Remarks by Trump, Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing, 03-29-20
REMARKS
Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing
HEALTHCARE
Issued on: March 30, 2020
Rose Garden
March 29, 2020
5:43 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Appreciate everybody being here. Beautiful day in the Rose Garden. Tremendous distance between chairs. Social distancing. You practice it very well. We appreciate it. That’s great.
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Joining us today are the leaders of America’s largest distributors of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment, including McKesson, Cardinal Health, Henry Schein, Owens & Minor, Medline, FedEx, and UPS. We just concluded a very productive meeting about ways to keep our supply chains and delivery systems moving at top speed.
And maybe I’d like to just ask for a couple of minutes for Mike Kaufmann to come up, and maybe Ed Pesicka. Mike is with Cardinal and Ed is Owen & Minor.
But I — and I appreciate. And if anybody else has anything, please come up. But if you could come up, Mike, for a second and, Ed, for a second. Just, if you could maybe say what you told me before when we had the meeting. Thank you.
MR. KAUFMANN: Thank you, Mr. President, and thanks for your leadership on this. Because of that leadership, we have really seen the government agencies working with industry like no time before. We have seen HHS, FEMA, the CDC work incredibly effectively with all of the distributors, and all of the distributors working together for the good of the people.
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MR.PESICKA: Thank you, Mr. President. Let me first start by thanking the administration for all the support you have provided to the industry.
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That’s part of the issue we’re running into: Is even with a significant ramp-up in supply, you know, there’s still that demand that is — that is much greater than that supply.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much.
MR.PESICKA: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: And I bring that up because when we discussed, back in a room — we were in a conference room — a very nice one, actually; it’s called the Cabinet Room — that statement was made that they’ve been delivering for years, 10- to 20,000 masks. Okay, it’s a New York hospital. Very — it’s packed all the time. How do you go from 10 to 20, to 300,000? 10- to 20,000 masks to 300,000?
Even though this is different, something is going on, and you ought to look into it as reporters. Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door? How do you go from 10,000 to 300,000? And we have that in a lot of different places. So, somebody should probably look into that, because I just don’t see, from a practical standpoint, how that’s possible to go from that to that. And we have that happening in numerous places — not to that extent; that was the highest number I’ve heard. That’s the highest number you’ve seen, I would imagine, right?
But this man makes them and delivers them to a lot of hospitals. He knows the system better than anybody. And I think you were more surprised than I was when you saw that number. So thank you very much. I hope I didn’t get any of your clients in trouble, but it could be that they are in trouble. So they have to look at that in New York.
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FEMA has scheduled 19 additional flights and is adding more daily. We hope to have about 50 flights. We’re going to have — I think including the one that came in today, we’re up at 51 flights with these massive planes from the different companies. That was so nice to be here today. Would you like to say something on behalf? Please, come up. Thank you.
MS. LANE: Thank you, Mr President, for the incredible leadership. I will share with you that UPS is really proud to be part of this effort. Vice President Pence and I had the opportunity to speak before, and the way we’re going to win this war is with great logistics, and UPS is going to be part of that effort. We have a Big Brown army — 495,000 UPSers across the country that are ready to deliver.
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So thank you, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Great job you’re doing.
Please. Thank you very much.
MR. TYLER: Well, thank you, Mr. President. I would certainly like to echo my colleagues’ comments that the collaboration amongst many of the government agencies and the private market and the distributors represented here today has been incredible. It has been increasing and ramping up over the past weeks.
Today’s first delivery of Operation Airbridge, I think, is the first evidence that it’s working. The 51 flights you referenced we’re excited about. We look to build upon that. So I would echo my thanks for your leadership, and certainly to the staffs, for the terrific partnership and the commitment to protect the people we think about most often, which are the people on the frontlines providing care.
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Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Great job. Please.
MR. MILLS: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. And thanks to FEMA and HHS. I think great leadership, and it’s really working well. The demand has skyrocketed, and we’re doing a lot of things to bring in more masks, more — other protective apparel. We are involved in reprocessing masks, and we’ve already started at about 100,000 masks per day, and we hope to expand from there. So we’re quite optimistic about it.
THE PRESIDENT: Great job. Yeah.
MR. MILLS: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Fantastic job.
Anybody else, if you want? Yes, please. You’re doing such a great job, we have to —
MR. CONNETT: Well, thanks.
THE PRESIDENT: — have everybody if they want.
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THE PRESIDENT:
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Okay, Mike? Please.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mr. President. And let me just join you in thanking the American people for the efforts that the people of this nation have made over the past 15 days and that we know they will continue to make over the next 30.
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I mean, when the American people know the how tall the hill is, Mr. President, we’ve never failed to get over it and then some. And I think with your leadership, with this extraordinary team that you’ve assembled, with the great leadership that we have at the state and local levels, with the partnership with American businesses, and that can-do spirit of the American people, we’ll get through this, and we’ll get through this together.
Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mike. Thank you very much, Mike. So I just want to end by saying that we’re all in this together, all of us. I have never seen anything like it. The unity, the esprit de corps, the spirit — I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.
Unfortunately, the enemy is death. It’s death. A lot of people are dying, so it’s very unpleasant. It’s a very unpleasant thing to go through. But the level of competence, the level of caring, the level of love, I — I just think it’s brilliant, and it’s possibly happening in other countries. Possibly. I don’t know. I can’t speak to other countries, but I can speak to the United States of America.
And I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am very proud to be your President. Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.
END 7:13 P.M. EDT
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