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Remarks by Trump, Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing, 04-13-2020
Finally, they posted the transcript.
REMARKS
Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing
HEALTHCARE
Issued on: April 14, 2020
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
April 13, 2020
5:49 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, everyone. My administration will do everything possible to help those communities get back on their feet. We’re speaking with the governors and representatives. FEMA is already on its way, and they got there — as soon as we heard the word, I said, “Get out there.” So FEMA is there, and you know the great job that FEMA does. It’s, really, something very special.
So we just want to say: Warmest condolences, and we’re with you all the way. It’s a tough deal. That was a bad, bed level five. That was a bad group. That’s as high as it gets. It was a bad grouping of tornadoes. Something that’s something incredible, the power — the horrible, destructive power.
America is continuing to make critical progress in our war against the virus. Over the weekend, the number of daily new infections remained flat nationwide. Flat. Hospitalizations are slowing in hotspots like New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and Louisiana. This is clear evidence that our aggressive strategy to combat the virus is working and that Americans are following the guidelines. It’s been incredible what they’ve done.
{cut to the chase}
DR. FAUCI: Thank you, Mr. President. Just one — a couple of things, and then I just want to make a comment about something that happened yesterday.
{snip}
Q In this interview, you said there was pushback.
DR. FAUCI: Yeah.
Q Where did that pushback come from?
DR. FAUCI: No, it wasn’t — that was the wrong choice of words. You know what it was? When people discuss, not necessarily in front of the President — when people discuss, they say, “Well, you know, this is going to have maybe a harmful effect on this or on that.” So it was a poor choice of words. There wasn’t anybody saying, “No, you shouldn’t do that.”
Q Are you doing this voluntarily? Or did the President —
DR. FAUCI: No, I’m doing it —
Q — or Vice President ask you to do this?
DR. FAUCI: Everything I do is voluntarily. Please. Don’t even imply that.
Q So, Mr. President, the question is —
THE PRESIDENT: And, by the way, the travel ban, that was earlier. The travel ban was done earlier.
{snip}
Now, with that, I have a couple of interesting — we have a few clips that we’re just going to put up. We could turn the lights a little bit lower. I think you’ll find them interesting. And then we’ll answer some questions. I’ll ask you some questions because you’re so guilty, but forget it. But most importantly, we’re going to get back onto the reason we’re here, which is the success we’re having. Okay?
Please, you could put it on. Thank you.
(A video is played.)
So we could give you hundreds of clips like that from governors — including Democratic or “Democrat,” as I call them, governors, which is actually the correct term. We could give you hundreds of clips just like that. We have them. We didn’t want this to go on too long, but I just want to say it’s — you know, it’s very sad when people write false stories like, in that case, I guess it was gotten mostly from the New York Times, which is a highly — I mean, if you had libel laws, they would have been out of business even before they’ll end up going out of business. So it’s too bad.
But we could have given you — you saw the statements. We have hundreds of statements. Hundreds of statements, including from Democrats and Democrat governors.
And if you look, they were all saying, “We need ventilators. We need…” You don’t hear “ventilators” anymore. They have all the ventilators they need, which we were right about. We said, “You’re asking for too many. You don’t need that.” And, in all fairness, these two people right here — Dr. Birx, Dr. Fauci — they said, “I don’t think they need that many ventilators.” And I said, “I agree.”
At one point — and I’m not knocking New York for this, but they were asking — you remember? — 40,000 ventilators. And that’s more than they have all over the country. And we got them a lot of ventilators, and nobody has complained.
We got them, as you know, beautiful — we built hospital rooms all over the country. The governor of Louisiana, John Bel Edwards, was very nice. He said, “You know what? You don’t have to build a second hospital.” Because good news is happening. They’re not able to fill the beds. They needed two hospitals. We built one; it was perfect. We’re getting — we’re just starting the other. I called him up. I said, “Do you think we should build the second one? I don’t think you’re going to need it.” He said, “Let me get back.” He got back. We didn’t need it.
{snip}
Yes.
Q Can I just ask you about the video? Because I’ve never seen a video like that played in this room. It looks a bit like a campaign ad. Who — who produced that video for you?
THE PRESIDENT: That was done by a group in the office, and it was done just by — we just put some clips together. I could give you — I’ll bet you I have over 100 more clips even better than them. They were just pieced together over the last two hours. That was just — oh, we have far better than that. That’s nothing compared to some of them.
Q But this was produced here in the White House by —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, this was done by Dan and a group of people, and they just put it together in a period of probably less than two hours.
Q Why did you feel the need to do that?
THE PRESIDENT: Because we’re getting fake news, and I like to have it corrected. They’re saying what a great job we’re doing, and the media — these are the governors of California, governor of New Jersey, governor of New York.
{snip}
Steve?
Q But just to be clear, this was produced by government employees, by people here at the White House — this campaign-style video here?
THE PRESIDENT: I wouldn’t use the word “produced.” All they did was took some clips, and they just ran them for you. And the reason they did is to keep you honest. Now, I don’t think that’s going to work. It’s not going to have any impact. But just think of it: You heard the clips, you heard what I said. They said I acted late on closing down the country.
Some people wish we never closed it down. Now, if we didn’t, we would have lost hundreds of thousands of people. You know, interestingly — so I’m — I’m against that. We did the right thing. Everything we did was right. If we would have closed down —
Q You don’t think you made any mistakes along the way here? You think everything you did was right?
THE PRESIDENT: Well — well, look, governors should have had ventilators; they chose not to have them. We were able to get them ventilators. You haven’t heard — other than, you know, there was a lot of panic, a lot of screaming, “We want ventilators.” They got the ventilators. You don’t have that anymore. And the surge is supposed to be coming now. And if they do need ventilators, Jon, we’ve got almost 10,000 that are ready to rock. We have people standing with those ventilators right now. If you needed 2,000 in New York, which you don’t, but if you did, we can have them here in less than 24 hours. We’re ready to rock. This was a great — this was a great military — and beyond that — operation.
{snip}
Q But why did you tweet something that said “Fire Fauci”? Why did you —
Q You retweeted the hashtag #FireFauci.
THE PRESIDENT: I retweeted somebody. I don’t know. They said “fire.” It doesn’t matter.
Q Did you notice that when you retweeted it?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, I notice everything.
Q So you retweeted it even though it said, “Time to fire Fauci”?
THE PRESIDENT: No, no, that’s somebody’s opinion. All that is is an opinion.
Q But you read it and you elevated it.
THE PRESIDENT: No, I was called about that. I said, “I’m not firing him.” In fact, if you ask your friends in the office — in the public relations office, I was immediately called upon that. And I said, “No, I like him. I think he’s terrific.” Because this was a person’s view. Not everybody is happy with Anthony. Not everybody is happy with everybody.
But I will tell you, we have done a job, the likes of which nobody has ever done. The mobilization, getting of equipment, all of the things we’ve done — nobody has ever done a job like this.
We have 50 governors — and territories, by the way. People don’t ever mention that we have territories. We have 50 governors and territories, and many of those governors are Democrats, and they can’t find anything to complain about. And honestly, many of them didn’t do their jobs. I’ll let you know someday — let’s see what happens — but I may let you know who’s not doing their job. I can tell you the ones that are good, both Republican and Democrat, and the ones who don’t know what they’re doing. But we help some of the ones that don’t know what they’re doing. They should have had their own stockpiles. And now, if they want, we can build them stockpiles of ventilators.
{snip}
But here’s what happened: When, on January 31st, I instituted the ban, Joe Biden went crazy. He said, “You don’t need the ban. You…” He didn’t go crazy. Like, he has — he didn’t even know what the hell the ban was. But he — so he didn’t go crazy. But he did say —
Q Your ban bought you time.
THE PRESIDENT: He did call me xenophobic.
Q What did you do with that time?
THE PRESIDENT: Wait a minute. He called me xenophobic; he called me a racist because — he has since apologized and he said I did the right thing. So when you say, “Why didn’t you do this?” Every Democrat thought I made a mistake when I did it. I saved tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives, by doing that.
Q But what did you do with that time that you bought? The argument is that you bought yourself some time and you didn’t use it to prepare hospitals, you didn’t use it to ramp up testing. Right now —
THE PRESIDENT: You’re so — you’re so —
Q — nearly 20 million people are unemployed.
THE PRESIDENT: You’re so disgraceful. It’s so disgraceful the way you say that.
Q Tens of thousands of Americans are dead.
THE PRESIDENT: Let me just — listen.
Q How is this sizzle reel —
THE PRESIDENT: I just went over it.
Q — or this rant supposed to make people feel confident —
THE PRESIDENT: I just went over it.
Q — in an unprecedented crisis?
THE PRESIDENT: Nobody thought we should do it. And when I did it —
Q But what did you do with the time that you bought?
THE PRESIDENT: You know what we did?
Q The month of February. That —
THE PRESIDENT: You know what we did?
Q That video has a gap. The entire month of February.
THE PRESIDENT: What do you do — what do you do when you have no case in the whole United States when you —
Q You had cases in February.
THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me. You reported it: zero cases, zero deaths on January 17th.
Q January.
Q January, February — the entire month of February.
THE PRESIDENT: January. I said in January.
Q Your video has a complete gap: the month of February.
THE PRESIDENT: On January 30th —
Q What did your administration do in February with the time that your travel ban bought you?
THE PRESIDENT: A lot.
Q What?
THE PRESIDENT: A lot. And, in fact, we’ll give you a list — what we did. In fact, part of it was up there. We did a lot.
Q It wasn’t in the video. The video had a gap.
THE PRESIDENT: Look. Look, you know you’re a fake. You know that. Your whole network — the way you cover it — is fake. And most of you — and not all of you — but the people are wise to you. That’s why you have a lower — a lower approval rating than you’ve ever had before, times probably three.
Q Twenty million people now are unemployed.
THE PRESIDENT: And when you ask me that questions —
Q Tens of thousands of people are dead, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Let me ask you this: Why didn’t Biden — why did Biden apologize? Why did he write a letter of apology?
Q I don’t think the unemployed people right now care about why Joe Biden didn’t apologize to you, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Why did the Democrats think that I acted too quickly? You know why? Because they really thought that I acted too quickly. We have done a great job.
Q So get us the list of what you did in February.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, I could’ve — I could’ve kept it open. And I could’ve done what some countries are doing. They’re getting beat up pretty badly. I could have kept it open. I thought of keeping it open because nobody has ever heard of closing down a country, let alone the United States of America. But if I would have done that, we would have had hundreds of thousands of people that would right now be dead.
We’ve done this right. And we really — we really have done this right. The problem is the press doesn’t cover it the way it should be.
Go ahead. One more question. Steve, go ahead.
Q There’s a debate over what authority you have to order the country reopened. What authority do you have?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I have the ultimate authority, but we’re going to get into that in a minute. We’re going to just finish this up. We’re going to tell you about other things that we’ve done right.
{snip}
Yeah.
Q Mr. President, thank you, sir. In regards to some of your tweets earlier today, and I think it was Steve’s question, my question to you is: What provision in the Constitution gives the President the power to open or close state economies? And then —
THE PRESIDENT: Numerous provisions. We’ll give you a legal brief if you want.
Q And then — we’ll be looking forward to that, sir. But following up: What happens if you say, for instance, “We want states to reopen but California or New York do not open”? What would you do then?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think everybody wants to open. I mean, I guess, you know, that could happen, but I don’t think that would happen.
Go ahead please.
Q It’s been states that have closed, ordered schools closed. It’s been states that have ordered businesses like restaurants and bars closed.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s because I let that happen because I would have preferred that. I let that happen. But if I wanted to, I could have closed it up. But I let that happen and I like the way they’ve done it. And the seven that remained really in sort of a semi-lockdown — if you look at those states, they’ve really done a very good job. They’re very much different from a New York or from other places where they’ve been hit very hard.
Q So you’re prepared then to bigfoot states and say, “I order you to open your schools, I order to force kids to be able to go”?
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, please. Yeah.
Q Yes, Mr. President. Following up on that, there are two consortiums of states today — California, Oregon, and Washington on the West Coast; Northeastern states — totally representing about 100 million people, who have said they’re going to cooperate and decide when to reopen those states.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they can decide, but —
Q Does that undermine what you’re trying to do?
THE PRESIDENT: No, not at all. Let me just tell you — very simple. I’m going to put it very simply: The President of the United States has the authority to do what the President has the authority to do, which is very powerful. The President of the United States calls the shots.
If we weren’t here for the states, you would have had a problem in this country like you’ve never seen before. We were here to back them up. And we’re backing — and we’ve more than backed them up. We did a job that nobody ever thought was possible. It’s a decision for the President of the United States.
Now, with that being said, we’re going to work with the states because it’s very important. You have local governments, they’re pinpointed. It’s really — you talk about — it’s like a microchip. They are pinpointed. We have local government that hopefully will do a good job. And if they don’t do a good job, I’d step in so fast. But no, they can’t do anything without the approval of the President of the United States.
Q But, Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, please.
Q So if some states refuse to reopen and you order them to, the 10th Amendment of the Constitution says all powers that don’t reside in the President or Congress reside in the states. How do you overcome that?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, if some states refuse to open, I would be — I would like to see that person run for election. They’re going to open. They’re going to all open.
Q So that’s a valid (inaudible).
THE PRESIDENT: I think that’s something that’s not going to happen. They want to open. They have to open. They have to get open. Every one of those states, the people want to go and they want to —
{snip}
Q Mr. President, just to clarify your understanding of your authority vis-à-vis governors — just to be very specific: For instance, if a governor issued a stay-at-home order —
THE PRESIDENT: When you say “my authority” — the President’s authority. Not mine, because it’s not me.
Q If I could just ask the question —
THE PRESIDENT: This is — when somebody is the President of the United States, the authority is total, and that’s the way it’s got to be.
Q It’s total? Your authority is total?
THE PRESIDENT: It’s total. It’s total.
Q Your authority is total?
THE PRESIDENT: And the governors know that.
Q So if a governor —
THE PRESIDENT: The governors know that. No, you have —
Q If a governor issues a stay-at-home order, you —
THE PRESIDENT: — a couple of bands of — excuse me. Excuse me. You have a couple —
Q Could you rescind that? Could you rescind that order?
THE PRESIDENT: You have a couple of bands of Democrat governors, but they will agree to it. They will agree to it.
Q What if it was a Republican governor?
THE PRESIDENT: But the authority of the President of the United States, having to do with the subject we’re talking about, is total.
{snip}
Q A quick question about something you just said. You said, “When someone is President of the United States, their authority is total.” That is not true. Who — who told you that?
THE PRESIDENT: Okay. So you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to write up papers on this. It’s not going to be necessary, because the governors need us one way or the other, because ultimately it comes with the federal government. That being said, we’re getting along very well with the governors, and I feel very certain that there won’t be a problem.
Yeah, please. Go ahead.
Q Has any governor agreed that you have the authority to decide when their state opens back up?
THE PRESIDENT: I haven’t asked anybody because I don’t — you know why?
Q Because no one has — no one has said that.
THE PRESIDENT: Because I don’t have to.
Go ahead, please.
Q But who told you the President has the total authority?
THE PRESIDENT: Enough. Please.
{snip}
THE PRESIDENT: No, you started off by saying, “Why are there no consequences?”
Q Because you’ve been asked this a few times, so I’m following up on your response. Why are there no consequences for China?
THE PRESIDENT: How do you know there are no consequences?
Q Because we’ve asked you —
THE PRESIDENT: You’re going to find out.
Q — and you’ve said — you’ve said that didn’t want to have an consequences because you suggested trade.
THE PRESIDENT: I wouldn’t tell you. You’d probably be the last person on Earth I’d tell.
Q So you’re saying there will be consequences?
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead. Uh, yeah, please.
Q Mr. President — actually, this is a question for Mr. Vice President. Do you agree with the President’s statement and his understanding of federalism, that his power is total — like in the way he described it? Is there anything you’d like to add or any context you’d like to add to the way he was discussing that?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I support the President’s leadership under the national emergency declaration that he signed.
{snip}
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.
Q Sir, did the states tell you — you’ve been talking to the governors quite a bit — did those coalitions of states on the West Coast and in the Northeast, did they tell you what they are going to be announcing before they announce it?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Governor Phil Murphy and the governor of Connecticut expressed today that they were going to be speaking on a — and discussing on a regional basis what their recommendations would be. And we assured them today —
Q Did they alert the White House about that, though, sir?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: We assured them today on our conference call with, I think, 48 governors that were with us today for the better part of an hour and a half — we told them that what the President would be producing — has directed to be produced are additional guidelines for the states, certified by the CDC, that would inform those governors and local communities and mayors about the best way forward, based on the unique circumstances that those states and those communities are facing.
I think what’s clear is the American people have seen the experience in Washington State, where this really all began for us; and in California; and now, the extraordinary challenges in the Greater New York City area, including New Jersey and Connecticut; the challenges in New Orleans and Louisiana and Detroit, still Chicago, parts of Houston.
But they’re also seeing that, in each one of those cases, that the mitigation efforts are truly working. And so we’ll — we’ll work with those — we’ll work with those states. And in some cases, it’ll make perfect sense for them to work together on a regional basis.
Q Any idea why they didn’t let you know ahead of time what they were planning?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you don’t know that. You don’t know that.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: But — but the President — the President will be —
Q (Inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: You don’t know that. I’m sorry.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear your question.
Q Mr. President, can you tell us? Did they let you know?
THE PRESIDENT: You don’t know that. No, you made a statement. You don’t know that.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I didn’t hear your — I didn’t hear your statement. I’m sorry.
THE PRESIDENT: And we would — and we would like to have their cooperation. And we are going to have their cooperation. They will cooperate perfectly. Watch.
{snip}
Q So, on Abbott Labs, you said testing is going great. We know that they have — these machines have been sent to some of the governors, but some of them are saying they don’t have the materials to actually conduct the tests.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they have to get the material. You know, the governors have to get the material.
Q The cartridges.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, if they can’t get it, they’re going to see us.
Q The government is — the federal government is distributing those cartridges.
THE PRESIDENT: I’m talking about the local governments. I’m talking about governors have to get the material. Now, they have machines. In fact, we — we’re going to go into — I’d ask Mike to go into it as soon as I leave. They have very powerful machines that they don’t know they even have. I’m not talking about Abbott; I’m talking about the governors. They have machines that are used for this —
Q The hospital labs.
THE PRESIDENT: You know what I’m talk- — do you know what I’m referring to?
Q Yeah, they have the two different machines.
THE PRESIDENT: Very big, very powerful machines where, in a certain state’s case, they’re only using 10 percent of their capacity and they didn’t know it. That happens to be Illinois.
Jon, please.
{snip}
So thank you to the American people for all your efforts, and we’ll see you tomorrow.
END
8:12 P.M. EDT
Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing
HEALTHCARE
Issued on: April 14, 2020
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
April 13, 2020
5:49 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, everyone. My administration will do everything possible to help those communities get back on their feet. We’re speaking with the governors and representatives. FEMA is already on its way, and they got there — as soon as we heard the word, I said, “Get out there.” So FEMA is there, and you know the great job that FEMA does. It’s, really, something very special.
So we just want to say: Warmest condolences, and we’re with you all the way. It’s a tough deal. That was a bad, bed level five. That was a bad group. That’s as high as it gets. It was a bad grouping of tornadoes. Something that’s something incredible, the power — the horrible, destructive power.
America is continuing to make critical progress in our war against the virus. Over the weekend, the number of daily new infections remained flat nationwide. Flat. Hospitalizations are slowing in hotspots like New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and Louisiana. This is clear evidence that our aggressive strategy to combat the virus is working and that Americans are following the guidelines. It’s been incredible what they’ve done.
{cut to the chase}
DR. FAUCI: Thank you, Mr. President. Just one — a couple of things, and then I just want to make a comment about something that happened yesterday.
{snip}
Q In this interview, you said there was pushback.
DR. FAUCI: Yeah.
Q Where did that pushback come from?
DR. FAUCI: No, it wasn’t — that was the wrong choice of words. You know what it was? When people discuss, not necessarily in front of the President — when people discuss, they say, “Well, you know, this is going to have maybe a harmful effect on this or on that.” So it was a poor choice of words. There wasn’t anybody saying, “No, you shouldn’t do that.”
Q Are you doing this voluntarily? Or did the President —
DR. FAUCI: No, I’m doing it —
Q — or Vice President ask you to do this?
DR. FAUCI: Everything I do is voluntarily. Please. Don’t even imply that.
Q So, Mr. President, the question is —
THE PRESIDENT: And, by the way, the travel ban, that was earlier. The travel ban was done earlier.
{snip}
Now, with that, I have a couple of interesting — we have a few clips that we’re just going to put up. We could turn the lights a little bit lower. I think you’ll find them interesting. And then we’ll answer some questions. I’ll ask you some questions because you’re so guilty, but forget it. But most importantly, we’re going to get back onto the reason we’re here, which is the success we’re having. Okay?
Please, you could put it on. Thank you.
(A video is played.)
So we could give you hundreds of clips like that from governors — including Democratic or “Democrat,” as I call them, governors, which is actually the correct term. We could give you hundreds of clips just like that. We have them. We didn’t want this to go on too long, but I just want to say it’s — you know, it’s very sad when people write false stories like, in that case, I guess it was gotten mostly from the New York Times, which is a highly — I mean, if you had libel laws, they would have been out of business even before they’ll end up going out of business. So it’s too bad.
But we could have given you — you saw the statements. We have hundreds of statements. Hundreds of statements, including from Democrats and Democrat governors.
And if you look, they were all saying, “We need ventilators. We need…” You don’t hear “ventilators” anymore. They have all the ventilators they need, which we were right about. We said, “You’re asking for too many. You don’t need that.” And, in all fairness, these two people right here — Dr. Birx, Dr. Fauci — they said, “I don’t think they need that many ventilators.” And I said, “I agree.”
At one point — and I’m not knocking New York for this, but they were asking — you remember? — 40,000 ventilators. And that’s more than they have all over the country. And we got them a lot of ventilators, and nobody has complained.
We got them, as you know, beautiful — we built hospital rooms all over the country. The governor of Louisiana, John Bel Edwards, was very nice. He said, “You know what? You don’t have to build a second hospital.” Because good news is happening. They’re not able to fill the beds. They needed two hospitals. We built one; it was perfect. We’re getting — we’re just starting the other. I called him up. I said, “Do you think we should build the second one? I don’t think you’re going to need it.” He said, “Let me get back.” He got back. We didn’t need it.
{snip}
Yes.
Q Can I just ask you about the video? Because I’ve never seen a video like that played in this room. It looks a bit like a campaign ad. Who — who produced that video for you?
THE PRESIDENT: That was done by a group in the office, and it was done just by — we just put some clips together. I could give you — I’ll bet you I have over 100 more clips even better than them. They were just pieced together over the last two hours. That was just — oh, we have far better than that. That’s nothing compared to some of them.
Q But this was produced here in the White House by —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, this was done by Dan and a group of people, and they just put it together in a period of probably less than two hours.
Q Why did you feel the need to do that?
THE PRESIDENT: Because we’re getting fake news, and I like to have it corrected. They’re saying what a great job we’re doing, and the media — these are the governors of California, governor of New Jersey, governor of New York.
{snip}
Steve?
Q But just to be clear, this was produced by government employees, by people here at the White House — this campaign-style video here?
THE PRESIDENT: I wouldn’t use the word “produced.” All they did was took some clips, and they just ran them for you. And the reason they did is to keep you honest. Now, I don’t think that’s going to work. It’s not going to have any impact. But just think of it: You heard the clips, you heard what I said. They said I acted late on closing down the country.
Some people wish we never closed it down. Now, if we didn’t, we would have lost hundreds of thousands of people. You know, interestingly — so I’m — I’m against that. We did the right thing. Everything we did was right. If we would have closed down —
Q You don’t think you made any mistakes along the way here? You think everything you did was right?
THE PRESIDENT: Well — well, look, governors should have had ventilators; they chose not to have them. We were able to get them ventilators. You haven’t heard — other than, you know, there was a lot of panic, a lot of screaming, “We want ventilators.” They got the ventilators. You don’t have that anymore. And the surge is supposed to be coming now. And if they do need ventilators, Jon, we’ve got almost 10,000 that are ready to rock. We have people standing with those ventilators right now. If you needed 2,000 in New York, which you don’t, but if you did, we can have them here in less than 24 hours. We’re ready to rock. This was a great — this was a great military — and beyond that — operation.
{snip}
Q But why did you tweet something that said “Fire Fauci”? Why did you —
Q You retweeted the hashtag #FireFauci.
THE PRESIDENT: I retweeted somebody. I don’t know. They said “fire.” It doesn’t matter.
Q Did you notice that when you retweeted it?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, I notice everything.
Q So you retweeted it even though it said, “Time to fire Fauci”?
THE PRESIDENT: No, no, that’s somebody’s opinion. All that is is an opinion.
Q But you read it and you elevated it.
THE PRESIDENT: No, I was called about that. I said, “I’m not firing him.” In fact, if you ask your friends in the office — in the public relations office, I was immediately called upon that. And I said, “No, I like him. I think he’s terrific.” Because this was a person’s view. Not everybody is happy with Anthony. Not everybody is happy with everybody.
But I will tell you, we have done a job, the likes of which nobody has ever done. The mobilization, getting of equipment, all of the things we’ve done — nobody has ever done a job like this.
We have 50 governors — and territories, by the way. People don’t ever mention that we have territories. We have 50 governors and territories, and many of those governors are Democrats, and they can’t find anything to complain about. And honestly, many of them didn’t do their jobs. I’ll let you know someday — let’s see what happens — but I may let you know who’s not doing their job. I can tell you the ones that are good, both Republican and Democrat, and the ones who don’t know what they’re doing. But we help some of the ones that don’t know what they’re doing. They should have had their own stockpiles. And now, if they want, we can build them stockpiles of ventilators.
{snip}
But here’s what happened: When, on January 31st, I instituted the ban, Joe Biden went crazy. He said, “You don’t need the ban. You…” He didn’t go crazy. Like, he has — he didn’t even know what the hell the ban was. But he — so he didn’t go crazy. But he did say —
Q Your ban bought you time.
THE PRESIDENT: He did call me xenophobic.
Q What did you do with that time?
THE PRESIDENT: Wait a minute. He called me xenophobic; he called me a racist because — he has since apologized and he said I did the right thing. So when you say, “Why didn’t you do this?” Every Democrat thought I made a mistake when I did it. I saved tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives, by doing that.
Q But what did you do with that time that you bought? The argument is that you bought yourself some time and you didn’t use it to prepare hospitals, you didn’t use it to ramp up testing. Right now —
THE PRESIDENT: You’re so — you’re so —
Q — nearly 20 million people are unemployed.
THE PRESIDENT: You’re so disgraceful. It’s so disgraceful the way you say that.
Q Tens of thousands of Americans are dead.
THE PRESIDENT: Let me just — listen.
Q How is this sizzle reel —
THE PRESIDENT: I just went over it.
Q — or this rant supposed to make people feel confident —
THE PRESIDENT: I just went over it.
Q — in an unprecedented crisis?
THE PRESIDENT: Nobody thought we should do it. And when I did it —
Q But what did you do with the time that you bought?
THE PRESIDENT: You know what we did?
Q The month of February. That —
THE PRESIDENT: You know what we did?
Q That video has a gap. The entire month of February.
THE PRESIDENT: What do you do — what do you do when you have no case in the whole United States when you —
Q You had cases in February.
THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me. You reported it: zero cases, zero deaths on January 17th.
Q January.
Q January, February — the entire month of February.
THE PRESIDENT: January. I said in January.
Q Your video has a complete gap: the month of February.
THE PRESIDENT: On January 30th —
Q What did your administration do in February with the time that your travel ban bought you?
THE PRESIDENT: A lot.
Q What?
THE PRESIDENT: A lot. And, in fact, we’ll give you a list — what we did. In fact, part of it was up there. We did a lot.
Q It wasn’t in the video. The video had a gap.
THE PRESIDENT: Look. Look, you know you’re a fake. You know that. Your whole network — the way you cover it — is fake. And most of you — and not all of you — but the people are wise to you. That’s why you have a lower — a lower approval rating than you’ve ever had before, times probably three.
Q Twenty million people now are unemployed.
THE PRESIDENT: And when you ask me that questions —
Q Tens of thousands of people are dead, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Let me ask you this: Why didn’t Biden — why did Biden apologize? Why did he write a letter of apology?
Q I don’t think the unemployed people right now care about why Joe Biden didn’t apologize to you, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Why did the Democrats think that I acted too quickly? You know why? Because they really thought that I acted too quickly. We have done a great job.
Q So get us the list of what you did in February.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, I could’ve — I could’ve kept it open. And I could’ve done what some countries are doing. They’re getting beat up pretty badly. I could have kept it open. I thought of keeping it open because nobody has ever heard of closing down a country, let alone the United States of America. But if I would have done that, we would have had hundreds of thousands of people that would right now be dead.
We’ve done this right. And we really — we really have done this right. The problem is the press doesn’t cover it the way it should be.
Go ahead. One more question. Steve, go ahead.
Q There’s a debate over what authority you have to order the country reopened. What authority do you have?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I have the ultimate authority, but we’re going to get into that in a minute. We’re going to just finish this up. We’re going to tell you about other things that we’ve done right.
{snip}
Yeah.
Q Mr. President, thank you, sir. In regards to some of your tweets earlier today, and I think it was Steve’s question, my question to you is: What provision in the Constitution gives the President the power to open or close state economies? And then —
THE PRESIDENT: Numerous provisions. We’ll give you a legal brief if you want.
Q And then — we’ll be looking forward to that, sir. But following up: What happens if you say, for instance, “We want states to reopen but California or New York do not open”? What would you do then?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think everybody wants to open. I mean, I guess, you know, that could happen, but I don’t think that would happen.
Go ahead please.
Q It’s been states that have closed, ordered schools closed. It’s been states that have ordered businesses like restaurants and bars closed.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s because I let that happen because I would have preferred that. I let that happen. But if I wanted to, I could have closed it up. But I let that happen and I like the way they’ve done it. And the seven that remained really in sort of a semi-lockdown — if you look at those states, they’ve really done a very good job. They’re very much different from a New York or from other places where they’ve been hit very hard.
Q So you’re prepared then to bigfoot states and say, “I order you to open your schools, I order to force kids to be able to go”?
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, please. Yeah.
Q Yes, Mr. President. Following up on that, there are two consortiums of states today — California, Oregon, and Washington on the West Coast; Northeastern states — totally representing about 100 million people, who have said they’re going to cooperate and decide when to reopen those states.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they can decide, but —
Q Does that undermine what you’re trying to do?
THE PRESIDENT: No, not at all. Let me just tell you — very simple. I’m going to put it very simply: The President of the United States has the authority to do what the President has the authority to do, which is very powerful. The President of the United States calls the shots.
If we weren’t here for the states, you would have had a problem in this country like you’ve never seen before. We were here to back them up. And we’re backing — and we’ve more than backed them up. We did a job that nobody ever thought was possible. It’s a decision for the President of the United States.
Now, with that being said, we’re going to work with the states because it’s very important. You have local governments, they’re pinpointed. It’s really — you talk about — it’s like a microchip. They are pinpointed. We have local government that hopefully will do a good job. And if they don’t do a good job, I’d step in so fast. But no, they can’t do anything without the approval of the President of the United States.
Q But, Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, please.
Q So if some states refuse to reopen and you order them to, the 10th Amendment of the Constitution says all powers that don’t reside in the President or Congress reside in the states. How do you overcome that?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, if some states refuse to open, I would be — I would like to see that person run for election. They’re going to open. They’re going to all open.
Q So that’s a valid (inaudible).
THE PRESIDENT: I think that’s something that’s not going to happen. They want to open. They have to open. They have to get open. Every one of those states, the people want to go and they want to —
{snip}
Q Mr. President, just to clarify your understanding of your authority vis-à-vis governors — just to be very specific: For instance, if a governor issued a stay-at-home order —
THE PRESIDENT: When you say “my authority” — the President’s authority. Not mine, because it’s not me.
Q If I could just ask the question —
THE PRESIDENT: This is — when somebody is the President of the United States, the authority is total, and that’s the way it’s got to be.
Q It’s total? Your authority is total?
THE PRESIDENT: It’s total. It’s total.
Q Your authority is total?
THE PRESIDENT: And the governors know that.
Q So if a governor —
THE PRESIDENT: The governors know that. No, you have —
Q If a governor issues a stay-at-home order, you —
THE PRESIDENT: — a couple of bands of — excuse me. Excuse me. You have a couple —
Q Could you rescind that? Could you rescind that order?
THE PRESIDENT: You have a couple of bands of Democrat governors, but they will agree to it. They will agree to it.
Q What if it was a Republican governor?
THE PRESIDENT: But the authority of the President of the United States, having to do with the subject we’re talking about, is total.
{snip}
Q A quick question about something you just said. You said, “When someone is President of the United States, their authority is total.” That is not true. Who — who told you that?
THE PRESIDENT: Okay. So you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to write up papers on this. It’s not going to be necessary, because the governors need us one way or the other, because ultimately it comes with the federal government. That being said, we’re getting along very well with the governors, and I feel very certain that there won’t be a problem.
Yeah, please. Go ahead.
Q Has any governor agreed that you have the authority to decide when their state opens back up?
THE PRESIDENT: I haven’t asked anybody because I don’t — you know why?
Q Because no one has — no one has said that.
THE PRESIDENT: Because I don’t have to.
Go ahead, please.
Q But who told you the President has the total authority?
THE PRESIDENT: Enough. Please.
{snip}
THE PRESIDENT: No, you started off by saying, “Why are there no consequences?”
Q Because you’ve been asked this a few times, so I’m following up on your response. Why are there no consequences for China?
THE PRESIDENT: How do you know there are no consequences?
Q Because we’ve asked you —
THE PRESIDENT: You’re going to find out.
Q — and you’ve said — you’ve said that didn’t want to have an consequences because you suggested trade.
THE PRESIDENT: I wouldn’t tell you. You’d probably be the last person on Earth I’d tell.
Q So you’re saying there will be consequences?
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead. Uh, yeah, please.
Q Mr. President — actually, this is a question for Mr. Vice President. Do you agree with the President’s statement and his understanding of federalism, that his power is total — like in the way he described it? Is there anything you’d like to add or any context you’d like to add to the way he was discussing that?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I support the President’s leadership under the national emergency declaration that he signed.
{snip}
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.
Q Sir, did the states tell you — you’ve been talking to the governors quite a bit — did those coalitions of states on the West Coast and in the Northeast, did they tell you what they are going to be announcing before they announce it?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Governor Phil Murphy and the governor of Connecticut expressed today that they were going to be speaking on a — and discussing on a regional basis what their recommendations would be. And we assured them today —
Q Did they alert the White House about that, though, sir?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: We assured them today on our conference call with, I think, 48 governors that were with us today for the better part of an hour and a half — we told them that what the President would be producing — has directed to be produced are additional guidelines for the states, certified by the CDC, that would inform those governors and local communities and mayors about the best way forward, based on the unique circumstances that those states and those communities are facing.
I think what’s clear is the American people have seen the experience in Washington State, where this really all began for us; and in California; and now, the extraordinary challenges in the Greater New York City area, including New Jersey and Connecticut; the challenges in New Orleans and Louisiana and Detroit, still Chicago, parts of Houston.
But they’re also seeing that, in each one of those cases, that the mitigation efforts are truly working. And so we’ll — we’ll work with those — we’ll work with those states. And in some cases, it’ll make perfect sense for them to work together on a regional basis.
Q Any idea why they didn’t let you know ahead of time what they were planning?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you don’t know that. You don’t know that.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: But — but the President — the President will be —
Q (Inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: You don’t know that. I’m sorry.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear your question.
Q Mr. President, can you tell us? Did they let you know?
THE PRESIDENT: You don’t know that. No, you made a statement. You don’t know that.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I didn’t hear your — I didn’t hear your statement. I’m sorry.
THE PRESIDENT: And we would — and we would like to have their cooperation. And we are going to have their cooperation. They will cooperate perfectly. Watch.
{snip}
Q So, on Abbott Labs, you said testing is going great. We know that they have — these machines have been sent to some of the governors, but some of them are saying they don’t have the materials to actually conduct the tests.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they have to get the material. You know, the governors have to get the material.
Q The cartridges.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, if they can’t get it, they’re going to see us.
Q The government is — the federal government is distributing those cartridges.
THE PRESIDENT: I’m talking about the local governments. I’m talking about governors have to get the material. Now, they have machines. In fact, we — we’re going to go into — I’d ask Mike to go into it as soon as I leave. They have very powerful machines that they don’t know they even have. I’m not talking about Abbott; I’m talking about the governors. They have machines that are used for this —
Q The hospital labs.
THE PRESIDENT: You know what I’m talk- — do you know what I’m referring to?
Q Yeah, they have the two different machines.
THE PRESIDENT: Very big, very powerful machines where, in a certain state’s case, they’re only using 10 percent of their capacity and they didn’t know it. That happens to be Illinois.
Jon, please.
{snip}
So thank you to the American people for all your efforts, and we’ll see you tomorrow.
END
8:12 P.M. EDT