Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Trump's Remarks at Owens & Minor, Inc. Distribution Center, Allentown, PA
REMARKS
Remarks by President Trump at Owens & Minor, Inc. Distribution Center | Allentown, PA
HEALTHCARE
Issued on: May 14, 2020
Owens & Minor, Inc. Distribution Center
Allentown, Pennsylvania
2:56 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, that social distancing. Look at you people all spread out, six feet. That’s pretty impressive. But we like it the old way a little bit better, don’t we?
AUDIENCE: Yeah!
THE PRESIDENT: And we’ll be back. We’ll be back to that soon, I think. I really believe it. And we were received by thousands and thousands of people coming in. And they came in from all over and all the way from the airport to here. It was really something special. So it was really great.
{snip}
But they’re talking about so much of the product now is made in the USA, whereas in the past, it wasn’t. It wasn’t. But they were talking about 90 percent — 80 to 90 percent is made — of what you distribute is now made in the USA, and that’s taken a long while for us to get it. I started that right from the beginning. It’s probably one of the major reasons that I’m here. It’s called “America First.” We want America first. We love the world. We want America first.
Today we’re announcing a groundbreaking initiative to replenish and modernize our Strategic National Stockpile. The cupboards were bare. You’ve heard me say it a lot. When we came into this administration, those cupboards were bare.
{snip}
From the moment this terrible virus reached our shores, each of you has worked relentlessly to get the vital supplies to our healthcare warriors. And they are warriors, aren’t they? When you see them going into those hospitals and they’re putting the stuff that you deliver. But they’re wrapping themselves, and the doors are opening, and they’re going through the doors, and they’re not even ready to go through those doors. They probably shouldn’t. But they can’t get there fast enough.
And they’re running into death just like soldiers run into bullets, in a true sense. I see that with the doctors and the nurses and so many of the people that go into those hospitals. It’s incredible to see. It’s a beautiful thing to see. But I really call them “warriors.” We’re all warriors; everyone in our country is a warrior. We have to be because of what happened. And it should have never happened. It should have been stopped at the source.
{snip}
Every incredible worker here today is part of the greatest mobilization of American society since World War Two. You know that, right? We’ve done things with generators and ventilators and so many different things. We’re making products that nobody ever thought we’d ever need in any mass form.
Ventilators is the biggest thing. We made plenty of ventilators, which was very little in the country, because most hospitals didn’t need very many. And all of a sudden, they said, “We need hundreds of thousands of ventilators. We need the kinds of numbers that you wouldn’t believe.” And we were mobilized, and with Adam and with the Admiral and with all of these people, and Jared — somewhere, Jared is here.
What they did is incredible. We brought geniuses in from Silicon Valley. And all of a sudden, within a short period of time, we had 11 plants out making ventilators. And you wouldn’t believe what it is. And now we’re — we have so many. Every state has more than they need.
We filled up our stockpile. We have over 10,000 now. And we filled it up. We’re ready to go in case anything happens, but I don’t think anything will happen where you’re going to need any more. And we’re now helping other countries with ventilators because nobody can make — you know, you can’t make them. They’re very tough to make, very expensive. They’re — I say it’s tougher than making a car. And we make the best ventilator too.
So we — they’ve done a fantastic job. And two months ago, you couldn’t get a ventilator. We were left virtually none.
Over the past few months, the federal government has partnered with Owens & Minor and other distributors to launch the very successful and historic Project Air Bridge, which is really being thought of and spoken of in glowing terms. Nearly 150 flights have brought 95 million masks, 16 million gowns, and 921 million gloves to America. Can you believe that? Nine hundred and twenty-one million gloves. It’s not even conceivable.
Guided by our team, workers like you distributed over 1 billion pieces of protective gear to places in need. A truly remarkable accomplishment. After meeting the immediate demand, we’ll be transforming and transitioning from Project Air Bridge to Sealift, where we’re using big ships, giant ships. It’s less expensive, and they can carry a lot more. And we don’t need the speed anymore because we’re very stocked up.
Now as our country begins a safe and gradual reopening, we’re launching a monumental effort to replenish and rebuild the Strategic National Stockpile. We also did that, by the way, with fuel. When oil went down, we replenished our Strategic National Reserve.
And we got it for a great price. Would you believe what went on with fuel? But now it’s starting to go back, and we’re saving our energy industry, because people didn’t need too much gasoline when there were no cars on the road. And I said to the governors — I said, “You know, there are no cars on the road. This is a good time to fix your highways. Fix your highways now.” Some did and some didn’t. Right? They didn’t. They were worried that two people working 35 feet away from each other or driving a tractor, or whatever they might be doing, they’ll catch the virus.
But the ones that did were really helped because you went from being these massive traffic jams to having no traffic. And I can tell you Florida was a state. Great governor. And Ron was — was — he told me he; he said, “I’m doing it.” I said, “That’s a good thing.” Not everybody did it. Ron DeSantis of Florida. Governor of Florida.
But some did, and they’ve saved tremendous amounts of money. And, in rush hour, they’re building and they hardly had to close a lane. So, you know, there are a lot of good things you can do. But some — some people decided not to do that.
Under the previous administration, the Stockpile was depleted and never fully refilled. Most of the N95 masks were distributed during the N1H1. Now, you know who says that, right? “N1H1.” Who says that? Sleepy Joe Biden. (Laughter.) Remember? He said the “N1H1.” I said, “Isn’t it the other way around?” They said, “Yes, sir.” But he said it, so it doesn’t make any difference. (Laughter.)
But during the H1N1 — and that’s the swine flu — and it was a pandemic in ’09 that was not well handled at all. It got very poor marks.
Never again will another President inherit empty shelves or expired products. At least — hopefully, in five years you’re talking about. It may be 9 years, it may be 13 years. But you’ll never have to deal with empty shelves, and you’ll never have to deal with a depleted military. The military that we took over was depleted and in horrible shape. We’ve now spent $1.5 trillion rebuilding our military. We have the strongest military we’ve ever had, by far. And this is a good time to have it too. And all of the product was built in the USA.
But I’m determined that America will be fully prepared for any of the future outbreaks, of which we hope there’s going to be none. Who would have thought? 1917. It could have been up to 100 million people were killed, and that was the Spanish flu. In 1917, who would have thought this was going to happen? That’s over 100 years ago.
Our effort begins by dramatically increasing our reserves. Instead of one to three weeks’ worth of supplies, which we had less than that, the U.S. government will now stockpile three whole months, much of it made in the USA.
My administration has already awarded contracts for approximately 200,000 ventilators, which we’re building ourselves. And now that we’re restocking, all of those great things are happening with ventilators.
{snip}
And the press doesn’t ever talk about it. They don’t want to talk about it. There they are, right there. They don’t want to talk about it. They are a disaster. (Laughter.) But that’s okay. The people understand, and that’s all that really matters, when you get right down to it.
{snip}
Globalists. You know what a globalist is? They want the globe to do well, but they don’t care about us. Now we want everybody to do well. But we have to take care of America first. It’s got to be America first. And you know what? Other countries say their country first. Why wouldn’t they do that? But we didn’t do that. We had a bunch of globalists; they didn’t know what the hell they were doing.
But under my order, it will now also invest in our country, helping to bring vital factories, pharmaceutical producers, and most importantly, jobs back home, where they belong. Now, we had the greatest economy in the world. We had the best job numbers we’ve ever had. We had almost 160 million people working. And we were never even close to that. The best unemployment numbers we’ve ever had. African American, Asian American, Hispanic American had the best job numbers in history — in the history of our country. They never did so well.
Best income numbers. Best stock market numbers. 401(k) numbers. The good part is the stock market is — because they know — we know what we’re doing, the stock market is ready to move. Never went down like a lot of people said: “Wow, it’s at 23-, 24,000.” It was 29,000. It never went down like people would have assumed, because they know what’s happening. They know smart people — a lot of smart people, they know what’s going to happen. We’re going to have an amazing next year. One of our best.
But we had the greatest year ever, and then we had to turn it off. Artificially induced. We had to turn it off. And if we didn’t do that, we would have lost 2 million people instead of — whether it’s 95,000, 100,000, one is too many. But we would have lost 2 million people, maybe more than that, maybe somewhat less. But think of it: Even if it was a little less, multiply what we have by 20 or by 15. It wouldn’t be acceptable. It wouldn’t be sustainable. People would have said, “What’s going on over here?” Multiply it. As bad as you’ve seen it.
{snip}
And, you know, you can say what you want about the flu, but I’ve never lost anybody to the flu that I knew. I’ve been I’ve had people — friends — they have the flu and they’re sick. They don’t feel good. And you call up, “How you doing?” You know, three days, two days, a week later, they’re fine. Nobody ever said they died. But I’ve lost five people that I know. Two people were very good friends of mine. And you call up two days later: “How are they doing?” “Sir, they’re in a coma.” I said, “They’re in a coma?” Now, they were older. I wouldn’t say they were in the greatest of health. I wouldn’t say their weight was perfect. Not perfect. But they’re gone. So it’s just a terrible, terrible thing.
{snip}
This afternoon, I also have great news on that testing. America has now conducted its 10 millionth test. That’s as of yesterday afternoon. Ten million tests we gave. Ten million. And CVS has just committed to establish up to 1,000 new coronavirus testing sites by the end of this month. And the 10 millionth will go up very, very rapidly.
And don’t forget: We have more cases than anybody in the world. But why? Because we do more testing. When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases. They don’t want to write that. It’s common sense. So we test much more many, many times.
South Korea you hear about. I spoke with the President of South Korea. I spoke with many different presidents, prime ministers. They can’t believe what we’ve been able to do on testing. They can’t believe what we’ve been able to do on ventilators. We’re sending them ventilators — other countries — Italy, Spain. Other countries. France is having tremendous problems. Tremendous problems. We’re helping them with ventilators. They can’t believe the job we’re doing.
{snip}
But you’re going to be a nation of manufacturers, and Pennsylvania workers will once again — you’re going to lead the way. With your help, we will vanquish the virus. We’re going to vanquish the plague. I call it the “plague” because that’s what it is.
We’ll get our nation back to work, and we will build our glorious future with American hands and American grit and American pride, your heart. I want thank you to everyone at Owens & Minor. I want to thank you for this great area of the world. As I told you, I think of Fred. Fred — my brother Fred.
God bless you and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.)
END
3:25 P.M. EDT
Remarks by President Trump at Owens & Minor, Inc. Distribution Center | Allentown, PA
HEALTHCARE
Issued on: May 14, 2020
Owens & Minor, Inc. Distribution Center
Allentown, Pennsylvania
2:56 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, that social distancing. Look at you people all spread out, six feet. That’s pretty impressive. But we like it the old way a little bit better, don’t we?
AUDIENCE: Yeah!
THE PRESIDENT: And we’ll be back. We’ll be back to that soon, I think. I really believe it. And we were received by thousands and thousands of people coming in. And they came in from all over and all the way from the airport to here. It was really something special. So it was really great.
{snip}
But they’re talking about so much of the product now is made in the USA, whereas in the past, it wasn’t. It wasn’t. But they were talking about 90 percent — 80 to 90 percent is made — of what you distribute is now made in the USA, and that’s taken a long while for us to get it. I started that right from the beginning. It’s probably one of the major reasons that I’m here. It’s called “America First.” We want America first. We love the world. We want America first.
Today we’re announcing a groundbreaking initiative to replenish and modernize our Strategic National Stockpile. The cupboards were bare. You’ve heard me say it a lot. When we came into this administration, those cupboards were bare.
{snip}
From the moment this terrible virus reached our shores, each of you has worked relentlessly to get the vital supplies to our healthcare warriors. And they are warriors, aren’t they? When you see them going into those hospitals and they’re putting the stuff that you deliver. But they’re wrapping themselves, and the doors are opening, and they’re going through the doors, and they’re not even ready to go through those doors. They probably shouldn’t. But they can’t get there fast enough.
And they’re running into death just like soldiers run into bullets, in a true sense. I see that with the doctors and the nurses and so many of the people that go into those hospitals. It’s incredible to see. It’s a beautiful thing to see. But I really call them “warriors.” We’re all warriors; everyone in our country is a warrior. We have to be because of what happened. And it should have never happened. It should have been stopped at the source.
{snip}
Every incredible worker here today is part of the greatest mobilization of American society since World War Two. You know that, right? We’ve done things with generators and ventilators and so many different things. We’re making products that nobody ever thought we’d ever need in any mass form.
Ventilators is the biggest thing. We made plenty of ventilators, which was very little in the country, because most hospitals didn’t need very many. And all of a sudden, they said, “We need hundreds of thousands of ventilators. We need the kinds of numbers that you wouldn’t believe.” And we were mobilized, and with Adam and with the Admiral and with all of these people, and Jared — somewhere, Jared is here.
What they did is incredible. We brought geniuses in from Silicon Valley. And all of a sudden, within a short period of time, we had 11 plants out making ventilators. And you wouldn’t believe what it is. And now we’re — we have so many. Every state has more than they need.
We filled up our stockpile. We have over 10,000 now. And we filled it up. We’re ready to go in case anything happens, but I don’t think anything will happen where you’re going to need any more. And we’re now helping other countries with ventilators because nobody can make — you know, you can’t make them. They’re very tough to make, very expensive. They’re — I say it’s tougher than making a car. And we make the best ventilator too.
So we — they’ve done a fantastic job. And two months ago, you couldn’t get a ventilator. We were left virtually none.
Over the past few months, the federal government has partnered with Owens & Minor and other distributors to launch the very successful and historic Project Air Bridge, which is really being thought of and spoken of in glowing terms. Nearly 150 flights have brought 95 million masks, 16 million gowns, and 921 million gloves to America. Can you believe that? Nine hundred and twenty-one million gloves. It’s not even conceivable.
Guided by our team, workers like you distributed over 1 billion pieces of protective gear to places in need. A truly remarkable accomplishment. After meeting the immediate demand, we’ll be transforming and transitioning from Project Air Bridge to Sealift, where we’re using big ships, giant ships. It’s less expensive, and they can carry a lot more. And we don’t need the speed anymore because we’re very stocked up.
Now as our country begins a safe and gradual reopening, we’re launching a monumental effort to replenish and rebuild the Strategic National Stockpile. We also did that, by the way, with fuel. When oil went down, we replenished our Strategic National Reserve.
And we got it for a great price. Would you believe what went on with fuel? But now it’s starting to go back, and we’re saving our energy industry, because people didn’t need too much gasoline when there were no cars on the road. And I said to the governors — I said, “You know, there are no cars on the road. This is a good time to fix your highways. Fix your highways now.” Some did and some didn’t. Right? They didn’t. They were worried that two people working 35 feet away from each other or driving a tractor, or whatever they might be doing, they’ll catch the virus.
But the ones that did were really helped because you went from being these massive traffic jams to having no traffic. And I can tell you Florida was a state. Great governor. And Ron was — was — he told me he; he said, “I’m doing it.” I said, “That’s a good thing.” Not everybody did it. Ron DeSantis of Florida. Governor of Florida.
But some did, and they’ve saved tremendous amounts of money. And, in rush hour, they’re building and they hardly had to close a lane. So, you know, there are a lot of good things you can do. But some — some people decided not to do that.
Under the previous administration, the Stockpile was depleted and never fully refilled. Most of the N95 masks were distributed during the N1H1. Now, you know who says that, right? “N1H1.” Who says that? Sleepy Joe Biden. (Laughter.) Remember? He said the “N1H1.” I said, “Isn’t it the other way around?” They said, “Yes, sir.” But he said it, so it doesn’t make any difference. (Laughter.)
But during the H1N1 — and that’s the swine flu — and it was a pandemic in ’09 that was not well handled at all. It got very poor marks.
Never again will another President inherit empty shelves or expired products. At least — hopefully, in five years you’re talking about. It may be 9 years, it may be 13 years. But you’ll never have to deal with empty shelves, and you’ll never have to deal with a depleted military. The military that we took over was depleted and in horrible shape. We’ve now spent $1.5 trillion rebuilding our military. We have the strongest military we’ve ever had, by far. And this is a good time to have it too. And all of the product was built in the USA.
But I’m determined that America will be fully prepared for any of the future outbreaks, of which we hope there’s going to be none. Who would have thought? 1917. It could have been up to 100 million people were killed, and that was the Spanish flu. In 1917, who would have thought this was going to happen? That’s over 100 years ago.
Our effort begins by dramatically increasing our reserves. Instead of one to three weeks’ worth of supplies, which we had less than that, the U.S. government will now stockpile three whole months, much of it made in the USA.
My administration has already awarded contracts for approximately 200,000 ventilators, which we’re building ourselves. And now that we’re restocking, all of those great things are happening with ventilators.
{snip}
And the press doesn’t ever talk about it. They don’t want to talk about it. There they are, right there. They don’t want to talk about it. They are a disaster. (Laughter.) But that’s okay. The people understand, and that’s all that really matters, when you get right down to it.
{snip}
Globalists. You know what a globalist is? They want the globe to do well, but they don’t care about us. Now we want everybody to do well. But we have to take care of America first. It’s got to be America first. And you know what? Other countries say their country first. Why wouldn’t they do that? But we didn’t do that. We had a bunch of globalists; they didn’t know what the hell they were doing.
But under my order, it will now also invest in our country, helping to bring vital factories, pharmaceutical producers, and most importantly, jobs back home, where they belong. Now, we had the greatest economy in the world. We had the best job numbers we’ve ever had. We had almost 160 million people working. And we were never even close to that. The best unemployment numbers we’ve ever had. African American, Asian American, Hispanic American had the best job numbers in history — in the history of our country. They never did so well.
Best income numbers. Best stock market numbers. 401(k) numbers. The good part is the stock market is — because they know — we know what we’re doing, the stock market is ready to move. Never went down like a lot of people said: “Wow, it’s at 23-, 24,000.” It was 29,000. It never went down like people would have assumed, because they know what’s happening. They know smart people — a lot of smart people, they know what’s going to happen. We’re going to have an amazing next year. One of our best.
But we had the greatest year ever, and then we had to turn it off. Artificially induced. We had to turn it off. And if we didn’t do that, we would have lost 2 million people instead of — whether it’s 95,000, 100,000, one is too many. But we would have lost 2 million people, maybe more than that, maybe somewhat less. But think of it: Even if it was a little less, multiply what we have by 20 or by 15. It wouldn’t be acceptable. It wouldn’t be sustainable. People would have said, “What’s going on over here?” Multiply it. As bad as you’ve seen it.
{snip}
And, you know, you can say what you want about the flu, but I’ve never lost anybody to the flu that I knew. I’ve been I’ve had people — friends — they have the flu and they’re sick. They don’t feel good. And you call up, “How you doing?” You know, three days, two days, a week later, they’re fine. Nobody ever said they died. But I’ve lost five people that I know. Two people were very good friends of mine. And you call up two days later: “How are they doing?” “Sir, they’re in a coma.” I said, “They’re in a coma?” Now, they were older. I wouldn’t say they were in the greatest of health. I wouldn’t say their weight was perfect. Not perfect. But they’re gone. So it’s just a terrible, terrible thing.
{snip}
This afternoon, I also have great news on that testing. America has now conducted its 10 millionth test. That’s as of yesterday afternoon. Ten million tests we gave. Ten million. And CVS has just committed to establish up to 1,000 new coronavirus testing sites by the end of this month. And the 10 millionth will go up very, very rapidly.
And don’t forget: We have more cases than anybody in the world. But why? Because we do more testing. When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases. They don’t want to write that. It’s common sense. So we test much more many, many times.
South Korea you hear about. I spoke with the President of South Korea. I spoke with many different presidents, prime ministers. They can’t believe what we’ve been able to do on testing. They can’t believe what we’ve been able to do on ventilators. We’re sending them ventilators — other countries — Italy, Spain. Other countries. France is having tremendous problems. Tremendous problems. We’re helping them with ventilators. They can’t believe the job we’re doing.
{snip}
But you’re going to be a nation of manufacturers, and Pennsylvania workers will once again — you’re going to lead the way. With your help, we will vanquish the virus. We’re going to vanquish the plague. I call it the “plague” because that’s what it is.
We’ll get our nation back to work, and we will build our glorious future with American hands and American grit and American pride, your heart. I want thank you to everyone at Owens & Minor. I want to thank you for this great area of the world. As I told you, I think of Fred. Fred — my brother Fred.
God bless you and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.)
END
3:25 P.M. EDT
6 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
