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Trump's Remarks at Signing of a Proclamation in Honor of National Nurses Day
Today's word salad is brought to you by the words"fantastic" and "incredible."
REMARKS
Remarks by President Trump at Signing of a Proclamation in Honor of National Nurses Day
HEALTHCARE
Issued on: May 6, 2020
Oval Office
1:01 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. It’s my honor to welcome so many extraordinary nursing professionals as we celebrate National Nurses Day. That’s a very important day, and I’ve been talking about it for the last two months, when I watched people running into those hospitals and putting on their outfits, their gowns, their protective gear. And they have nothing on their mind except helping people and making people better. It’s an incredible — incredible.
And you just said, “Thank you for calling us warriors,” but you are warriors. That’s what you are. Incredible warriors.
{snip}
DR. BIRX: I’d be privileged to just speak for a moment because I was raised — my mother was a nurse and still is a nurse at 91. My niece is an ER nurse. And I think what I — I was privileged to be able to talk to these amazing individuals, because they are individuals. Each have an incredible story of what it’s been like in the service of others at the frontline.
{snip}
MS. BARLOW: All the support is fantastic. I was able to leave my home in West Virginia, go to help in New Jersey, which was just completely devastating for me — the loneliness and isolation that our patients and residents felt. And the families, they would stand outside the windows and wave at their family members, just to —
THE PRESIDENT: Incredible.
{snip}
THE PRESIDENT: And we got it built so fast. It was really an incredible mobilization. Not since World War Two has anything happened with not only ventilators, but everything else. Testing is doing really well. And the task force has done a great job.
{snip}
the country?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think people won’t stand for it, actually. I don’t think our people will stand for it. Now, what I really believe you people will be able to do is, at a certain age, they’ll stay back longer. Because, you know, this virus is going to disappear. It’s a question of when. Will it come back in a small way? Will it come back in a fairly large way? But we know how to deal with it now much better. You know, nobody knew anything about it, initially.
Now we know we can put out fires. We can put out — I call them “embers” if it’s a small — or if it’s a fire or a hotspot, we could put it out. But we can’t have our whole country out. We can’t do it. We can’t — the country won’t take it. It won’t stand it. It’s not sustainable. And I think you’re going to have a tremendous transition, which is a third-quarter thing. I think you’re going to have a good fourth quarter. I think next year is going to be an incredible year, economically.
{snip}
Q Quick question, just before we go, because it’s healthcare-related. Today is the deadline for the White House if it wants to modify its argument before the Supreme Court about invalidating Obamacare to do it. Will you continue with the plan to completely invalidate the ACA?
THE PRESIDENT: So what we want to do is we want to —
Q Or would you want Attorney General Barr —
THE PRESIDENT: We’re staying — we’re not doing another thing. In other words, we’re staying with the group — with Texas and the group. But just so you understand, Obamacare is a disaster, but we’ve run it very well. And we’ve made it barely acceptable. It was a disaster under President Obama, and it’s very bad healthcare. What we want to do is terminate it and give great healthcare. And we’ll have great healthcare, including preexisting conditions — 100 percent preexisting conditions.
Now, we’ve already pretty much killed it because we got rid of the individual mandate. Now, in getting rid of the individual mandate, which was, by far, the most unpopular thing in Obamacare — that’s where, for the privilege of paying a fee, you don’t have to — you don’t have buy health insurance at a ridiculous price for not good health insurance. It was a terrible thing. You mandated to pay something in order not to pay, and we got rid of that. That’s gone. And nobody thinks it’s ever going to come back.
But what we are doing is we want to terminate healthcare for — under Obamacare, because it’s bad, and we’re replacing it with a great healthcare at far less money, and it includes preexisting conditions. There will never be a time when we don’t have preexisting conditions included.
Q So —
THE PRESIDENT: So what I’m saying then, John, is we’re going to replace Obamacare with great healthcare at a lesser price, and preexisting conditions will be included and you won’t have the individual mandate — which was expensive and terrible and very unfair to everybody, and it was very unpopular.
Q So Attorney General Barr’s suggestion to pull back on invalidating the act and leave some of it in place, you’re not going to go in that direction?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I don’t know about that suggestion. I think I’ve spoken a lot about this to Bill Barr. And we’re totally in lockstep with all of the many states that want to see much better healthcare. See, I don’t view it as a termination. I view this as getting great healthcare.
Because Obamacare — we run it really well. I had a decision to make. I said this yesterday: We took over Obamacare. We got rid of the individual mandate, which basically was the end of Obamacare. In a formal sense, it was really the end of Obamacare. And few people are challenging the fact that we can do that. So we got rid of the individual mandate.
I had a decision to make: Do I want to have Obamacare run as well as it can run? Or do I want to have it run really badly so everybody can say Obamacare is terrible? Politically, I could do the other. I should do — let it run badly. But I can’t do that because I’m President for the people. And we ran that much better than President Obama ran it, much better than the last administration ran it. Seema and Alex and everybody. And spent a lot of money in running it properly.
It’s still not good. It’s still not good. But I had a decision: Do I want to run it great? Or do I want to run it really badly? Politically, I should’ve run it really badly, but I’m glad I made the decision to run it great. But running it great, it’s still lousy healthcare. And we are going to do something that’s going to be great healthcare, always including, always having — again, the individual mandate gone, and preexisting conditions will be taken care of. So I’m glad you asked me that question.
Q Mr. President, yesterday we went to Arizona, and you had said before the trip that you would likely wear a mask at the mask factory. You ended up not wearing one.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I actually did have one. No. I put a mask —
Q Did you have one on?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. I put — I had a mask on for a period of time.
Q We didn’t see you with a mask on.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I can’t help it if you didn’t see me. I mean, I had a mask on, but I didn’t need it. And I asked specifically the head of Honeywell: “Should I wear a mask?” And he said, “Well, you don’t need one in this territory.” And as you know, we were far away from people, from the people making the masks. They were making the masks.
But I did put a mask on, and it was a Honeywell mask actually. And I also had a 3M mask, and I had about four other masks. But I did have it on. I don’t know if you saw it or not, but I had it on.
Q How long did you have it on, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Not too long, but I had it on. I had it on back — backstage. But they said you didn’t need it, so. If I didn’t need it — and, by the way, if you noticed, nobody else had it on that was in the group.
Q We just saw —
THE PRESIDENT: And they were people —
Q We saw the workers wearing them.
THE PRESIDENT: The workers had them on. Yeah. The workers were there, yeah, because they’re working next to each other. Okay?
Q Mr. President, what kind of message does it send that you’re surrounded by nurses who are not doing social distancing, who are not wearing masks? What kind of a message is that?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I can’t help that. I mean, look, I’m trying to be nice. I’m signing a bill and you criticize us.
Look, here’s the story: There is nothing I can do to satisfy the media, the Democrats, or the fake news, and I understand that. We did the greatest job, mobilization, in history with the ventilators, and I don’t think there was a story what a great job we did.
Now we’re helping Germany and we’re helping many other countries — France, Spain, and Italy, by the way — and Nigeria, sending 250 to Nigeria, ventilators. And two months ago, we didn’t have any ventilators for ourselves. We were — the cupboards were bare. Right, Deborah? They were bare. People have no idea. There’s not a thing I can do to satisfy the fake news, and there’s not a thing I can do to satisfy Democrats.
I watched this phony Chuck Schumer — everyone in New York knows he’s a total phony. He brought nothing back to New York except SALT. You know what SALT is? Bad tax policy. He brought SALT back. He didn’t even fight it. I watched him the other night on a show and all he could talk about was testing, testing, testing. And yet, I showed a chart yesterday where our testing is far superior to anybody else’s testing.
And then the other thing that is very interesting: Because we did so much more testing, we have more cases. If I did little testing, we’d have practically no cases. So the headline was, “We have more cases than anyone else.” Well, China has more cases than us, and other big countries. You know, you’re talking about big countries, but they don’t want to choose — they don’t want to use that. The fact is we’ve done better testing, more testing. In fact, we’ve done, as of two days ago, more testing than the entire world together.
If you would add every country — every country together, we’ve done substantially more testing than the entire world together. And all I’ll get is, “Oh, we have more cases.” You understand that. We have more cases because we do more testing. If I don’t do testing, we don’t have any cases.
So, as I do more testing, they say, “But you have more cases.” They’re very smart, but they’re very devious people. And in many cases, very bad people. And in some cases, very good ones. There’s a couple of good ones here.
Q Could we ask the man who was sleeping on the floor — behind you — a question? Up until recently, we’ve heard a lot of stories of hardships on the frontline owing to a shortage of PPE, masks, that sort of thing. Can you tell us, did it get bad where you were? And what’s the situation now compared to what it was?
MR. ADAMS: Sure. There is always a lag time between what happens in the real time versus when you guys get it and run it, you know. So, the PPE, the ventilator situation, yes, it got to a point where it was getting bad. But manufacturing ramped up, and I think those are two things that we knew we would take care of as a country.
The third thing that we can’t manufacture — and I’ve talked about this before — is a doctor or a nurse or essential personnel. We can’t just manufacture them. So, ultimately, that ended up being the weakest point for us on the frontlines. We had the PPE, we had the ventilators in time, but we just didn’t have enough people. We couldn’t get them there fast enough.
THE PRESIDENT: And one of the things we did is we sent in the military doctors and nurses. And I think most of you have seen them and some of you have worked with them. But they did a fantastic job.
John, we had lot of the military. Like, we took the Comfort — because they didn’t need the ship — and we took the Comfort and we took the doctors and nurses, and we sent them all over New York and New Jersey. And we took doctors and nurses out of the convention center — the Javits Convention Center. And many of them went throughout New York.
So we did a job. And we weren’t even supposed to have doctors in the convention center, but we ended up putting them there. So we had a lot of — because it’s true. Wouldn’t you say? It was right. Man- and woman-power was one of the toughest things.
{snip}
MS. ARVONIO: And, Mr. President, I just wanted to add one thing too. You know, in — in my — because I’m a nursing supervisor where I work at. And one of the blessings I have is my director — my assistant director; his name is Dennis Hunter — he said, “Do you know what? You guys take care of nursing. We’ll make sure we have the supply.”
When we all talk about the fears, it makes it so much worse for us nurses to work. We’re seeing the reality of it, but to hear it on constantly, “There is not enough. There is not enough.” In reality, I’m not seeing it. I’m in a hot zone right now. I’m in South New Jersey, all right? We’re very close to New York (inaudible).
THE PRESIDENT: And so you don’t see that when you hear the stories?
MS. ARVONIO: I’m not seeing it. No.
THE PRESIDENT: You know why? Because they’re fake news. That’s why. (Laughter.)
MS. ARVONIO: I have to say —
THE PRESIDENT: It’s true. I really appreciate you saying that. It’s so nice that you stepped up, because they’re fake news.
Q Respectfully though, sir, at the beginning —
THE PRESIDENT: No, when I — when I took over, it’s different. Now, I will say this: There was a period of time, but between “Russia, Russia, Russia,” and all the stuff that these characters put us through, it’s not so easy. And despite that, I’ve done more than any other President in history in the first three years as President.
Q But what I was going to say —
THE PRESIDENT: And you can look at that from any way you want to look at it: from rebuilding the military, to cutting taxes, to getting rid of regulations at a level that nobody has ever come close to, to saving your Second Amendment, which is under siege, by the way.
So, you know, we’ve done — but I really appreciate your statement. That was really beautiful. And —
Q But just on the issue of masks, I mean, I remember at the beginning of this crisis that —
THE PRESIDENT: Sure.
Q — you all were encouraging —
THE PRESIDENT: That’s right.
Q — people not to —
THE PRESIDENT: We didn’t have enough.
Q — not to wear them in order to have it for the —
THE PRESIDENT: And you’re right, but that was at the —
Q So there was not enough, at the beginning, of PPE.
THE PRESIDENT: You’re right, Jeff. And the reason that we did such a good job is because we were able — now we have factories all over doing masks and building our own masks and doing them. Because a lot of countries — I don’t want to be specific — but they sent us masks which were total garbage and they were defective. And they sent us other equipment, which was defective.
And so now we’re building our own masks. We’re doing our own masks. We’re making them by the millions. And Honeywell in Arizona yesterday was a case in point. And that was some scene. I’ve never seen anything like it.
I didn’t realize, as they put different layers and then they put it together. And each layer has a different function. I mean, you know, it’s not just, like, taking a thing and wrapping it, as we said perhaps you can do in certain conditions, but certainly not inside of a hospital.
But, no, we — we ended up — we had an empty cupboard, and now we have full cupboards. And we have ventilators and we have tremendous testing. And we’re doing the antibodies very shortly, as you probably know. That’s going to also —
I mean, you know, there are a lot of people that don’t believe in such big testing, Deborah. I mean, you know, you have some people that want to test everything — 15 different ways. Mostly, that’s the media because they know, you know, certain things can’t be done. But we have tremendous testing right now.
When you see that chart — I don’t have it with me now; I guess they have it someplace in the room. But when you see the chart that I put up yesterday as I was interviewed by one of your friends on ABC, that chart says it better than anything I can say. You saw the line going. We’re like a rocket ship. Everyone else is down here in testing. And then all they do is complain about the testing.
So, look, you get used to that. But I really appreciate the fact that — what you said. And we do have, we have great — and not only do we have great equipment, but we have the — the quality of what we have is far better than anything that we’re getting, because we see what comes in. The quality of the gowns, the quality of the masks.
We have — as of today, we got one billion gloves. Gloves. One billion. Whoever heard of such a thing? At the beginning, we had none. You know, when this all started, we had none. It’s one of the greatest mobilizations. It’s a war. And it’s one of the greatest mobilizations. So it’s been — it’s been very successful.
{snip}
But other than that, you see how well children seem to do. It’s incredible. We realize how strong children are, right? It’s — their immune system is maybe a little bit different. Maybe it’s just a little bit stronger, or maybe it’s a lot stronger. Right? It could be a lot stronger. We’ve learned a lot by watching this monster.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
END
1:46 P.M. EDT
Remarks by President Trump at Signing of a Proclamation in Honor of National Nurses Day
HEALTHCARE
Issued on: May 6, 2020
Oval Office
1:01 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. It’s my honor to welcome so many extraordinary nursing professionals as we celebrate National Nurses Day. That’s a very important day, and I’ve been talking about it for the last two months, when I watched people running into those hospitals and putting on their outfits, their gowns, their protective gear. And they have nothing on their mind except helping people and making people better. It’s an incredible — incredible.
And you just said, “Thank you for calling us warriors,” but you are warriors. That’s what you are. Incredible warriors.
{snip}
DR. BIRX: I’d be privileged to just speak for a moment because I was raised — my mother was a nurse and still is a nurse at 91. My niece is an ER nurse. And I think what I — I was privileged to be able to talk to these amazing individuals, because they are individuals. Each have an incredible story of what it’s been like in the service of others at the frontline.
{snip}
MS. BARLOW: All the support is fantastic. I was able to leave my home in West Virginia, go to help in New Jersey, which was just completely devastating for me — the loneliness and isolation that our patients and residents felt. And the families, they would stand outside the windows and wave at their family members, just to —
THE PRESIDENT: Incredible.
{snip}
THE PRESIDENT: And we got it built so fast. It was really an incredible mobilization. Not since World War Two has anything happened with not only ventilators, but everything else. Testing is doing really well. And the task force has done a great job.
{snip}
the country?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think people won’t stand for it, actually. I don’t think our people will stand for it. Now, what I really believe you people will be able to do is, at a certain age, they’ll stay back longer. Because, you know, this virus is going to disappear. It’s a question of when. Will it come back in a small way? Will it come back in a fairly large way? But we know how to deal with it now much better. You know, nobody knew anything about it, initially.
Now we know we can put out fires. We can put out — I call them “embers” if it’s a small — or if it’s a fire or a hotspot, we could put it out. But we can’t have our whole country out. We can’t do it. We can’t — the country won’t take it. It won’t stand it. It’s not sustainable. And I think you’re going to have a tremendous transition, which is a third-quarter thing. I think you’re going to have a good fourth quarter. I think next year is going to be an incredible year, economically.
{snip}
Q Quick question, just before we go, because it’s healthcare-related. Today is the deadline for the White House if it wants to modify its argument before the Supreme Court about invalidating Obamacare to do it. Will you continue with the plan to completely invalidate the ACA?
THE PRESIDENT: So what we want to do is we want to —
Q Or would you want Attorney General Barr —
THE PRESIDENT: We’re staying — we’re not doing another thing. In other words, we’re staying with the group — with Texas and the group. But just so you understand, Obamacare is a disaster, but we’ve run it very well. And we’ve made it barely acceptable. It was a disaster under President Obama, and it’s very bad healthcare. What we want to do is terminate it and give great healthcare. And we’ll have great healthcare, including preexisting conditions — 100 percent preexisting conditions.
Now, we’ve already pretty much killed it because we got rid of the individual mandate. Now, in getting rid of the individual mandate, which was, by far, the most unpopular thing in Obamacare — that’s where, for the privilege of paying a fee, you don’t have to — you don’t have buy health insurance at a ridiculous price for not good health insurance. It was a terrible thing. You mandated to pay something in order not to pay, and we got rid of that. That’s gone. And nobody thinks it’s ever going to come back.
But what we are doing is we want to terminate healthcare for — under Obamacare, because it’s bad, and we’re replacing it with a great healthcare at far less money, and it includes preexisting conditions. There will never be a time when we don’t have preexisting conditions included.
Q So —
THE PRESIDENT: So what I’m saying then, John, is we’re going to replace Obamacare with great healthcare at a lesser price, and preexisting conditions will be included and you won’t have the individual mandate — which was expensive and terrible and very unfair to everybody, and it was very unpopular.
Q So Attorney General Barr’s suggestion to pull back on invalidating the act and leave some of it in place, you’re not going to go in that direction?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I don’t know about that suggestion. I think I’ve spoken a lot about this to Bill Barr. And we’re totally in lockstep with all of the many states that want to see much better healthcare. See, I don’t view it as a termination. I view this as getting great healthcare.
Because Obamacare — we run it really well. I had a decision to make. I said this yesterday: We took over Obamacare. We got rid of the individual mandate, which basically was the end of Obamacare. In a formal sense, it was really the end of Obamacare. And few people are challenging the fact that we can do that. So we got rid of the individual mandate.
I had a decision to make: Do I want to have Obamacare run as well as it can run? Or do I want to have it run really badly so everybody can say Obamacare is terrible? Politically, I could do the other. I should do — let it run badly. But I can’t do that because I’m President for the people. And we ran that much better than President Obama ran it, much better than the last administration ran it. Seema and Alex and everybody. And spent a lot of money in running it properly.
It’s still not good. It’s still not good. But I had a decision: Do I want to run it great? Or do I want to run it really badly? Politically, I should’ve run it really badly, but I’m glad I made the decision to run it great. But running it great, it’s still lousy healthcare. And we are going to do something that’s going to be great healthcare, always including, always having — again, the individual mandate gone, and preexisting conditions will be taken care of. So I’m glad you asked me that question.
Q Mr. President, yesterday we went to Arizona, and you had said before the trip that you would likely wear a mask at the mask factory. You ended up not wearing one.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I actually did have one. No. I put a mask —
Q Did you have one on?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. I put — I had a mask on for a period of time.
Q We didn’t see you with a mask on.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I can’t help it if you didn’t see me. I mean, I had a mask on, but I didn’t need it. And I asked specifically the head of Honeywell: “Should I wear a mask?” And he said, “Well, you don’t need one in this territory.” And as you know, we were far away from people, from the people making the masks. They were making the masks.
But I did put a mask on, and it was a Honeywell mask actually. And I also had a 3M mask, and I had about four other masks. But I did have it on. I don’t know if you saw it or not, but I had it on.
Q How long did you have it on, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Not too long, but I had it on. I had it on back — backstage. But they said you didn’t need it, so. If I didn’t need it — and, by the way, if you noticed, nobody else had it on that was in the group.
Q We just saw —
THE PRESIDENT: And they were people —
Q We saw the workers wearing them.
THE PRESIDENT: The workers had them on. Yeah. The workers were there, yeah, because they’re working next to each other. Okay?
Q Mr. President, what kind of message does it send that you’re surrounded by nurses who are not doing social distancing, who are not wearing masks? What kind of a message is that?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I can’t help that. I mean, look, I’m trying to be nice. I’m signing a bill and you criticize us.
Look, here’s the story: There is nothing I can do to satisfy the media, the Democrats, or the fake news, and I understand that. We did the greatest job, mobilization, in history with the ventilators, and I don’t think there was a story what a great job we did.
Now we’re helping Germany and we’re helping many other countries — France, Spain, and Italy, by the way — and Nigeria, sending 250 to Nigeria, ventilators. And two months ago, we didn’t have any ventilators for ourselves. We were — the cupboards were bare. Right, Deborah? They were bare. People have no idea. There’s not a thing I can do to satisfy the fake news, and there’s not a thing I can do to satisfy Democrats.
I watched this phony Chuck Schumer — everyone in New York knows he’s a total phony. He brought nothing back to New York except SALT. You know what SALT is? Bad tax policy. He brought SALT back. He didn’t even fight it. I watched him the other night on a show and all he could talk about was testing, testing, testing. And yet, I showed a chart yesterday where our testing is far superior to anybody else’s testing.
And then the other thing that is very interesting: Because we did so much more testing, we have more cases. If I did little testing, we’d have practically no cases. So the headline was, “We have more cases than anyone else.” Well, China has more cases than us, and other big countries. You know, you’re talking about big countries, but they don’t want to choose — they don’t want to use that. The fact is we’ve done better testing, more testing. In fact, we’ve done, as of two days ago, more testing than the entire world together.
If you would add every country — every country together, we’ve done substantially more testing than the entire world together. And all I’ll get is, “Oh, we have more cases.” You understand that. We have more cases because we do more testing. If I don’t do testing, we don’t have any cases.
So, as I do more testing, they say, “But you have more cases.” They’re very smart, but they’re very devious people. And in many cases, very bad people. And in some cases, very good ones. There’s a couple of good ones here.
Q Could we ask the man who was sleeping on the floor — behind you — a question? Up until recently, we’ve heard a lot of stories of hardships on the frontline owing to a shortage of PPE, masks, that sort of thing. Can you tell us, did it get bad where you were? And what’s the situation now compared to what it was?
MR. ADAMS: Sure. There is always a lag time between what happens in the real time versus when you guys get it and run it, you know. So, the PPE, the ventilator situation, yes, it got to a point where it was getting bad. But manufacturing ramped up, and I think those are two things that we knew we would take care of as a country.
The third thing that we can’t manufacture — and I’ve talked about this before — is a doctor or a nurse or essential personnel. We can’t just manufacture them. So, ultimately, that ended up being the weakest point for us on the frontlines. We had the PPE, we had the ventilators in time, but we just didn’t have enough people. We couldn’t get them there fast enough.
THE PRESIDENT: And one of the things we did is we sent in the military doctors and nurses. And I think most of you have seen them and some of you have worked with them. But they did a fantastic job.
John, we had lot of the military. Like, we took the Comfort — because they didn’t need the ship — and we took the Comfort and we took the doctors and nurses, and we sent them all over New York and New Jersey. And we took doctors and nurses out of the convention center — the Javits Convention Center. And many of them went throughout New York.
So we did a job. And we weren’t even supposed to have doctors in the convention center, but we ended up putting them there. So we had a lot of — because it’s true. Wouldn’t you say? It was right. Man- and woman-power was one of the toughest things.
{snip}
MS. ARVONIO: And, Mr. President, I just wanted to add one thing too. You know, in — in my — because I’m a nursing supervisor where I work at. And one of the blessings I have is my director — my assistant director; his name is Dennis Hunter — he said, “Do you know what? You guys take care of nursing. We’ll make sure we have the supply.”
When we all talk about the fears, it makes it so much worse for us nurses to work. We’re seeing the reality of it, but to hear it on constantly, “There is not enough. There is not enough.” In reality, I’m not seeing it. I’m in a hot zone right now. I’m in South New Jersey, all right? We’re very close to New York (inaudible).
THE PRESIDENT: And so you don’t see that when you hear the stories?
MS. ARVONIO: I’m not seeing it. No.
THE PRESIDENT: You know why? Because they’re fake news. That’s why. (Laughter.)
MS. ARVONIO: I have to say —
THE PRESIDENT: It’s true. I really appreciate you saying that. It’s so nice that you stepped up, because they’re fake news.
Q Respectfully though, sir, at the beginning —
THE PRESIDENT: No, when I — when I took over, it’s different. Now, I will say this: There was a period of time, but between “Russia, Russia, Russia,” and all the stuff that these characters put us through, it’s not so easy. And despite that, I’ve done more than any other President in history in the first three years as President.
Q But what I was going to say —
THE PRESIDENT: And you can look at that from any way you want to look at it: from rebuilding the military, to cutting taxes, to getting rid of regulations at a level that nobody has ever come close to, to saving your Second Amendment, which is under siege, by the way.
So, you know, we’ve done — but I really appreciate your statement. That was really beautiful. And —
Q But just on the issue of masks, I mean, I remember at the beginning of this crisis that —
THE PRESIDENT: Sure.
Q — you all were encouraging —
THE PRESIDENT: That’s right.
Q — people not to —
THE PRESIDENT: We didn’t have enough.
Q — not to wear them in order to have it for the —
THE PRESIDENT: And you’re right, but that was at the —
Q So there was not enough, at the beginning, of PPE.
THE PRESIDENT: You’re right, Jeff. And the reason that we did such a good job is because we were able — now we have factories all over doing masks and building our own masks and doing them. Because a lot of countries — I don’t want to be specific — but they sent us masks which were total garbage and they were defective. And they sent us other equipment, which was defective.
And so now we’re building our own masks. We’re doing our own masks. We’re making them by the millions. And Honeywell in Arizona yesterday was a case in point. And that was some scene. I’ve never seen anything like it.
I didn’t realize, as they put different layers and then they put it together. And each layer has a different function. I mean, you know, it’s not just, like, taking a thing and wrapping it, as we said perhaps you can do in certain conditions, but certainly not inside of a hospital.
But, no, we — we ended up — we had an empty cupboard, and now we have full cupboards. And we have ventilators and we have tremendous testing. And we’re doing the antibodies very shortly, as you probably know. That’s going to also —
I mean, you know, there are a lot of people that don’t believe in such big testing, Deborah. I mean, you know, you have some people that want to test everything — 15 different ways. Mostly, that’s the media because they know, you know, certain things can’t be done. But we have tremendous testing right now.
When you see that chart — I don’t have it with me now; I guess they have it someplace in the room. But when you see the chart that I put up yesterday as I was interviewed by one of your friends on ABC, that chart says it better than anything I can say. You saw the line going. We’re like a rocket ship. Everyone else is down here in testing. And then all they do is complain about the testing.
So, look, you get used to that. But I really appreciate the fact that — what you said. And we do have, we have great — and not only do we have great equipment, but we have the — the quality of what we have is far better than anything that we’re getting, because we see what comes in. The quality of the gowns, the quality of the masks.
We have — as of today, we got one billion gloves. Gloves. One billion. Whoever heard of such a thing? At the beginning, we had none. You know, when this all started, we had none. It’s one of the greatest mobilizations. It’s a war. And it’s one of the greatest mobilizations. So it’s been — it’s been very successful.
{snip}
But other than that, you see how well children seem to do. It’s incredible. We realize how strong children are, right? It’s — their immune system is maybe a little bit different. Maybe it’s just a little bit stronger, or maybe it’s a lot stronger. Right? It could be a lot stronger. We’ve learned a lot by watching this monster.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
END
1:46 P.M. EDT
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