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Remarks by Trump, Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing, 04-07-2020
PRESS BRIEFINGS
Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing | April 7, 2020
HEALTHCARE
Issued on: April 7, 2020
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
5:43 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Today, we continue to send our love to the great people of New York and New Jersey. We support them fully. We grieve alongside every family who has lost a precious loved one. New Yorkers are tough and strong and brave. New Jerseyites are tough and strong and brave, and they’re being hit very hard right now. And for the next week, hopefully not much longer than that, it’s going to start to go in the other direction.
Our country is being hit hard, but some areas have done so incredibly well. We’re so proud of them. They will beat this virus. We’re going to beat it with the grit and the heart for which they’re known and for which our country is known. And we appreciate everything that everybody is doing.
{snip}
On Thursday, I’ll be speaking to leaders and advocates from the mental health organizations all across our country. And we are going to be talking about resources and tools that we’ll make available to them. They need help. And it’s a big problem.
When you take something where it was the most successful country in the world — still is — the whole world is shut down. Think of it: We’re down to numbers that are incredible.
{snip}
The WHO, that’s the World Health Organization, receives vast amounts of money from the United States. And we pay for a majority — biggest portion of their money. And they actually criticized and disagreed with my travel ban at the time I did it. And they were wrong. They’ve been wrong about a lot of things. And they had a lot of information early and they didn’t want to — they’re very — they seem to be very China-centric. And we have to look into that. So we’re going to look into it.
We pay for — we give a majority of the money that they get. And it’s much more than that the 58. Fifty-eight million dollars is a small portion of what they’ve gotten over the years. Sometimes they get much more than that. Sometimes it’s for programs that they’re doing, and — and it’s much bigger numbers. And if the programs are good, that’s great, as far as we’re concerned.
But we want to look into it — World Health Organization — because they really are — they called it wrong. They called it wrong. They really — they missed the call. They could have called it months earlier. They would have known, and they should have known. And they probably did know, so we’ll be looking into that very carefully.
And we’re going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO. We’re going to put a very powerful hold on it, and we’re going to see. It’s a great thing if it works, but when they call every shot wrong, that’s no good.
We’re in the midst of a great national struggle, one that requires the shared sacrifice of all Americans. In recent weeks, it’s been remarkable to see so many companies and organizations and individuals, like the banks that I just told you about — biggest banks in the world. They stepped up to help small business. They have big business, small business. The small business will someday be the big business. But the small business is 50 percent of our economic strength. People don’t realize when you add them up, but they just — they just rose to the occasion. Everybody is rising to the occasion. It’s been incredible to watch.
{snip}
If you look at the original projections: If we did nothing, it would be disastrous. If we — we decided to do something. We closed it down; had no choice. It was a good move. That was a good move. The early China move was a good move. The early Europe move was a good move. Made a lot of good moves. But closing it down was a big statement. It was a big, important thing.
{snip}
Steve, please.
Q The Acting Navy Secretary submitted his resignation today — Modly. Why did that become necessary? And what — what role did you have in this, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I had no role in it. I’ve heard — I don’t know him, but I’ve heard he was a very good man. And it was a — the whole thing was a very unfortunate — the captain should not have written a letter. He didn’t have to be Ernest Hemingway. He made a mistake, but he had a bad day. And I hate seeing bad things happen. The man made a mistake.
But, you know, you shouldn’t be writing letters and you should — you’re in the military. You’re the captain of a great ship, and you shouldn’t be writing letters and sending them to many people and then it gets out to the media. And, you know, the question is, “How did it get out to the media?” So there’s a lot of bad things happened there.
And I had heard he did because he didn’t want to cause any disturbance for our country. So that was a — because he wouldn’t have had to resign. I would not have asked him. I don’t know him. I didn’t speak to him. But he did that, I think, just to end — end that problem. And I think in one — in really many ways, that was a very unselfish thing for him to do.
Q What should happen now to Commander Crozier, who left —
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they’re going to look at that. I think Secretary of Defense, as you know, is — is — you know Mark Esper, and he’s very capable. And I think he’s looking at that right now. They’re — they’re going to just take it under regular Navy channels to see what they want to do.
But he made a mistake, but he shouldn’t have done that. And your Secretary probably shouldn’t have said quite what he said. He didn’t have to resign, but he felt it would be better for the country. So I — you know, I think it’s — it will end it quickly.
Yes, please.
{snip}
Yeah, please.
Q Thank you, sir. Did you see these memos that reportedly Peter Navarro wrote back in January? When did you see them? And how does that — these memos sort of square with what you’ve often said that nobody could’ve predicted this. It sounds like he was predicting it.
THE PRESIDENT: I didn’t see them, but I heard he wrote some memos talking about pandemic. I didn’t see them. I didn’t look for them either.
But that was about the same time as I felt that we should do it. We — that was about the same time that I closed it down. I asked him about it just a little while ago, because I read something about a memo. I said, “Did you do a memo?” I didn’t look for — I didn’t see it. I didn’t ask him to show it to me. He said, “Yes, I talked about the possibility of a pandemic.” Nobody said it’s going to happen, but, you know, there is a possibility. There always has been a possibility, but people wouldn’t talk about it.
But it was right about the time that I closed it down. And interestingly, the World Health Organization was not in favor of us closing it down. And if we didn’t close it down, we would have lost hundreds of thousands more lives. So, we did a good thing. We did a good thing.
Yeah, please.
Q So at the time, though, when — when Peter Navarro did circulate those memos, you were still downplaying the threat of coronavirus in the U.S. You were saying things like, “I think it’s a problem that’s going to go away within a couple of days.”
THE PRESIDENT: Which I’m right about. It did go — it will go away.
Q You said, “Within a couple of days, the cases will be down to zero.”
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the cases really didn’t build up for a while. But you have to understand, I’m a cheerleader for this country. I don’t want to create havoc and shock and everything else, but ultimately, when I was saying that, I’m also closing it down. I obviously was concerned about it because I closed down our country to China, which was heavily infected.
I then closed it down to Europe. That’s a big move –closing it down from China and then closing it down from Europe, and then, ultimately, closing it down to the U.K. So — and it was right about that time. But I’m not going to go out and start screaming, “This could happen. This could happen.”
So, again, as President, I think a president has to be a cheerleader for their country. But at the same time I’m cheerleading, I’m also closing down a very highly infected place, specifically the location, as you know, in China that had the problems. And we’re closing it down, but we closed it down to all of China, then we closed it down to all of Europe. Those were big moves, and it was right about that time.
Q Sir, just a quick — just a quick follow-up, Mr. President. Mr. President —
Q Can you just clarify: Did you just learned about this today?
THE PRESIDENT: Say it?
Q You learned about the memo today?
THE PRESIDENT: I read about it maybe a day ago, two days ago.
Q You feel like someone in your — among your staff or Peter Navarro himself should have told you about the memo earlier?
THE PRESIDENT: No, not at all. It was a recommendation. It was a feeling that he had. I think he told certain people in the staff, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t see it, but I did — I closed it down. I don’t remember it even being discussed.
We had a meeting where there were a lot of people. Most people felt they should not close it down — that we shouldn’t close down to China. But I felt we had to do it. And that was at almost the exact same time as the memo.
Q If you had read the memo at the time, how would that have changed the steps you took or the statements that you made around the time about the dangers of the virus?
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t think it would’ve changed, because I did — I basically did what the memo said. And the memo was — you know, the memo was a pretty good memo, from the standpoint that he talked. I guess, I didn’t see it yet.
Q He was seeing that the U.S. would — warning that the U.S. could lose trillions of dollars and millions of lives.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you’re not going to lose millions of lives, but you’ll lose plenty of money. But I couldn’t have done it any better because it was about the same time, and I closed it down to China.
Q And just lastly, so you maintain confidence in him, in Peter Navarro?
THE PRESIDENT: Of course, I maintain con- — he wrote a memo and he was right. And I haven’t seen the memo. I’ll see it later on after this, but it didn’t matter whether I saw it or not, because I — I acted on my own. I guess I had the same instincts as Peter. Peter is a smart guy and he’s a good guy, and he’s done a wonderful job. But he wrote a memo and, I guess, he talked to various people about it.
But ultimately, I did what the memo — more or less what the memo said just about the time the memo came out. I closed it down. I took a lot of heat. The World — you know — Health Organization was very much against. They didn’t like it. They actually put out statements about it.
In all fairness to Joe Biden, he called me xenophobic, like I don’t like China. I like China. I like — the Chinese people are phenomenal people. So, I was called xenophobic, I was called racist. “How could I do a thing like this?”
Now, since then, Joe said that he was wrong, and he said that I was right. But I closed it down, and I was called names by some of the morning show hosts who don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. They’re not smart people. And I was called all sorts of names when I closed it down to China. Now they try and hide that — you know, the tape of them saying terrible things. But that was a great decision.
If I didn’t do it — if I didn’t do that, we would’ve had hundreds of thousands more people dying.
Yeah, please.
Q You talked a lot about the WHO, and I was wondering — Dr. Fauci had discussed them earlier, so if I could ask you a question about that.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, he respects the WHO, and I think that’s — that’s good. And he’s worked with them for a long time. But they did give us some pretty bad play calling.
Q But they’ve also, I think, given lots of countries in the world accurate coronavirus testing that’s been central to your guys’ data modeling. And so, I’m —
THE PRESIDENT: Well, that, I don’t know. I can only say that, with regard to us, they’re taking a lot of heat because they didn’t want the borders closed; they called it wrong. They called — they really called, I would say, every aspect of it wrong.
Q So say that the funding freeze does not — doesn’t —
THE PRESIDENT: No, I’m not happy about it. Look, we fund it. Take a look. I mean, go through step by step. They said there’s no big deal, there’s no big problem, there’s no nothing. And then, ultimately, when I closed it down, they actually said that I made a mistake in closing it down. And it was — it turned out to be right. But at the time they — you know, they did that.
So we’re just going to take a look at it. You know, we fund it. And — and they seem to be — you know, I said recently — and social media said, “They seem to be very China-centric.” That’s a nice way of saying it. But they seem to be very China-centric.
Q But if your public health advisors are telling you —
THE PRESIDENT: And they seem to err always on the side of China, and we fund it. You know, so I want to look into it.
Yes, please.
Q Thanks. A quick follow-up on that. So is the time to freeze funding to the WHO during a pandemic of this magnitude?
THE PRESIDENT: No, maybe not. I mean, I’m not saying I’m going to do it, but we’re going to look at it.
Q You did say that you’re going to —
THE PRESIDENT: We give a tremendous —
Q You said you’d put a hold on it.
THE PRESIDENT: No, I didn’t. I said we’re going to look at it. We’re going to investigate it. We’re going to look at it. But we will look at ending funding.
Q And to —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, because you know what? They called it wrong. And if you look back over the years even, they’re very much — everything seems to be very biased toward China. That’s not right.
{snip}
Yeah.
Q Thank you. And my second question from a colleague is: Congressman Gerry Connolly, a Democrat from Northern Virginia, told the local D.C. CBS station that you personally requested the CARES Act stimulus bill be stripped of $25 billion for the Postal Service. Connolly claims that unless the USPS gets that $25 billion, the agency will be run out of money by June. He accuses you of hastening the demise of the Postal Service. Could you respond to that, please?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the biggest — oh, I’m the reason the Postal Service — the Postal Service has lost billions of dollars every year for many, many years. So I’m the demise? This is a new one. I’m now the demise of the Postal Service.
I’ll tell you who’s the demise of the Postal Service are these Internet companies that give their stuff to the Postal Service — packages. And I don’t know why they’re not — you know, I don’t run the Postal Service. You have a group of people, so-called “independent” people, and they run it.
But these packages are — they deliver — they lose money every time they deliver a package for Amazon or these other Internet companies, these other companies that deliver. They drop everything in the Post Office and they say, “You deliver it.” And if they’d raise the prices by actually a lot, then you’d find out that the Post Office could make money or break even. But they don’t do that. And I’m trying to figure out why.
These are independent boards. They were appointed by other administrations. They’re, sort of, long term. They’re there for a long time. And I’ve been talking to them also. You can look it up. Take a look. They should raise — they have to raise the prices to these companies that walk in and drop thousands of packages on the floor of the Post Office and say, “Deliver it.” And they make money, but the Post Office gets killed. Okay? So they ought to do that, and we’re looking into it. And we’ve been pushing them now for over a year.
And you know that because you’ve seen the stories. I’m pushing them. It’s not fair for them to — these great, wonderful, modern companies, they walk into our old Post Office with all these routes that could never be built; you could never build them. They go into areas that you could never do, and they say, “Here. Deliver this.” And they lose a lot of money per package. And they have to raise their prices, but this Postal Commission doesn’t do it. Now, we just got a chance to appoint a couple of people onto the Commission, as I understand it, and that’s good. But they have to raise their prices; otherwise, they’re just going to lose a lot of money.
And tell your Democrat friend that he ought to focus on that, because if he focused on that, he could truly save the Post Office. The Post Office has been losing billions of dollars a year for many, many years. And have him take a look at that, because that’s the way to solve the problem.
Q Thank you so much, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Please. Go ahead.
Q Thank you so much. Mr. President, you say this week will be very painful, very difficult. But a few weeks ago, you said this was just like a flu. What have you learned —
THE PRESIDENT: I didn’t say two weeks ago it was a flu.
Q A few weeks ago.
THE PRESIDENT: No — you know what? Can I tell you what?
Q The question is, Mr. President, what have you learned —
THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me. Ready?
Q — that you could offer as advice to foreign leaders who are still skeptical about this pandemic and who are against social distancing? What is your advice? What have you learned?
THE PRESIDENT: Okay. You said I said it was just like a flu.
So the worst pandemic we ever had in this world was a flu, and it was called — you know that. It was in 1917, 1918. And anywhere from 50- to 100 million people died. That was a flu, okay? So, you could say that I said it was a flu or you could say — the flu is nothing to sneeze at.
Q But my question, Mr. President: What can you offer as advice to foreign leaders who are skeptical about this pandemic and who are against social distancing?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think there aren’t too many of them. If you look throughout the world, and everyone — just about everyone that has practiced that is now closing up. Well, the U.K. was an example.
Now, they talk about Sweden, but Sweden is suffering very gravely. You know that, right? Sweden did that. “The herd.” They call it “the herd.” Sweden is suffering very, very badly. It’s a way of doing it, but the — you know, everybody has been watching everybody else. And so far, almost every country has done it the way we’ve done it — we’ve chosen to do it. If we didn’t do it that way, we would have lost hundreds of thousands of more people. Okay?
Q Mr. President, there’s voting going on today in Wisconsin. There were reports of thousands of people waiting in hours-long lines as they’ve had to weigh their own personal health and their civic responsibility. What — do think that the Supreme Court was right in its decision, sir, that voting should go forward and that the absentee extension should not take place?
THE PRESIDENT: Of course they were right. Yeah. Look, the Supreme Court — well, of course they were right, because what the Democrats wanted — and you know why this happened. I supported a man named Justice Kelly, who’s — Daniel Kelly, highly respected justice. And I supported him just the other day — social media. I know of him. He’s a — just a, you know, fantastic judge, justice. And I endorsed him.
And as soon as I endorsed him, they wanted to move the election. They didn’t want to move the election. As soon as I endorsed him, the Wisconsin Democrats say, “Oh, let’s move the election to two months later.” They didn’t mind having the election until I endorsed him, which is very interesting.
Now they talk about, “Oh, safety, safety.” Well, it was 15 minutes after I put out an endorsement that they said, “We have to move the election.” They didn’t want to move the election before that. The other thing they wanted to do — which is crazy — at the end of the election, they wanted to have one week for proxies to come in or mailed ballots.
Now, mail ballots — they cheat. Okay? People cheat. Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country, because they’re cheaters. They go and collect them. They’re fraudulent in many cases. You got to vote. And they should have voter ID, by the way. If you want to really do it right, you have voter ID.
But the Democrats — and this was turned over in the Supreme Court yesterday; I give great credit to the court — they actually didn’t want to have an Election Day. They wanted to have Election Day, and then a week after Election Day, you choose your cand- — but all of these ballots come in. These mailed ballots come in. The mailed ballots are corrupt, in my opinion. And they collect them, and they get people to go in and sign them. And then they — they’re forgeries in many cases. It’s a horrible thing.
And so what happened is, the Democrats in Wisconsin, they had no problem with the election being today, until I endorsed the Republican candidate, Justice Kelly — Daniel Kelly. And as soon as I endorsed him, they went crazy. They went crazy. And you know that’s true. And now all of a sudden —
Because — go back two weeks, go back two days: They didn’t want to move the election. They were having the election. They were fine because they thought they were going to win the election. Then I endorsed him, and all of a sudden they think they’re not. Now I understand there are lines that go back a long way. I hope they’re going to vote for Justice Kelly. Okay?
Q Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.
Q With millions of pills of hydroxychloroquine donated, is there a plan or system in place —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
Q — to track the potential side effects?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
Q There have been reports —
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you saw the representative —
Q — of serious harm.
THE PRESIDENT: Look — look, is there a plan that —
Q So is there a plan to track the side effects of the clinical trials?
THE PRESIDENT: The side effects? The side effects are the least of it. You have people dying all over the place. And generally, the side effects are really with the Z-Pak having to do with the heart. The Z-Pak — that’s the antibiotic. Not with the hydroxychloroquine.
So, a woman last night — I watched her on one of the shows — a good show; Laura — and she was — she thought she was dead. She was a representative from Michigan. She was just in horrible shape for 12 days, 14 days. She thought she was dead. I think she said that her doctor said she’s — you know, it’s going to be very tough.
She saw me talking about this, and she asked her husband to go to the drugstore. Now, this is a Democrat representative — a person that, you know, perhaps wouldn’t be voting for me. I think she’ll be voting for me now, even if she’s a Democrat, even if she’s a Democrat representative.
And they went to the store — which I made available, because we have millions of doses. We have, I think, 29 million doses of this drug. And she asked her husband. She said, “Please go out. I’m not going to make it.” You have to hear her story. “Please go out. Get it.” He went at 10 o’clock in the evening to the drugstore. He got it. He gave it to her.
Now, you know, it’s — I don’t say it works like this at all. Four hours later, she awoke and she said, “I feel better.” And then shortly thereafter, she felt great. This a woman that thought she was going to die. It’s — I mean, she’s a Democrat representative, a highly respected woman, African American woman. I don’t know if you saw it. You asked a question about African American.
Q I did — I did see.
{That's enough. Snip the rest.}
END 7:27 P.M. EDT
Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing | April 7, 2020
HEALTHCARE
Issued on: April 7, 2020
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
5:43 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Today, we continue to send our love to the great people of New York and New Jersey. We support them fully. We grieve alongside every family who has lost a precious loved one. New Yorkers are tough and strong and brave. New Jerseyites are tough and strong and brave, and they’re being hit very hard right now. And for the next week, hopefully not much longer than that, it’s going to start to go in the other direction.
Our country is being hit hard, but some areas have done so incredibly well. We’re so proud of them. They will beat this virus. We’re going to beat it with the grit and the heart for which they’re known and for which our country is known. And we appreciate everything that everybody is doing.
{snip}
On Thursday, I’ll be speaking to leaders and advocates from the mental health organizations all across our country. And we are going to be talking about resources and tools that we’ll make available to them. They need help. And it’s a big problem.
When you take something where it was the most successful country in the world — still is — the whole world is shut down. Think of it: We’re down to numbers that are incredible.
{snip}
The WHO, that’s the World Health Organization, receives vast amounts of money from the United States. And we pay for a majority — biggest portion of their money. And they actually criticized and disagreed with my travel ban at the time I did it. And they were wrong. They’ve been wrong about a lot of things. And they had a lot of information early and they didn’t want to — they’re very — they seem to be very China-centric. And we have to look into that. So we’re going to look into it.
We pay for — we give a majority of the money that they get. And it’s much more than that the 58. Fifty-eight million dollars is a small portion of what they’ve gotten over the years. Sometimes they get much more than that. Sometimes it’s for programs that they’re doing, and — and it’s much bigger numbers. And if the programs are good, that’s great, as far as we’re concerned.
But we want to look into it — World Health Organization — because they really are — they called it wrong. They called it wrong. They really — they missed the call. They could have called it months earlier. They would have known, and they should have known. And they probably did know, so we’ll be looking into that very carefully.
And we’re going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO. We’re going to put a very powerful hold on it, and we’re going to see. It’s a great thing if it works, but when they call every shot wrong, that’s no good.
We’re in the midst of a great national struggle, one that requires the shared sacrifice of all Americans. In recent weeks, it’s been remarkable to see so many companies and organizations and individuals, like the banks that I just told you about — biggest banks in the world. They stepped up to help small business. They have big business, small business. The small business will someday be the big business. But the small business is 50 percent of our economic strength. People don’t realize when you add them up, but they just — they just rose to the occasion. Everybody is rising to the occasion. It’s been incredible to watch.
{snip}
If you look at the original projections: If we did nothing, it would be disastrous. If we — we decided to do something. We closed it down; had no choice. It was a good move. That was a good move. The early China move was a good move. The early Europe move was a good move. Made a lot of good moves. But closing it down was a big statement. It was a big, important thing.
{snip}
Steve, please.
Q The Acting Navy Secretary submitted his resignation today — Modly. Why did that become necessary? And what — what role did you have in this, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I had no role in it. I’ve heard — I don’t know him, but I’ve heard he was a very good man. And it was a — the whole thing was a very unfortunate — the captain should not have written a letter. He didn’t have to be Ernest Hemingway. He made a mistake, but he had a bad day. And I hate seeing bad things happen. The man made a mistake.
But, you know, you shouldn’t be writing letters and you should — you’re in the military. You’re the captain of a great ship, and you shouldn’t be writing letters and sending them to many people and then it gets out to the media. And, you know, the question is, “How did it get out to the media?” So there’s a lot of bad things happened there.
And I had heard he did because he didn’t want to cause any disturbance for our country. So that was a — because he wouldn’t have had to resign. I would not have asked him. I don’t know him. I didn’t speak to him. But he did that, I think, just to end — end that problem. And I think in one — in really many ways, that was a very unselfish thing for him to do.
Q What should happen now to Commander Crozier, who left —
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they’re going to look at that. I think Secretary of Defense, as you know, is — is — you know Mark Esper, and he’s very capable. And I think he’s looking at that right now. They’re — they’re going to just take it under regular Navy channels to see what they want to do.
But he made a mistake, but he shouldn’t have done that. And your Secretary probably shouldn’t have said quite what he said. He didn’t have to resign, but he felt it would be better for the country. So I — you know, I think it’s — it will end it quickly.
Yes, please.
{snip}
Yeah, please.
Q Thank you, sir. Did you see these memos that reportedly Peter Navarro wrote back in January? When did you see them? And how does that — these memos sort of square with what you’ve often said that nobody could’ve predicted this. It sounds like he was predicting it.
THE PRESIDENT: I didn’t see them, but I heard he wrote some memos talking about pandemic. I didn’t see them. I didn’t look for them either.
But that was about the same time as I felt that we should do it. We — that was about the same time that I closed it down. I asked him about it just a little while ago, because I read something about a memo. I said, “Did you do a memo?” I didn’t look for — I didn’t see it. I didn’t ask him to show it to me. He said, “Yes, I talked about the possibility of a pandemic.” Nobody said it’s going to happen, but, you know, there is a possibility. There always has been a possibility, but people wouldn’t talk about it.
But it was right about the time that I closed it down. And interestingly, the World Health Organization was not in favor of us closing it down. And if we didn’t close it down, we would have lost hundreds of thousands more lives. So, we did a good thing. We did a good thing.
Yeah, please.
Q So at the time, though, when — when Peter Navarro did circulate those memos, you were still downplaying the threat of coronavirus in the U.S. You were saying things like, “I think it’s a problem that’s going to go away within a couple of days.”
THE PRESIDENT: Which I’m right about. It did go — it will go away.
Q You said, “Within a couple of days, the cases will be down to zero.”
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the cases really didn’t build up for a while. But you have to understand, I’m a cheerleader for this country. I don’t want to create havoc and shock and everything else, but ultimately, when I was saying that, I’m also closing it down. I obviously was concerned about it because I closed down our country to China, which was heavily infected.
I then closed it down to Europe. That’s a big move –closing it down from China and then closing it down from Europe, and then, ultimately, closing it down to the U.K. So — and it was right about that time. But I’m not going to go out and start screaming, “This could happen. This could happen.”
So, again, as President, I think a president has to be a cheerleader for their country. But at the same time I’m cheerleading, I’m also closing down a very highly infected place, specifically the location, as you know, in China that had the problems. And we’re closing it down, but we closed it down to all of China, then we closed it down to all of Europe. Those were big moves, and it was right about that time.
Q Sir, just a quick — just a quick follow-up, Mr. President. Mr. President —
Q Can you just clarify: Did you just learned about this today?
THE PRESIDENT: Say it?
Q You learned about the memo today?
THE PRESIDENT: I read about it maybe a day ago, two days ago.
Q You feel like someone in your — among your staff or Peter Navarro himself should have told you about the memo earlier?
THE PRESIDENT: No, not at all. It was a recommendation. It was a feeling that he had. I think he told certain people in the staff, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t see it, but I did — I closed it down. I don’t remember it even being discussed.
We had a meeting where there were a lot of people. Most people felt they should not close it down — that we shouldn’t close down to China. But I felt we had to do it. And that was at almost the exact same time as the memo.
Q If you had read the memo at the time, how would that have changed the steps you took or the statements that you made around the time about the dangers of the virus?
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t think it would’ve changed, because I did — I basically did what the memo said. And the memo was — you know, the memo was a pretty good memo, from the standpoint that he talked. I guess, I didn’t see it yet.
Q He was seeing that the U.S. would — warning that the U.S. could lose trillions of dollars and millions of lives.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you’re not going to lose millions of lives, but you’ll lose plenty of money. But I couldn’t have done it any better because it was about the same time, and I closed it down to China.
Q And just lastly, so you maintain confidence in him, in Peter Navarro?
THE PRESIDENT: Of course, I maintain con- — he wrote a memo and he was right. And I haven’t seen the memo. I’ll see it later on after this, but it didn’t matter whether I saw it or not, because I — I acted on my own. I guess I had the same instincts as Peter. Peter is a smart guy and he’s a good guy, and he’s done a wonderful job. But he wrote a memo and, I guess, he talked to various people about it.
But ultimately, I did what the memo — more or less what the memo said just about the time the memo came out. I closed it down. I took a lot of heat. The World — you know — Health Organization was very much against. They didn’t like it. They actually put out statements about it.
In all fairness to Joe Biden, he called me xenophobic, like I don’t like China. I like China. I like — the Chinese people are phenomenal people. So, I was called xenophobic, I was called racist. “How could I do a thing like this?”
Now, since then, Joe said that he was wrong, and he said that I was right. But I closed it down, and I was called names by some of the morning show hosts who don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. They’re not smart people. And I was called all sorts of names when I closed it down to China. Now they try and hide that — you know, the tape of them saying terrible things. But that was a great decision.
If I didn’t do it — if I didn’t do that, we would’ve had hundreds of thousands more people dying.
Yeah, please.
Q You talked a lot about the WHO, and I was wondering — Dr. Fauci had discussed them earlier, so if I could ask you a question about that.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, he respects the WHO, and I think that’s — that’s good. And he’s worked with them for a long time. But they did give us some pretty bad play calling.
Q But they’ve also, I think, given lots of countries in the world accurate coronavirus testing that’s been central to your guys’ data modeling. And so, I’m —
THE PRESIDENT: Well, that, I don’t know. I can only say that, with regard to us, they’re taking a lot of heat because they didn’t want the borders closed; they called it wrong. They called — they really called, I would say, every aspect of it wrong.
Q So say that the funding freeze does not — doesn’t —
THE PRESIDENT: No, I’m not happy about it. Look, we fund it. Take a look. I mean, go through step by step. They said there’s no big deal, there’s no big problem, there’s no nothing. And then, ultimately, when I closed it down, they actually said that I made a mistake in closing it down. And it was — it turned out to be right. But at the time they — you know, they did that.
So we’re just going to take a look at it. You know, we fund it. And — and they seem to be — you know, I said recently — and social media said, “They seem to be very China-centric.” That’s a nice way of saying it. But they seem to be very China-centric.
Q But if your public health advisors are telling you —
THE PRESIDENT: And they seem to err always on the side of China, and we fund it. You know, so I want to look into it.
Yes, please.
Q Thanks. A quick follow-up on that. So is the time to freeze funding to the WHO during a pandemic of this magnitude?
THE PRESIDENT: No, maybe not. I mean, I’m not saying I’m going to do it, but we’re going to look at it.
Q You did say that you’re going to —
THE PRESIDENT: We give a tremendous —
Q You said you’d put a hold on it.
THE PRESIDENT: No, I didn’t. I said we’re going to look at it. We’re going to investigate it. We’re going to look at it. But we will look at ending funding.
Q And to —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, because you know what? They called it wrong. And if you look back over the years even, they’re very much — everything seems to be very biased toward China. That’s not right.
{snip}
Yeah.
Q Thank you. And my second question from a colleague is: Congressman Gerry Connolly, a Democrat from Northern Virginia, told the local D.C. CBS station that you personally requested the CARES Act stimulus bill be stripped of $25 billion for the Postal Service. Connolly claims that unless the USPS gets that $25 billion, the agency will be run out of money by June. He accuses you of hastening the demise of the Postal Service. Could you respond to that, please?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the biggest — oh, I’m the reason the Postal Service — the Postal Service has lost billions of dollars every year for many, many years. So I’m the demise? This is a new one. I’m now the demise of the Postal Service.
I’ll tell you who’s the demise of the Postal Service are these Internet companies that give their stuff to the Postal Service — packages. And I don’t know why they’re not — you know, I don’t run the Postal Service. You have a group of people, so-called “independent” people, and they run it.
But these packages are — they deliver — they lose money every time they deliver a package for Amazon or these other Internet companies, these other companies that deliver. They drop everything in the Post Office and they say, “You deliver it.” And if they’d raise the prices by actually a lot, then you’d find out that the Post Office could make money or break even. But they don’t do that. And I’m trying to figure out why.
These are independent boards. They were appointed by other administrations. They’re, sort of, long term. They’re there for a long time. And I’ve been talking to them also. You can look it up. Take a look. They should raise — they have to raise the prices to these companies that walk in and drop thousands of packages on the floor of the Post Office and say, “Deliver it.” And they make money, but the Post Office gets killed. Okay? So they ought to do that, and we’re looking into it. And we’ve been pushing them now for over a year.
And you know that because you’ve seen the stories. I’m pushing them. It’s not fair for them to — these great, wonderful, modern companies, they walk into our old Post Office with all these routes that could never be built; you could never build them. They go into areas that you could never do, and they say, “Here. Deliver this.” And they lose a lot of money per package. And they have to raise their prices, but this Postal Commission doesn’t do it. Now, we just got a chance to appoint a couple of people onto the Commission, as I understand it, and that’s good. But they have to raise their prices; otherwise, they’re just going to lose a lot of money.
And tell your Democrat friend that he ought to focus on that, because if he focused on that, he could truly save the Post Office. The Post Office has been losing billions of dollars a year for many, many years. And have him take a look at that, because that’s the way to solve the problem.
Q Thank you so much, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Please. Go ahead.
Q Thank you so much. Mr. President, you say this week will be very painful, very difficult. But a few weeks ago, you said this was just like a flu. What have you learned —
THE PRESIDENT: I didn’t say two weeks ago it was a flu.
Q A few weeks ago.
THE PRESIDENT: No — you know what? Can I tell you what?
Q The question is, Mr. President, what have you learned —
THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me. Ready?
Q — that you could offer as advice to foreign leaders who are still skeptical about this pandemic and who are against social distancing? What is your advice? What have you learned?
THE PRESIDENT: Okay. You said I said it was just like a flu.
So the worst pandemic we ever had in this world was a flu, and it was called — you know that. It was in 1917, 1918. And anywhere from 50- to 100 million people died. That was a flu, okay? So, you could say that I said it was a flu or you could say — the flu is nothing to sneeze at.
Q But my question, Mr. President: What can you offer as advice to foreign leaders who are skeptical about this pandemic and who are against social distancing?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think there aren’t too many of them. If you look throughout the world, and everyone — just about everyone that has practiced that is now closing up. Well, the U.K. was an example.
Now, they talk about Sweden, but Sweden is suffering very gravely. You know that, right? Sweden did that. “The herd.” They call it “the herd.” Sweden is suffering very, very badly. It’s a way of doing it, but the — you know, everybody has been watching everybody else. And so far, almost every country has done it the way we’ve done it — we’ve chosen to do it. If we didn’t do it that way, we would have lost hundreds of thousands of more people. Okay?
Q Mr. President, there’s voting going on today in Wisconsin. There were reports of thousands of people waiting in hours-long lines as they’ve had to weigh their own personal health and their civic responsibility. What — do think that the Supreme Court was right in its decision, sir, that voting should go forward and that the absentee extension should not take place?
THE PRESIDENT: Of course they were right. Yeah. Look, the Supreme Court — well, of course they were right, because what the Democrats wanted — and you know why this happened. I supported a man named Justice Kelly, who’s — Daniel Kelly, highly respected justice. And I supported him just the other day — social media. I know of him. He’s a — just a, you know, fantastic judge, justice. And I endorsed him.
And as soon as I endorsed him, they wanted to move the election. They didn’t want to move the election. As soon as I endorsed him, the Wisconsin Democrats say, “Oh, let’s move the election to two months later.” They didn’t mind having the election until I endorsed him, which is very interesting.
Now they talk about, “Oh, safety, safety.” Well, it was 15 minutes after I put out an endorsement that they said, “We have to move the election.” They didn’t want to move the election before that. The other thing they wanted to do — which is crazy — at the end of the election, they wanted to have one week for proxies to come in or mailed ballots.
Now, mail ballots — they cheat. Okay? People cheat. Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country, because they’re cheaters. They go and collect them. They’re fraudulent in many cases. You got to vote. And they should have voter ID, by the way. If you want to really do it right, you have voter ID.
But the Democrats — and this was turned over in the Supreme Court yesterday; I give great credit to the court — they actually didn’t want to have an Election Day. They wanted to have Election Day, and then a week after Election Day, you choose your cand- — but all of these ballots come in. These mailed ballots come in. The mailed ballots are corrupt, in my opinion. And they collect them, and they get people to go in and sign them. And then they — they’re forgeries in many cases. It’s a horrible thing.
And so what happened is, the Democrats in Wisconsin, they had no problem with the election being today, until I endorsed the Republican candidate, Justice Kelly — Daniel Kelly. And as soon as I endorsed him, they went crazy. They went crazy. And you know that’s true. And now all of a sudden —
Because — go back two weeks, go back two days: They didn’t want to move the election. They were having the election. They were fine because they thought they were going to win the election. Then I endorsed him, and all of a sudden they think they’re not. Now I understand there are lines that go back a long way. I hope they’re going to vote for Justice Kelly. Okay?
Q Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.
Q With millions of pills of hydroxychloroquine donated, is there a plan or system in place —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
Q — to track the potential side effects?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
Q There have been reports —
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you saw the representative —
Q — of serious harm.
THE PRESIDENT: Look — look, is there a plan that —
Q So is there a plan to track the side effects of the clinical trials?
THE PRESIDENT: The side effects? The side effects are the least of it. You have people dying all over the place. And generally, the side effects are really with the Z-Pak having to do with the heart. The Z-Pak — that’s the antibiotic. Not with the hydroxychloroquine.
So, a woman last night — I watched her on one of the shows — a good show; Laura — and she was — she thought she was dead. She was a representative from Michigan. She was just in horrible shape for 12 days, 14 days. She thought she was dead. I think she said that her doctor said she’s — you know, it’s going to be very tough.
She saw me talking about this, and she asked her husband to go to the drugstore. Now, this is a Democrat representative — a person that, you know, perhaps wouldn’t be voting for me. I think she’ll be voting for me now, even if she’s a Democrat, even if she’s a Democrat representative.
And they went to the store — which I made available, because we have millions of doses. We have, I think, 29 million doses of this drug. And she asked her husband. She said, “Please go out. I’m not going to make it.” You have to hear her story. “Please go out. Get it.” He went at 10 o’clock in the evening to the drugstore. He got it. He gave it to her.
Now, you know, it’s — I don’t say it works like this at all. Four hours later, she awoke and she said, “I feel better.” And then shortly thereafter, she felt great. This a woman that thought she was going to die. It’s — I mean, she’s a Democrat representative, a highly respected woman, African American woman. I don’t know if you saw it. You asked a question about African American.
Q I did — I did see.
{That's enough. Snip the rest.}
END 7:27 P.M. EDT
1 replies
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worse is a lying, ignorant , narcissistic, compromised illiterate.