09/10/20: President Trump Holds a News Conference

wow we have some big ones today this is a full room wow paula reed jonathan carl phil rucker hi phil how are you caitlin we have the stars many stars today youtube you too that's fine that's fine thank you thank you very much, in the last four months we have added 10.6 million jobs, including 643 manufacturing jobs and 658 thousand construction jobs. It is far beyond expectations. We have experienced the smallest contraction of any Western nation, meaning we have been less affected than any other nation. western nation and I probably almost think you can include us. I just saw some numbers.

I think you can put us in almost any category anywhere and the fastest recovery by far and it's anywhere that no one has recovered like we are recovering if we followed Joe Biden. As a strategy, we shut down the entire country after we had set growth records and we also had tremendous retail growth, as you have probably noticed, we are seeing the fastest labor market recovery from an economic crisis in our history, in contrast to the Obama administration Biden. had the slowest, weakest, worst recovery in American history, as you know, we continue to make progress in our fight against the China virus.

New weekly cases are down 44 percent since July, deaths are down 20 compared to last week, it's really declining very quickly. quickly this is in contrast to the nations of the European Union who have recently seen a sharp increase in cases, they are having a very large spike there, we hope we are past our peak and we will see, but we are doing it. very well throughout our country in the last five weeks cases per capita doubled in France increased to more than 300 percent in Spain. I have been listening and talking to some of the leaders in Spain and they are having a hard time and it got even worse. more than 400 percent in Italy again and, as you remember, I stopped, I banned people coming from Europe after the ban that I imposed on China, Wuhan, but because of Wuhan, mainly because that area was very infected, we also put a ban to Europe, so Spain is being hit hard by France and 400 percent in Italy yesterday.

European nations experienced 50 more deaths than the United States and you don't hear these things, you don't hear these statistics, but the United States has done very well, very proud of everyone. that worked on this and I really believe that we are around the corner and the vaccines are there, but even without discussing vaccines and without discussing therapies, we are around the corner, by the way, we already have therapies available that obviously They are having a very big impact because if you look at how people are recovering, it is much better than in the past, before we knew about the disease and had something to combat it in schools as part of our scientific approach, we want schools. to open and stay open safely, children are at extremely low risk of complications from the virus, less than 0.2 percent, 0.2 percent of coronavirus deaths have occurred, and those under 25 years and most had underlying conditions in which there was a problem that has no substitute in -in-person learning according to a recent study students' progress in mathematics decreased by half and the use of online education compared to in-person or on-campus education, so online we think about so many things online and how great it is, there's nothing like being in the classroom, that's what we've learned from this whole ordeal, according to the CDC, the school closures disproportionately harm low-income and minority children, as well as those with disabilities, and I think you can see some slides behind me that are very new, very current, it's also crucial that colleges and universities remain open and we hope that they actually stay open we want to see Big Ten football we hope it comes back we have a lot of the colleges that we're talking about that want to come back we hope Michigan agrees we hope so and I know the governor will have a lot to say about it, We hope you approve it, but we have a couple of that Maryland is another.

We're hoping the governor will apply some pressure so we can have it, but I have a feeling they might. They might do it without everyone, but I think they'll have maybe Michigan, maybe Maryland, we have a couple of states that maybe won't participate, but people are working very, very hard to bring Big Ten football back. and I'm pushing it. and it will be a great thing for our country and the players and the coaches really want to do it, the players are missing, they only have so many years of this and the players are missing a great opportunity, including the opportunity in some of the In some cases, they have some of the best college players in our country and they want to get into the NFL and they want to make money in the NFL and they won't be able to do it that easily if they don't make it. watching them play is much safer for students to live on campus in low risk conditions young people would prefer the alternative is the alternative is not good than going home spreading the virus to high risk Americans is what they want to be on campus back to school and parents want them back to school maybe more than they want to go back to school and they want to go back safely and they want to go back safely, but they have to go back based on recent data from more In more than 20 universities, not a single student who tested positive for the virus has been hospitalized, so that is a lot of people, that is, a lot of students, not a single one has been hospitalized as we continue to follow the science-based approach to protect our people and beat the virus.

Joe Biden continues to use the pandemic for political gain. Every time I see him, he starts talking about the pandemic about him. He is reading a teleprompter. I can't use a teleprompter. Why this Phil? They ask questions and he starts reading the teleprompter. He says. He brings the teleprompter a little closer, please, I don't know. I think if he did he would be in big trouble. I think that would be the story of the year when I took early action in January to ban travel. and all the trips to and from china the democrats and biden in particular called him xenophobic you remember joe was willing to sacrifice american lives to appease open borders radical left extremists and we saved tens of thousands of lives probably hundreds of thousands of lives and we saved millions of lives by closing and now opening the way we did.

Joe's decision to publicly attack the Chinese gang showed that he lacks the character, intelligence or instinct to become what he is now. Biden launched a public campaign against the vaccine, which is too bad because we have some vaccines on the way that are incredible. Scott was telling me some of the things that are happening and it's very exciting, Scott. Thank you for being here, but you don't want to have anything to do with political purposes. An anti-vaxxer doesn't want to talk about vaccines in a negative way, especially when you see the statistics we are starting to see.

They are incredible. In reality, Biden is perfectly happy to endanger other people's lives by doing something. He believes that he will help him politically because his polls are getting very bad, they are becoming very unstable, this was an election that was going to be very easy, very quick and then the Chinese virus arrived and I had to go back to work. Unfortunately, politically I had to spend more time on politics than on other things we do, which are very important for our country, but I had to go back to work and it seems like we are going up much faster than the media wants.

I admit that Biden had to come out, he came out of his basement and he's working, let's see what happens, but we have to talk about how good these vaccines are, if in fact they are great and I think we will see numbers. that's going to be very, very impressive, the virus approach is a very unscientific blanket put up by the Democrats, that's what they're talking about, that takes all these incredible statistical records and throws them out the window now that they said it It would be based on the recommendation of the experts, but you know, whether we are experts or not, we will not do any more closures, we did the closure and now we are doing the opening and there will be no more closures, there could be a little. section a small section we have a breakdown, but we're not talking about lockdowns like they were talking about, depending on the experts, we're not going to make the swine flu was a disaster, remember when it wasn't as deadly or as deadly?

Same world, but when Joe Biden was vice

president

, his botched approach to swine flu was disastrous. He called him, he called him n1h1. It's actually h1n1. You know, you remember that the h comes before the end, so it's easy to remember, but Joe always calls. it was the other way around, but it was called swine flu, it was disastrous and his own chief of staff said that when Biden helped control swine flu in 2009, they did everything wrong and 60 million Americans got H1N1 in that time period. a quote from his chief of staff and it is pure coincidence that this is not one of the great mass casualties of the events, it had nothing to do with us doing something right because we did everything wrong, it was a disaster, it was a disaster and now we says it had a way it can't control on its own 270,000 Americans were hospitalized during this attack the outbreak was so rampant that the Obama administration told states to stop testing.

We don't want any proof because they don't want it. show all the things that show by the way we are setting a record in testing, our testing is at a level that no one has seen before, we are substantially larger than the second country which, by the way, is India, which is 1.5 billion of people, but We have 50 million tests ahead 50 million ahead and they ordered the CDD to stop counting tests and stop counting cases and then they left us with a depleted reserve, which is what I inherited. I inherited a depleted, very depleted stockpile, in other words, Biden's record shows that if he had been in charge of this very serious and highly contagious epidemic or pandemic, the China virus, countless more Americans would have died and if we had not done What we did and I say it all the time because the media likes to put it down.

What we have done has been incredible. Now you can look at Europe and other places and you can start comparing Biden is weak to China. Yesterday it was revealed that a fund partially owned by Joe Biden's son Hunter facilitated the sale of a Michigan auto parts producer to a leading Chinese military defense contractor that you don't want to write about. Did Biden spend his entire career selling Michigan jobs to China? Now the Biden family is selling our country directly to the Chinese military, which has something to do with it. with this company that hunter here we go with hunter again he didn't have a job now suddenly he's selling michigan companies to china china's army got manufacturing jobs in the united states and the biden family got paid a lot of money and i said yes joe biden any once he was elected china will own america he will own america finally i can announce with great pride that secretary of state mike pompeo will depart this afternoon on a historic trip to duha, which is qatar, for the beginning of peace negotiations between Afghans We have been negotiating with them for quite some time, we get along well with them, they took out a lot of soldiers.

I received a report this morning that there have been no deaths in Afghanistan since early February. A lot of time has passed. There have been no deaths, there have been no problems and a lot. "A lot of progress is being made in Afghanistan, but in a very short period of time we will be down to 4,000 soldiers. Likewise, Iraq will be reduced to about 2,000 soldiers in a very short period of time and in Syria, for the most part , There is nothing more than we keep the oil, since we have soldiers guarding the oil, not many, I think they are few, but they are guarding the oil and we are helping the Kurds and we are making their lives much more pleasant because to the fact that we have the oil, so we are practically out of Syria, we are practically out of Iraq and we are left with the smallest force we have ever had, very soon it will be reduced to that number in Afghanistan, uh, the negotiations are the.

The result of a bold diplomatic effort by my administration in recent months and years, the United States will play an important role in bringing the parties together to end the decades-old war that has been going on for nearly 20 years, long before it. I will arrive involved, I can tell you that and if they hadn't been wasting time with all the fake witch hunts and all the stuff we probably could have done this even faster, but a lot of time had to be wasted that way, but the holidays are together right now and we are negotiating and we are really making tremendous progress next week at the white house we will have a signing between the United Arab Emirates and Israel and we could add another countryto that and I will tell you that the countries are aligning. who want to get into this, as you know, the United Arab Emirates is led by a gentleman who is very, very respected and respected by everyone and he is also a warrior, he is a great warrior and Muhammad is very enthusiastic about this and they will listen to other countries.

It will come in a relatively short period of time and we could have peace in the Middle East. I think what will ultimately happen is that a lot of countries will come in, the big ones will come in. I spoke to the king of Saudi Arabia so we are talking, we are starting, we just started the dialogue and you will get them in and I think two things are going to happen, Iran, if we win the elections, Iran will come and sign an agreement with us very, very quickly within the first week, I would say. But let's give it a month because their GDP dropped by 25, which is an unheard of figure and they would like to be able to have a successful country again, so I think that will happen and I think the most important thing is that the Palestinians will come back into the fold and when you see all these countries that have frankly supported the Palestinians are big supporters and certainly financial supporters, as you know we used to pay the Palestinians 750 million dollars a year and I ended that some time ago.

On the basis that they didn't seem to want to make peace and we'll think about it once we come to an agreement, but I ended it quite a while ago. Frankly, I'm surprised they haven't been at the table sooner. but this is the best way, it's going to be great, it can really unite the Middle East and again since February we haven't had a death in Afghanistan, which is a record for many years, not a death, and We are getting along very, very good with the Taliban and very good with Afghanistan and its representatives and we will see how everything goes, it is a negotiation, but the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, will be leaving in a while, so I think it is very interesting

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and Many people thought that my natural instinct is war.

No, my natural instinct is actually peace. When we were on the debate stage, people used to say, Will it be a week or two before President Trump goes to war? But that was not so. I rebuilt our military we have a military that costs two and a half trillion dollars new planes and rockets and tanks and ships and a lot of things that we have we have the best newest military we've ever had so hopefully we won't have to use our The program nuclear has been put into action like never before and we particularly hope that we don't have to use it because it's a whole new level of destruction and we never want to have to pray to God that we never have to use it, okay please?

John, yes, thank you, Mr. President, why did he lie to the American people and why should we trust what he has to say? The terrible question and the phraseology I did not lie. What I said is that we have to be calm, we cannot panic. I knew the tapes were a series of phone calls that we had mostly phone calls and Bob Woodward is someone I respect just from hearing the name for many years, not knowing too much about his work, not caring about his work, but I thought that it would be interesting to talk to him during a call period, so we did.

I don't know if it will be like that. I don't even know if the book is good or bad, but he certainly thought it would be. a bad statement he would have reported it because he thinks that you know that you do not want to have anyone who is going to suffer medically from some event and he did not report it because he did not think it was bad, no one thought it was wait a minute and your question, the way you express that It's a shame, it's a shame for ABC, it's a shame for your employer and that's the answer, are you ready because you're thinking I love you, of course not.

Of course, I didn't know, then the flu and then you came out and told the American public that this was like the flu that we've had for four years, something else, no, and five times, right, five times, did you ever hear the expression five? Sometimes we've had flu years where we lost a hundred thousand people. The flu is also a very serious problem for this country and we have been losing them, Scott, what kind of numbers have we lost over the years with the flu? Thousands, well, I mean, in the last five years it's been between 35 and 80,000 a year, even with antiviral drugs and even with the flu, it's also a very serious problem, but this is worse than the friendlier flu and more lethal than the most grueling flu.

Okay, and then you came out and said it's like the flu, what I came out and said is very simple, listen, what I came out and said is very simple, I want to show a level of confidence and I want to show strength as a leader and I want to show that our country is going to be okay one way or another, whether we lose one person, we shouldn't lose anyone because this shouldn't have happened, this is China's fault, this is nobody's fault, but China, China no I should have allowed it. to happen, whether you have one 180,000 people or two and a half or three million people, which could have been very serious if we had not taken action and when you look at the opposition, who said: "oh, why put the ban on dr. fauci said we saved hundreds of thousands of lives by imposing the ban on china and then ultimately imposing the ban on europe there was no lie here what we are doing is we are leading and we are leading in a proper way and if, frankly, someone else was leading it, they wouldn't have shut it down if you look at nancy pelosi you look at cuomo you look at de blasio you look at biden months later they said no problem they're talking about me months later and before To make any statement, you have to remember that I put the ban on china, so obviously I said outwardly that it's a very serious problem and it's always a serious problem, that doesn't mean I'm going to jump up in the air and start saying that people are going are going to die, people are going to die, no, no, I'm not going to do that, we're going to get through this and we're right now, I really hope I think we're going to get through this, we're rounding the final Turn and there's a lot of good things happening with the vaccines. and the therapies but there are no lies and the way you ask that question is very embarrassing Phil go ahead please go ahead yeah great job I think we did a great job and the people who did it. such are the generals, our admirals mike pence, all the people who have worked so hard and now dr. atlas and all dr. fauci, dr. burks, they should be respected for the work they have done, so you won't die, you won't be downplayed.

I'm saying it again because you said you downplayed it, that's what you told me. All I'm doing is no, I don't want to jump up and start screaming death, death, because that's not what this is about, we have to lead a country that we are. leading a great country and we are doing a great job and the people who have done such a good job should get the kind of credit they deserve, we have possibly done the best jobs when you start to look at what we are doing with the vaccines, the therapies and the ventilators, we didn't have ventilators, John, we make thousands of ventilators now a month and we're supplying them all over the world.

The work we have done is the best work and don't give me any credit, give it to the people. Those who have done this are credited with having done a great job, yes Phil, go ahead, yes Mr. President, you talked about the need to stay calm and not jump out and scare people. Many other world leaders were calm. German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She was very calm as she presented information to the German people so that they could stay safe and protect their families. So why were you, as

president

of the United States, not sincere with the American people?

Did you not share the information you knew at the time? In real life, I don't know what angle he's taking, but if you look at the European Union right now, they're having outbreaks like you've never seen before and, frankly, their numbers are at a much worse level than the numbers. Here we are, we've done it, we've got Phil, we've done much better than the European Union. I just read your numbers which are not good in your name, which are very good in ours and we have made the final turn and we have ourselves. We will have vaccines very soon, maybe much sooner than you think.

Listen, maybe a lot sooner than you think, but we've done phenomenal work and the people who have done this work, including the American public, who have had to put up with a lot with the lockdowns. and all the things they had to do you have to give them credit, you have to give credit to a deadly virus, you knew it was transmitted through the air, you knew it on February 7, you told Bob Woodward how it was transferred from person to person in the air. how deadly it was why didn't you go up to the podium and let me ask you this?

Bob Woodward thought it was bad because this is something everyone knew. There's a report I have here somewhere where China said it was in the air before the statements I made. made people know it was airborne this was nothing this was no big deal when I said it was airborne everyone knew it was airborne this was no big deal in February I read the reports China came out with a statement that it was an airborne disease I heard it was an airborne disease, I assumed it from the beginning, the fact is that there has to be calm, you don't want me jumping up and down screaming, there will be a big death and really It will cause some very, very serious problems for the country if Bob Woodward thought what I said was bad then I should have gone immediately after I said it to the authorities so they can prepare and let them know but he didn't think it was bad and he said I didn't think it was bad.

He actually said that he didn't think it was bad. The only ones who said it was bad or think it was bad were the fake

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media because they take it and try to phrase it a certain way if Bob Woodward thought it was bad then. he should have come out publicly right away, not waited four months, you know, he's had that statement for four months, maybe five months, he's had it for a long time, it was a series of taped interviews, mostly over the phone, quick, not long, fast, and it was I did it out of curiosity because I have respect and I want to see.

I wonder if someone like that can write well or not. I don't think I can, but let's see what happens. Thank you, Mr. President, there are already about 50 of us. We are days away from the election and we still haven't seen much of the Durham investigation. Yeah, where is that? Do you have confidence in the research? Well, I can't tell you yet. I have to see that it doesn't. involved in this, I deliberately stayed out of it. I guess I'm considered the country's top law enforcement officer. He could involve me if he wanted to. I thought it would be better if I wasn't.

I think it's better if our great attorney general. handle it he has Durham who is a very, very respected man and let's see what it is I can't tell you I can tell you this I can tell you this they lied, they cheated, they leaked, they got caught Despite my campaign, never in history has there been something like this and I guarantee you if the roles were reversed and I was on the Democratic side, people would have been in jail at the highest level, people would have been in jail for two years already, nothing like this has ever happened and the term would be for many, many years because it is treason and other words can be used.

Do you think there should be more accusations as part of this? I think just from what I read in your wonderful articles, I think and and look what you know just by looking at the media, not even what I know, I think comey is a disgrace to our country, I think strzok who just wrote a book which is totally false, it's a disgrace, i think page lisa page, her mistress is a disgrace to our country, i think when you look at mccabe, where his wife received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from hillary clinton, and then hillary clinton is under investigation and yet he paid the head of the fbi, one of the most important people, but he's actually the head because he replaced the other guy that luckily i fired.

I made a good move when I said goodbye. It was a smart move because they were looking to bring down this duly elected administration, so I fired him. It was a great move when i fired him because maybe if i didn't i wouldn't be here talking to you as president, but when mccabe's wife gets 700,000 in campaign contributions when she was running for whatever office she was running for from virginia and, However, he is in charge of Hillary Clinton's investigation now he says well, I wasn't really in charge, of course, he was a judge, he was totally in charge, he knew exactly what was going on, these people got caught up in probably the biggest political scandal in the history of our country.

Now they found out what the Durham report is going to say, I can't tell you, but if they say half of what I already know just by looking at it, you know you have people. I watch some of the shows I watch. Liz McDonald. She is fantastic. i watched fox business last night i watched lou dobbs sean hannity last night tucker last night laura i watched fox and her friends in the morning you watch these shows you don't have to go too deep into the details they cover things that are really a It's amazing that they got caught up in thebiggest political scandal in the history of our country.

They were spying on their opponents' campaign, not just spying, they were making up false dossiers. You have a dirty file. They were inventing the dirty. Everything was invented. all fiction turned out to be fiction and then they were using that in the fisa courts, this revered court that's not so revered anymore because when you look at what they did and how they played it and they listened to a lot of people, General Flynn is still hurt and he's very hurt he is a wonderful person I spoke to general milley about general flynn two weeks ago I told him what do you think of general flynn he said he is a great soldier sir he is a wonderful wonderful human being he has been destroyed he has been destroyed now I believe that this without know anything about what Durham is going to publish the Durham report we will call it or maybe it will be more than a report maybe it will be much more than a report I don't know maybe it is a report or maybe it is much more than that, but when I look at the things that everyone in this room knows just from reading it about yourselves, I think it's a disgrace to our country and I think if people don't pay a very high price, it will happen again and this should never happen to another president.

Thank you so much.