchanges of the Affordable Care act. So thats existing law. Then what were doing is taking from the 100 billion to providers, taking money and saying if youre a provider and you care for anybody who is uninsured, were going to compensate you for doing that, and were going to compensate you at the medicare reimbursement rates, and you are not allowed to bill that uninsured individual anything. In many respect, its better for those uninsured individuals. Theyre going get first dollar coverage. Theyre going to get care in the
United States, and the provider is going to be made whole from this program. Its really unprecedented. What President Trump is doing here with this money is an unprecedented diseasespecific support of care for individuals to make sure that people get treatment. What about noncovid19 conditions . A couple of conditions about supplies. One specifically on new york and the question of ventilators. Governor cuomo is saying that new york might be days away from running out of ventilators. Can you assure new york that going into next week that theyre going to have the ventilators that theyre going to need . They should have had more ventilators at the time. They should have had more ventilators. They were totally underserviced. We are trying to do were doing our best for new york. You know, we have states. We have a lot of states. We have territories too. But we have a lot of states that have to be taken care of, some much more so than others. Weve worked very well with the governor. We happen to think that he is
well served with ventilators. Were going find out. But we have other states to take care of. We have a big problem in louisiana. We have a big problem in michigan. We have a big problem in seven other really strong hot spots. But were doing the best we can. I wish they did the original orders three years ago. They would have had all the ventilators they needed, although even then they wouldnt. If you look at what the original request was from new york, it was far greater than anybody ever heard. And weve supplied a lot. I told you, we supplied some just today to new york. And we supplied some yesterday to new york city. Did you have one in the back . Yes please. This is why the question on the stockpile was asked earlier, so important. I dont think it was a question. It was a very important question because what Jared Kushner said yesterday is the federal stockpile is for use by the federal government, not nor the states to have access to. You seem to be saying different. Did Jared Kushner misspeak . He didnt misspeak. He used the word our. Ours, preferring to our country. The states to best of my jbest f your knowledge are a part of our country. We are taking whats in the federal stockpile and were helping states all over the country. But we also want to keep some because when the surge comes, when you hit the peaks, we have to have the flexibility to take those ventilators and bring them to louisiana, new york, detroit, different places. Thats all. Were not using them anywhere else. Were not going to be using them, john, anywhere else. But we want the flexibility. Because we dont even know when the surge is coming, but its coming soon and its goings to be big. And some areas wont have it. Some areas will be pleasantly surprised. Just like weve been. You look at the chart. States that i thought would have been maybe a disaster turned out to be really theyve done a great job. Some states are really troubled. But you dont know. You dont know. We have great flexibility. I would have preferred giving them all out. Wed have nothing. And now when we have a surge, we cant get them back from where we gave them. Its very tough to take them back. So we have tremendous flexibility. And it could be new york. It could be louisiana. Those are two that are really rough. New jersey is very rough. And theyve done a very good job in new jersey. But new jersey is very rough. Go ahead, please. Yes. The question about the cdc guidelines. I know that they changed over time from february. The guidelines to which . The masks . Social distancing and the number of people who gather in a group and so on. And now this measure about wearing masks. I know you told steve about why you dont want the wear a mask. Im just wondering if you can tell us more about why. I just dont choose to. Theyre not mandatory guidelines. Theyre guidelines. They suggest you could wear them. Dont have to wear them. In fact, the director is here if you want to say a couple of words about it, you can if you want. You dont have to. But basically, its a voluntary thing. Done a good job. Thank you very much. I think i just want to reemphasize, ive said this before, that were not defenseless against this virus. We have a powerful tool, a powerful weapon that is Social Distancing. And weve continued to embrace that with the president s initiative to slow the spread of coronavirus. Were constantly looking at new data. And as the Surgeon General said, one of the new information that became more clear to all of success there is a greater number of people that are asimatically infected than we previously thought. And as ambassador burr said, that may be inversely related to age. The purpose here is first and foremost is to embrace the Social Distancing. Thats the number one thing. Thats the powerful weapon. And, you know, this virus has a great weakness. It cant jump from one person to another if it has to swim more than six feet. This is why we really want that. That said, we know there may be individuals in areas of Significant Community transmission that may be
asettlementatically infected, and we know that a face barrier can actually interrupt the number of Virus Particles that can go from one person to the other. So as was said by the Vice President , the president , the purpose of this Face Covering is to be another adjunctive Mitigation Strategy to protect someone from spreading the virus from themselves to someone else. And i was just tested also. I assume i dont have the virus. So i dont have the worry about spreading it. Okay . Please, go ahead. Mr. President , i want to make sure were clear. When you mention tariffs earlier, they came up in the meeting, are you considering terrorists on Saudi Arabian oil . I always consider it. Look, tariffs have made a tremendous amount of money for our country. I put them on china. I put them on other place, and other countries tariff us, and they take advantage of us and they have pour many years. Look, countries have taken advantage of the United States
for years. Theyve ripped us off like nobody can even believe, whether it be on manufacturing, whether it be on exporting, whether it be on almost anything, including military, where we provide virtually free Military Assistance to countries that frankly take advantage of us, dont even like us. So this has been going on for years. They tariff us. They create artificial you could say nonfinancial barriers, which are worse than financial barriers. You cant sell your product. And yet theyll take us and sell into us. And we wont charge them anything for doing it. Look, theyve taken advantage of us for years. Tariffs are a way of evening the score. Tariffs are a way of just neutralizing. They have tariffs on us, and we now can put tariffs on them. Am i using it for oil . Its something we can. No. Am i doing it now . No. Am i thinking about imposing it
as of this moment . No. But if were not treated fairly, its certainly a tool in the tool box. What about with russia . Would you consider maybe lifting sanctions or giving sanctions relief . No, it would be the same thing. They are having a dispute, the two countries. And its hurting the rest of the world. Because its really hurting the energy industry. Russia is being hurt unbelievably badly, and saudi arabia is going hurt unbelievably badly, because oil and gas is a primary, thats where they get most of their income. And this is a price like from the 1950s. All right . Its a price from the 1950s. They are being hurt very badly. I think theyre going to settle their dispute pretty quickly. On the oil mr. President why do you think you havent been more successful getting decreased production from russia and saudi arabia . They have increased
production. Thats what they did. You meant the opposite. Well, theyre going to stop because the market. Ultimately, the market is going to get them to stop. But they both did the opposite. They increased production to a level that water is right now more valuable than oil. Who would have ever thought, right . You go to some of these kingdoms, water is far more valuable than oil. There is so much oil. Its a tribute in a way. But what happened is there was a lot to start off with, and then you had the virus, and it knocked the hell out of the market in terms of demand. So there is no demand, and there is tremendous supply. So, i mean, you saw numbers where it was down to 20 and down frankly below 20. It was even below 20. Its an incredible thing, the market. But ultimately, the marketplace will take care of it. But i think theyre going work out their problem fairly quickly. Thank you, mr. President. Were already talking about phase 4 of the stimulus, right. But you and pelosi and mcconnell are already talking about Different Things that should be in it. Now last time people were telling me that the fact that you Wouldnt Talk To Pelosi was an impediment. It really slowed things down. If it were important to talk to her, id talk to her. If it wither important for the american people, id talk to her. But other than that, i can have other people talking to her. Look you ready . Infrastructure is a great thing for me. I think infrastructure for this country. We have an old broken infrastructure. 50 years ago, we were the envy of the world. And then we spent all this money, so stupidly in the middle east. We spent its going to be very close to 8 trillion in the middle east. How stupid was that decision . But they spent it on that and other things. Weve got fix our infrastructure. That means roads, highways, tunnels, airports, everything. Weve got to fix our infrastructure. And the beauty is because of the fact that we are so strong as a
country, were borrowing at zero. We never had a chance to borrow at zero, even this country. We never had a chance to borrow at zero. This is a great time. So we can fix our infrastructure and well have almost no interest, because this is the time to do it. Steve, one more question. The Death Toll Projections that you shared with us earlier this week, are we still on the current trajectory for that . Which one. Trajectories for many. 140. Say it . Have we made enough. On what, on what . On Social Distancing. Id have to ask dr. Fauci and id have to have deborah. Have the models changed . So a lot of the projections you can see are based on there is many different ways to look at this. And as we discussed on sunday, some of it is based on the current global experience. Were about i think 6. 5 or 5. 5 times the size of italy. A different factor in spain. And we look at all of those, what their projections are, where they are currently, and where that is going. And so a lot of the work is based on how this virus has moved through other populations. Thats a very direct way to see how the virus is impacting a population. There is also terrific models. And so every day and every night, one of the models that actually looks at the model related to mortality is the health data. Org data. And they update every night. And you can see where we are in that projection. I think in the last run of that model, they were at 93,000. Or something in the model. Now all of that can be changed by our behaviors. And so all of it can be changed in a different way if we dont
follow those behaviors. If another major Metropolitan Area ends up having an epidemic like the new york metro area, that could dramatically change not the model, but the reality of the impact of this virus on americans. The models show hundreds of thousands of people are going to die. You know what i want to do . I want to come way under the models. The i was never involved in a model, at least this kind of a model. But you know what . Hundreds of thousands of people. I want much less than this. I want none. But its too late for that. But i want very few people relative to what the models are saying. Those are projections. I hope theyre wrong. I hope were going to be under those projections. Mr. President , two questions on the continuity of government. How come you always have two . Why cant you have one . I have three questions, two. Can you give me one instead . We have a couple of other people. Okay. Ill go with my second one. Governor of wisconsin is now talking about delaying the primary, at least not having inperson voting. So my question is, and i asked this a couple of weeks ago, i want to see if youve made any progress on this. Looking ahead to the fall, are you taking steps to ensure The General Election will happen even if this pandemic has reemerged. The general election will happen on november 3rd. In wisconsin, what happened is i through social media put out a very strong endorsement of a republican Conservative Judge whos an excellent brilliant judge. He is a justice. And i hear what happened is his poll numbers went through the roof. And because of that, i think they delayed the election. Are you concerned about people going to inperson voting . Knoi dont know. Excuse me. Why did he do this two weeks ago . Excuse me. All of the sudden an election,
which is taking place very soon gets delayed. Now i just endorsed him today, and it was a very strong endorsement. His polls, he has gone very high up. And all of the sudden the governor comes out, the democrat governor by the way comes out and says were going to move this election. So i dont know. I hope youre right. But do you think every state in this country should be prepared for mailin voting . No. I think a lot of people cheat with mailin voting. I think people should vote with voter id. I think voter id is very important. And the reason they dont want voter id is because they intend to cheat. When you get something, when you buy something, you look at your cards and credit cards and different cards. You have your picture on many of them. Not all of them, but many of them. You will ha should have a picture for voting. It should be called voter id. They should have that. Excuse me. And it shouldnt be mailin voting. It should be you go to a booth and you proudly display
yourself. You dont send it in the mail where people pick up all sorts of bad things can happen by the time they sign that, if they sign that, if they sign that. By the time it gets in and is tabulated. No. It shouldnt be mailed in. You should vote at the booth and you should have voter id. Because when you have voter id, thats the real deal. Thank you very much. Well see you. An update on the domestic travel. You just heard the president wrap up his press briefing, probably his shortest one of the week, for those of us that are Keeping Score of that. And the president got a bit distracted there by some political things that he wanted to get to. But lets get to The Big Picture items of this briefing, the biggest one being were looking for some clarity and instead we got more confusion, both on the supply chain and on these new
cdc recommend daimlerchryslers. I have a couple of doctors with me as well as kristen welker. Let me start with dr. Lehner is with me. Let me start with you and try to get some understanding of the president presented this new cdc recommendations on face cover g coverings which some might argue he might have undercut when he said its voluntary, im not going to do it. Is that a message that helps convince people to wear a face cover . No. Its actually characteristic of every other mental weve gotten from President Trump since the beginning of this whole pandemic where he for many, many weeks inappropriately was reassuring everybody that everything is fine. It will be over by april. The magical cure will happen and so on and so forth. This was the latest and overtly
hypocritical message ive ever heard from anybody that my government Just Announced new recommendations that everyone should wear a mask, but i am not going to. I am flabbergasted how people will even interpret that message with a coupling with what the president said he was going to do. What is that . You wouldnt do that with your own children. You would just simply be you would lose all credibility, which has already happened with President Trump. But this was a pretty egregious disconnect between what his own government is recommending and what he said he going to do personally. You remember it Wasnt Long Ago that he had people crowded on the stage with him in front of the podium, sharing the same microphone. It was this outrageous disconnect that weve come to experience with President Trump and the whole notion of messaging appropriately to the public. I want to play, because its been a while what the president said. Let me play that sound again. It did literally conflict the advice the second he gave it. Take a listen. The cdc is recommending that americans wear a basic cloth or fabric mask. They can be either purchased online or simply made at home. Its going to be a voluntary thing. You can do it. You dont have to do it. Im choosing not to do it, it may be good. Probably will. Theyre making a recommendation. Its only recommendations. Also with me is dr. Nahid d bedalia. Tell me first of all, now that the cdc is saying this we know there is essentially an order on this in new york city. How important is it to do this when you leave the house . So i actually like the approach the Surgeon General adams took is he said listen, this is evolving. We know that we told you not to do this before, but the reason we are moving to this new
recommendation is because the science has changed. And what the science is saying is that there is a percentage of people who are asymptomatic or presymptomatic, which means before they get sick, theyre still shedding this virus. That might get other people sick. And so i think that its important to say it is a guidance. Its not Everybody Needs to do it. But the important points that he made where hand hygiene and why we want people to use face covers, and also identifying why those are different than the masks that people are using in the health care setting. I think thats a better approach to tell people what is necessary. You cover your face because youre protecting others from your virus shedding if youre sick and you dont yet know. I also thought the Surgeon General did a good job of explaining hoy to do it. By the way, make sure to wash your hands before you put this mask on. Every which way he explained that policy was very helpful to the viewer. Kristen welker, whether it was
also more confusion was on the supply chain issues. And it seemed to be something that the president didnt want to acknowledge that there was confusion there. And it does seem as if were hearing one thing from governors and one thing from the task force. Behind the scenes, is there any effort being made to try to streamline things, to try to create one Point Of Contact . Well, i think that whats happening behind the scenes, chuck is there is a lot of confusion about who the Point Of Contact is. And yesterday we saw that on display in the Briefing Room when you had Jared Kushner come out and he really added fuel to the confusion and to this controversy when he talked about quote unquote our stockpile. And President Trump got so many questions about that today, pressed repeatedly on what specifically his soninlaw meant. Did he misspeak . The president said he was quite defensive and said no, look. He didnt misspeak. The bottom line is we want to have flexibility in case we need to get Emergency Supplies to some of these states. But you heard this sort of defensive posture from the president that we heard from Kushner Yesterday, which is that some of these governors didnt do a good enough job of stocking up in the first place. And so were having to overcompensate for that. So i think this question of who is the point person on this issue continues to really loom over the governments response and the president s response to this crisis, chuck. Dr. Redlener, i want to ask you about a piece of news that took place right before this briefing started. And it was an alert that was sent out right where you are in new york city, basically, an all call for Health Care Workers. Explain what is happening there in new york city that there is essentially an all call for extra workers. Yeah. So chuck, i got that alert myself. Usually the kind of thing a missing person or something
going on. But im really surprised to see that. But the message said if you are a Health Care Worker and able to volunteer, we need you and it gave an 800 local number to call. And this is really indicative of the overall extraordinary crisis that the city is facing. Its a crisis of supplies and equipment and of course personal protective equipment. Its a crisis of the actual rooms and Icu Bed Space Et Cetera and ventilators. But its also a crisis of personnel. My son is an er doctor in new york. And three days ago, a Nurse Colleague who he worked side by side with died of covid. And i think were seeing more and more doctors of all ages getting sick, having to leave work or even worse being admitted to the hospital in critical condition. So i think were really looking down the barrel of a very serious crisis at all levels, personnel, Equipment Supplies and beds. And just a word if i can about the Strategic National stockpile. The information that was put out
by Kushner Yesterday and the president today just flat wrong. The Strategic National stockpile was created specifically to supplement states and cities when there is a major crisis. And weve never had anything quite quite as severe as this. Thats exactly what its for. I dont know what holding it back for the federal government even means. Its just wrong. It flies in the face of why this stockpile was created and what its supposed to be used for. It was extremely confusing and distressing to here that. We are facing a crisis of Health Care Personnel as the supplies. I dont think were getting the help that we should have been getting for a long time now from federal government on any of those fronts. I want to ask about a interesting question asked of dr. Birx. She didnt fully answer it because i think its unanswerable and this issue of trying, how quickly are we going
to get this test for antibodies and how difficult its been to get testing up and running in this country so we can decide whether these medical workers can continue to work and maybe they dont need as much as equipment because maybe they have the antibodies. Explain what she was trying to convey. Talk about the Emergency Use Authorization that was made towards a test that tests your plo blood for proteins. If youre been exposed to and have recovered from a disease. Shes talking about the fact this is available and the hope is this can become something that is easier to run so you dont need an entire tube of a persons blood. You do this on dry blood and do this in a manner that allows the person to find out that they are immune. The antibodies, even if you have them, are there a pofrrtion of people who still might get sick. Our experience say thats probably true but the other part for viruses like regular coronavirus is the immunity, it Doesnt Looast for a long time. What does it mean for us when this disease comes back next fall. Sg. I think i know the answer to this but i want you to explain this. Dr. Birx said wed really like to get to the Uss Roosevelt and test all those folks because it sounds like thats an interesting, you have a control group. You can learn a lot just from what happened on that ship. Yeah. We actually similar sort of data came from the diamond princess cruise as well. You have a population in enclosed area. You know who their contacts are. Part of the reason we cant get an idea on this is how many people have the symptoms and the testing has come up to par to do the level of population of surveillance. Now you have this small group of people where you know where they will get this disease from. You can say with greater confidence, they couldnt have gotten this from anywhere else and look at their blood tests. Their immune. It means they got the disease and they were never asymptomatic and here is good baseline of how many people get the symptoms and dont get exposed at all. I want to go back to the president a bit. A guess some confusion over whats coming financially. Its important to convey a second round of money appears to be coming. Mitch mcconnell has said it. Nancy pelosi has said it and so has the president. Walk us through, is this going to happen later this month, we think. They may come together quick again with essentially phase three, a second time. Thats the anticipation and there couldnt be more pressure on all of them to do something quickly by the end of the month. Chuck, remember, these guidelines continue to get extended. When they were working on phase three, at least the first part of it, we only were anticipating this Essential Shutdown to be, supposed to last for 15 days. Its now been extending until
the end of the month. The financial pain is being extended, clearly. I think theres a lot of pressure on all sides to get things done. I would note the president has talked a lot about the importance of bipartisan. He was asked if he is speaking directly with bipartisan and he indicated that hes not. He doesnt see a real reason for that. Theres also focus on phase four, chuck. That might include infrastructure but well have to see if that is something they can tackle. Chuck. All right. Very quickly, i want to get one more to you. The country is not succeeding in bending the curve but washington and california are. What can the rest of the country learn in. The rest of the country should learn that strict controls about movement, shelter in place is really the only thing we have. Until we get real medications that will treat this virus specifically or vaccine that will prevent it, the only major tool in the tool box is please adhere to these requests, these
guidelines to shelter in place. Stay away from people and do the best you can do adapt. Thats really the main message we get from that. All right. That does it for me. I want to thank both of my doctors here. That does it for me. Ill see you on sunday morning. My pal and colleague ari melber will take over after this break. Will take over after this break. These are real people, not actors, whove got their eczema under control. With less eczema, you can show more skin. So roll up those sleeves. And help heal your skin from within with dupixent. Dupixent is the first treatment of its kind that continuously treats moderatetosevere eczema, or atopic dermatitis, even between flare ups. Dupixent is a biologic, and not a cream or steroid. Many people taking dupixent saw clear or almost clear skin,
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