9/16/20: President Trump Holds a News Conference

Thank you very much everyone, thank you, good afternoon, Hurricane Sally made landfall, as you know, in Alabama and Florida last night as a Category 2 hurricane and has caused 35 inches of rain in some places, that's a lot, we have hundreds of Fema Coast Guard cutters , we have the National Guard personnel on the ground are assisting in the response efforts and Alabama is in excellent condition and every place that we are working with the state government is really in excellent condition. We're working very hard on it, but it looks like it will be mostly safe. but just follow the instructions of all your local and federal people.

We have the best people you can have there, so I want to thank everyone. I want to thank everyone for working so hard in Florida and they are very good at this. In Florida they handle it, they know how to handle it and the people who work there know how to handle it. All the governors have been spoken to and it is a combination of real spirit and they have a tremendous spirit of spirit. They have a tremendous sense of working with hurricanes. They've gotten very good at it and we've certainly had a lot of them even since I've been here, we've had a lot of them so it's in good shape.

Hurricane Sally, we're going to talk about Big Ten football, but that's a fantastic thing that we'll discuss at the end. I just want to talk about vaccine distribution. Today my administration released our detailed national vaccine distribution plan and that includes a plan to ensure we quickly deliver the vaccine directly to America's seniors in nursing homes. and everything is ready, we have our army aligned, everyone is aligned and we believe that everything will go very well. We are very close to that vaccine, as you know, and I think closer than most people mean or certainly closer than most people understand.

To get the vaccine into the hands of the American people, we are fully mobilizing the amazing power of American industry and also our military. This is by far the largest, fastest and most advanced vaccine distribution effort in US history. I was reading where Biden said that. Oh, he'll have a plan that went so badly with the swine flu you wouldn't even believe it. Check out his history on swine flu. In fact, the person who ran it said it was a total disaster and we're on track to deliver on it. and distribute the vaccine in a very, very safe and effective way.

We think we can start sometime in October, so as soon as it's announced we can start, that will be from mid-October, maybe a little later. but we will be ready, so as soon as they are given the go-ahead, they will be testing, as you know, and as soon as they are given the go-ahead, we will get it out, we will defeat the virus, we have manufactured everything necessary. supplies so that as soon as the FDA approves the vaccine and, as you know, we are very close to that, we can distribute at least 100 million doses of vaccine by the end of 2020 and a large number much sooner.

I ask Biden to stop promoting his anti-vaccine theories because all they are doing is damaging the importance of what we are doing and I know if they were in this position they would say how wonderful it is that they are Recklessly putting lives in danger, you can't do that and again, this is really a case where they're just talking, they just started talking a little bit negatively and that's just because they know that we have it or that we will soon have it and the answer is very soon the case is updated, it's very interesting to see what's happening because the testing positivity rate has dropped across all age groups and has fallen below five percent for the first time since this whole China virus nightmare started, so it's dropped by Below five percent the number of hospitalized patients has decreased by 43 percent since mid-July. 43 nationwide people sick with the China virus now make up just 1.5 percent of all emergency room visits, so we're at the lowest number we've ever had: 1.5 percent of emergency room visits is for the china virus and thanks to our life-saving therapies and treatments, I think this is the best of all in terms of our large percentages and all the progress we have made, the rate of Mortality has fallen 85 since April. 85 mortality rate if you look at what we've done and all the lives we've saved and I'm going to ask for a graph to be put up and now it's up uh this was right at the beginning this was our prediction that if we do a really good job work we will be between one hundred one hundred thousand and one hundred forty thousand deaths and we are substantially below that and we will see where it comes out, but that would be if we did the good job if the not so good The work was done, you would be between 1.5 million, I remember very well these numbers, and 2.2 million, uh, that's a big difference, so we're in this territory and that's despite the fact that the blue states had had tremendous mortality rates if you take the blue states we're at a level which I don't think anyone in the world would be in, we're really at a very low level, but some of the states were blue states and blue states managed and by the way that we would recommend that they open their states, I think it's very It's important that they open up their states because if you look at some of them, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and a couple more, we have to open those states, it's hurting people, it's hurting people. much more than the disease itself so we recommend that you open them and let your people have freedom and it is unfair to your people to keep them closed at this stage we know the vaccine we know the vaccines are coming but we know the problem we understand who the Vulnerable are primarily people with medical problems, but particularly people with medical problems who are older, so open your states to facilitate routine testing for nursing home residents and staff.

We have delivered rapid testing devices to thousands or excuse me. 13,850 certified nursing homes across the country, so there are 13,850 certified nursing homes across the country and they are being facilitated in terms of testing and testing apparatus, everything is there, we also have new tests coming and we have one in particular that I think I showed last night. which is literally two pieces of very thin cardboard, there's actually a lot of delicate stuff inside that cardboard, but it's an incredible test, it's very fast, it's very precise and it moves quickly. We have purchased millions of those tests and they are going to be distributed quickly so that the testing process, where there is no one in the world that has a testing process like ours, apart from being number one, number two, which is India , they have about 50 million tests behind us, I think they have 50 million, they have 1.5 billion. people tomorrow Vice President Pence will announce the conclusions of the nursing home commission to continue protecting our most vulnerable, who are our senior citizens and we are going to take good care of them.

I want to congratulate the big ten of football, it's good, it's back and me. I want in particular I have been dealing with him thanks to commissioner Kevin Warren for the great job he did we have been working with him for a while a rumor spread that he did not want to return to football and it was the complete opposite That was another misinformation rumor spread by the Biden campaign and it was the complete opposite, but it really pushed me to act. I called the commissioner a couple of weeks ago and we started pushing hard, frankly, because there was no reason not to come back and Kevin went and worked very hard.

I want to thank the players and coaches for working together and they loved it very much. The players and coaches in particular. Parents too and the big ten of football have just announced, you know, their calendar. They announced the calendar and it will be very important to have it. I want to recommend that pac-12 also get going because there is no reason why pac-12 shouldn't play now and maybe they will start with at least partially i. I had recommended today to Kevin and others that you might want to start with 25 of the stadium or you might want to start with the empty stadium.

I don't know if it is like that. I think they could make the fans leave, frankly, but they want to be careful. I want to be safe and they will be safe. They have a very good testing process for players, coaches, families, etc., so I just want to congratulate the Big Ten. It will be great. We'll love to see you and again I want to recommend pac-12 you're the only one now open open pac-12 get going he said the same thing to the big ten and they did it and now I'm telling pac-12 you have time, you really have time, right now come on, i want to thank all of those wonderful coaches, some of whom i talked to and we went through a process over the last few weeks and i want to thank congressman anthony gonzalez from ohio who as you know was a great football player at one time.

People know that I know, but Anthony was a great player. A great receiver went to the NFL. I also want to thank Tim Pataki on my staff. He worked really hard on this and was up day and night working with Kevin and everyone else, so I want to. to thank tim pataki great job so big 10 is back and hopefully having a great season. The Census recently found that in the second quarter of 2020, home ownership by Hispanic Americans reached an all-time high, which is the all time in our country's history. Yesterday the Census reported that the median income of Americans increased by one figure. unprecedented from four thousand four hundred dollars last year to a record sixty-eight thousand seven hundred dollars in 2019 income inequality fell for the second year in a row the income gap widened under the obama biden administration and widened quite substantially and It was reduced under the Trump administration, so there's a little fact that you didn't know, which is why it was reduced under our administration and expanded under Obama.

Revenue grew more last year alone than during the entire eight years of Obama Biden and uh. that's a big statement, but that's how it is in 2019 4.2 million Americans escaped poverty, which is the largest reduction in poverty under any

president

in history 4.2 million Americans escaped poverty the Hispanic American poverty rate reached the lowest level in history our country Hispanic American poverty rate the lowest level ever I created the largest and fairest economy in history the biggest gains went to low-income Americans since you measure those kinds of things we will come back to be at full strength very soon we are going to have a fantastic Next year it looks like we are going to have an incredible third quarter.

The numbers look very, very strong for the third quarter. We have figures that we will publish tomorrow. Some of the individual things. Automobile production. Living place. production homeownership so many different things is at levels no one thought possible as we move forward the turn of the pandemic, the anti-police crusade of the Democrats and the radical left and the radical left Democrats also has to stop the war of the left against the police. it puts our officers at risk and our communities at very serious risk they can't do this Biden described the police as the enemy, they are not the enemy, they are the friends, they are our friends, they are helping us and if you go to I just saw a poll that just came out or recently came out that 84 percent of African Americans wanted more police, they wanted safe neighborhoods in Phoenix last night, a federal officer was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles this weekend, everyone saw that this is horrible. human being or whatever you want to call him, i think kim they're looking everywhere they're trying to find him we're going to find out we're going to catch them but in Los Angeles this weekend two sheriff's deputies were ambushed and brutally shot and they can never be the same, They are improving, but they can never be the same.

I will always support our law enforcement heroes and we want to stop this horrible rhetoric and stop it quickly. I want to ask Scott. Atlas to say a couple of words because I heard Biden talk today about he wants to come up with a distribution plan, a distribution for the vaccine that we came up with, a couple of things that we came up with with that vaccine, it will be announced. pretty soon, but regardless of this month next month at a level of time that no one thought was possible because of what we did with our FDA in terms of streamlining it.

I want to thank Dr. Hahn, but what we've done with simplification has been incredible. and with a lot of safety, number one is safety, number two is speed, but you can have perfect safety and have a lot more speed and that's what we did. We did this for more than the vaccine that has to do with the Chinese viruses, it was for other things as well. There are other excellent drugs that would take 10 to 12 years to be approved. We've moved those timelines up a lot, but if this were Obama Biden, this would have taken two or three years before we got to the stage we're at now.we will be very soon and it's funny to see Joe Biden get up and read off a teleprompter and say how would he have done this.

They had h1 n1, he calls it n1h1, it's h1n1, it's called swine flu and it was a disaster and like I said, the person who ran it said the worst things about it, I mean, they just didn't know what they were doing, they abandoned it, They had no idea and that was easy compared to this. the most contagious flu or contagious virus anyone has ever seen. It's amazing how contagious it is. You figured it out, but I saw Biden quickly as he spoke without knowing anything about a distribution plan and he said we don't have a distribution plan. plan, but in fact we make our army, we have military, we have everyone involved, it is a great plan and it is a plan like no other and we can start doing it, I think the day we come up with a vaccine, when it is ready, we will start that same day or the day after our military is very involved and deploys troops, these are the generals that are in charge of logistics and all that stuff and we will have them all over the country and then hopefully we will help the world with the vaccine and it's very exciting, but maybe I would ask god atlas to come and describe a little bit about that on the distribution plan in particular because Biden acted like there was no distribution plan and we've been working on this for months and it's ready and Scott really grabbed it and did an amazing job and please Scott, thank you.

That's fine thanks. You, Mr. President, and I did not develop the plan. I'm just relaying information here, but this is a plan that is a 57-page document that was sent to all the states today and there is a different part of this that was given to Congress. today it was published by hhs, it's on the website and I actually thought it was covered in the media, so I don't think it's a surprise, but it's a comprehensive plan, it's a public-private partnership to do everything in terms of logistics , it is necessary to track the first dose because it is anticipated that some of these vaccines will be two doses.

Of course, states adapt their specific characteristics and there is an administration of the vaccine plan that will be carried out in more than 51,000 points of sale, including uh, for particular attention to minority areas, more than fourteen thousand qualified health centers a federal level and, as the

president

just said, within the first 24 hours of FDA approval under emergency use, we will deliver vaccines within the first 24 hours and it will be done at virtually no cost to Americans and terms of the dose, there will be an ent, it is anticipated that by January at the latest, all the highest priority people will have received the vaccine or will be able to receive the vaccine, and that type of prioritization, which is the general prioritization that is done to All vaccines that are developed, particularly in a pandemic environment, are intended for high-risk people, people with other underlying conditions, as well as first responders and people who work directly in healthcare, and so will be done very quickly well, thank you, yes, mr. president earlier today, dr.

Redfield confirmed that it looked like November and December could see the first doses distributed, but then said the vaccine for the general public probably wouldn't be available until probably next summer, maybe even early fall, are you comfortable with that moment? No, I think he made a mistake when he said it was just incorrect information and I called him and he didn't tell me that and I think he got the message, maybe he got confused. it was stated incorrectly no we are ready to go immediately as the vaccine is announced and it could be announced in october it could be announced a little after october but once we go we will be ready as you know fisa is doing this.

They are taking a tremendous financial risk and spending billions of dollars to make this vaccine. They are at a stage where they are actually making it because they feel very confident in the results. They will announce them quite soon. and no, he's uh, that's incorrect information, he was pretty clear in the way, yeah, well, I think so, but I don't think he means that, I don't think he when he said it, I think he was confused, I'm just telling you. saying that We are ready to go as soon as the vaccine arrives, so when do you want to see it available?

What would be a schedule? I would say yes, we will start shipping it immediately, very soon. I mean it for the general public immediately when we arrive. Come on, we're not looking to say "wow" in six months we're going to start giving it to the general public no, we want to go right away no, it was an incorrect statement I saw the statement I called him I said what did you mean? so and I think he just made a mistake, he just made a mistake, I think he misunderstood the question, probably, so if you put a timeline on when every person in the United States will be able to get a vaccine, what would it be? it would be very soon I think our distribution process is going to go very quickly uh I told you that we have involved the military we have a general who is in charge of all the logistics who delivers soldiers he is a fantastic guy he is supposed to be fantastic at what he does does and we think it's better than any company you're going to hire, you can't hire a company like that and we're looking to do the distribution immediately after we find out it's good and I think they're having tremendous success with the vaccine itself I think the results will be early and solid, security has to be 100 and we are going to insist on that and obviously the companies are going to insist on that too.

Could you put a real January and February sky, what would you think? Yes, like I said, high priority people will have insurance sometime no later than January. I mean, of course, it depends on when things are approved in the ER. I'm talking about this, I can finish and then, as anticipated there. It will be 700 million doses by the end of the first quarter in 700 million doses, so Friday tomorrow that is in the q, dr. Ellis, do you mind if I ask you a question? Yes, that's the end of our journey. It's one thing to have the doses, but we've talked to a lot of public health experts who say if this happens in the winter and you have to socially distance, you can't have the crowded lines that we saw during H1N1, you can't have auditoriums. full, you have to space them out.

One thing they're worried about is storing these vaccines and since we don't know which one is the winner, doctors' offices may not have dry ice to withstand negative 80 degrees, so these are challenges, are you prepared? to say that you can overcome all that in three months, yes, because at least I have been informed about the vaccine, okay, and all the refrigerators that are necessary, everything will be ready for this. There is a very detailed logistical plan that was started months ago and you know you can read it on the web, but basically yes, all those things are not a problem, I really mean, if people know how to shop, go to a store or sit in restaurants that are open. and use social distancing, I think they can do it with vaccines too and you also have more than one company, you have johnson and johnson, you have pfizer, you have moderna, you have others, so it is possible that numerous companies will administer vaccines and They are all world class companies, they are fantastic companies that could also happen, okay, yes, please go ahead, thank you, Mr.

President, are you prepared to approve the oracle and tick tock deal even though you are not pays to the treasury and is not paid either? The agreement meets its requirements in terms of national security concerns. Okay, they are giving me studies on the agreement. It has to be 100 when it comes to national security. No, I'm not prepared to approve anything. I have to see the agreement. We need security, especially after what we have seen regarding China and what is happening. We want security, so I'll let you know that you'll let me know tomorrow morning and I'll let you know what happens with the treasury payments well, let's see about that uh surprisingly I find that you can't do that you can't accept when they say what kind of thing is this if they are willing to make large payments to the government they are not allowed because there is no way to do it from a uh, there is no legal way to do it and I say, wait a minute, they are willing to make a large payment to the government. government and we are not allowed to take the money, when does this happen, how stupid can we be, so let's look into that right now.

You understand that, in other words, I said no, I want a big chunk of that money. go to the United States government because we made it possible and the lawyers come back and say, well, there's no way to do it, you know why, because no one had heard of that before, no one had said that before, no one had said "well, we." We will approve the deal, but we want a lot of money to go to the government because by approving it we are making the deal valuable. They've never heard of it before, can you believe it?

Hard to believe, yes, fast track. on tick-tock um, you had said before that it was very important to you that an American company by tick tock and in accordance with the proposals put forward by Fight Dance Fight Dance would maintain a majority stake and Oracle would have a minority. find out about that we are investigating that from the bite dance point of view we don't like that I have been alone conceptually I can tell you that I don't like that uh that hasn't been told to me yet that has been reported, but they haven't told me, It could be very accurate to report for a change, so if that's the case, I won't be happy with it assuming that white dances porcelain, which I think is probably yes, yes, deep down, thank you.

You, Mr. President, Bill Barr, told prosecutors that you want to charge violent protesters with sedition and you told Judge Janine that if there are violent demonstrations on election night, we will crush them very quickly, if they make that look, they will called insurrection. I wonder why you want to use that kind of rhetoric when there is such good, I was asked if you have violent demonstrations, yes, we will leave it very, very quickly, if it is true that you are doing it and I think the American public wants to see that, yes , happiness, oh, yes, yes, thank you, Mr.

President, if there is any kind of demonstration or violence, there will be nothing that will interfere with the product of this project, this vote there will be nothing, the biggest problem we have right now is . the ballots come out millions of ballots, that's the biggest problem when you talk about other countries, whether it's China, Russia or many others that are mentioned, they are in a much better position with these paper ballots to do something than they would be under the old system. system and that is our biggest problem, our biggest threat to these elections is the governors of opposing parties that control the ballots, millions of ballots to me, that is a much bigger threat than foreign countries because many of the things that come to light light on foreign countries turned out to be false, what is what?

The truth is that many elections have been held over the last year and a half using this voting system. They've had a difference of five percent 10 percent 15 I think I read one in 40 40 and these are small and easy to control elections in all this voting. system where they can be sent and it is not even requested, we are not talking about that, they requested their unsolicited votes and they are sent is very dangerous for our country and you know who better than anyone knows it, the Democrats look at what happened. in manhattan where they had this type of election and it was so fraudulent that it should never have been allowed to be called we could have five 10 15 20 off we could have more than that the ballots will be stolen who knows where they are going who knows where they come from it's not just the counting of the ballots which by the way will take an eternity will take an eternity you think that on November 3 you may not have it I suppose at a certain point he will go to congress you know at a certain point he goes to congress you know this is a shame this is is doing it on purpose they know it's not good they know it's going to be fraudulent it's going to be fraud everywhere who receives the ballots who sends the On the ballots they have people who say that a verified signature is not needed, this is a serious threat to our democracy and the Democrats know that all we are asking is that if you request the ballot, you go through a process, you ask for a ballot because you can.

I won't be there for a lot of reasons, whatever it is I'm doing it myself, I won't be able to be in Florida, you apply for it and they return it, you do it and you return it, that's a process you go through. and it's pretty safe I use the word pretty safe, I guess nothing is foolproof, but what's pretty close to foolproof, what really works is you go to the polls, it's going to be very safe, I think it's going to be covered up by then. even lower it will be very low it will be a very secure process we did it during world war 1 we did it during world war 2 the biggest threat to this election is these unsolicited votes sent in by the millions controlled by governors like in Nevada, which is one person political, very political, but far beyond being governor, they tried to prevent you fromYou gave a speech without success, but we had to move a lot, so this same guy who tried to stop you from giving a free speech outside. outside, not inside, outside, they forced us in because of what they did, but outside, this is the guy who controls the ballots.

So you look at Pennsylvania, you look at other places, it's a big threat, and when it comes to China and Russia, they say the north. korea they say iran they say places who knows who knows but they say all these different places they can make fakes of these ballots they can do things that will blow your mind and the democrats know it's wrong they know it will end up being a disaster just take a look at what happened , take a look at what's happened over the last year with this same type of thing, except in a very small environment with very few ballots out so it's a lot easier not 53 to 80 million to out a very small number and you know what happened fraud as if you had never seen missing ballots ballots that never appeared balance with bad signatures ballots without signatures and in the case of Nevada they don't even want verification of the signature, it is a shame now, the hope for our nation is that it is before judges in Pennsylvania, before judges in Nevada, before judges and other places, before federal judges, and I hope they do what they did the other day. in pennsylvania where we had a big victory open your state it's unconstitutional to close it because what they were doing is closing it and they're closing it for political reasons it's going to open on november 4th it's going to open right after the election but they want people to want our numbers to be as bad as possible, but the problem is that our numbers are so good with or without several states opening up with or without but we had a great legal victory, as you know three days ago a federal judge.

I told them to open their state it's unconstitutional what they're doing that's in the Pennsylvania case now the big cases are going to be the cases on these unsolicited ballots and we'll see what happens right now please the Chinese Communist Party has been using slaves later in Xinjiang his administration has imposed a limited ban on certain products from Xinjiang, stopping short of a complete regional ban. What is your response to Chinese Communist Party spokespersons who say this is an outright lie that Xinjiang does not have? forced labor and number two, our allies have expressed interest in supporting this administration to take action against forced labor, we don't want to see that we have been very firm on that, we are receiving reports and over the next two three days we will know very precisely what the story is and then we will take action one way or another.

Yeah, I just want to ask you about the recent WTO ruling against the United States for over 200 billion in tariffs on China if the United States is still part of the Well, I have real questions about that. Look, America, we just won a lawsuit for seven and a half billion dollars, um, that no one used to sue before I came along. You know right, they used to lose them every time, now they haven't been losing. them but we are receiving reports about the wto it is not good it has never been good to us the wto as far as i am concerned it was created to absorb money and jobs from the united states for the benefit of china and other countries that is what my opinion is whether it was created or it just happened to be that way but the world trade organization has not been good for the united states it has been good for everyone else but it has not been good it was a method in my opinion to take advantage of the united states so we are investigating what happened and we will get back to you faster than questions.

One said he spoke to Dr. Redfield before and said he made a mistake. I think he made a mistake. However, we didn't do it, I didn't do anything good, I was very surprised to hear it, it doesn't really matter, this is what doesn't matter, we are ready to distribute immediately as soon as the vaccine comes out, that is. safe and good and it works, whether it's Fizer Johnson or Johnson or anyone else, we are ready to ship it very quickly as Scott said and as our team knows and they are ready and that could be available in October sometime in October or November.

I don't think it's going to be much later than that, but I think it could be sometime in October, we're ready to move in and it will be a very complete layout. They all got the call, they said they told him that. He made a mistake, what was his response? No, I didn't tell him anything. I said what happened and I got the impression that he didn't realize it. He said what he could have said. I didn't see him say it, but if that's what he said, it's a mistake because he's so ready that we are ready to distribute immediately to a large section of our country and then beyond because we want to help other countries as well but we are ready to distribute immediately but the schedule you gave said it would not be ready for the general public until the middle of next year sounds very similar to what you just offered no, no, I said there will be 700 million doses by the end of the first quarter and that everyone at high risk will get it at some point. no later than January, yes, I was talking about the general public, we are focused, as you know, Katelyn, we are focused on high risk, but we are also going to focus a lot on the general public, but our immediate focus is seniors and especially. older people with heart problems from diabetes, but we will have it.

We are not considering a small distribution program. We are considering distributing it throughout the United States with an immediate focus on seniors. Now, under no circumstances will it be as late as the doctor said, but I think, frankly, if you look at it, you know he got hit with that question, he said we are ready at a much faster level than he said, we will have a rapid distribution , we are setting up our military and others are prepared to do it and we think it could even start happening in October, but certainly during November, December would be the last because, based on what we are hearing, the results are based on what I am hearing, the Results are very good, so we'll see what happens.

You told Bob Woodward that the problem with a vaccine is that a vaccine will take 13 to 14 months once you have it because you have to test the vaccine. Do you want to know what I was telling him? No, that was a long time ago when I said no, we weren't established at that time, well, how many months ago, when was the statement made? You know your book is kind of outdated because, by the way, the book comes out the way I read the book last night really fast because it was so boring, I read it and if you see what I said, I said a lot of really good things, I mean, most people like to turn it around, but I said really good things. good at that. book and as an example, he doesn't cover, I told him what we're doing in the Middle East and we're doing it in a completely different way and that's not covered in his book, the whole thing is not covered in his book.

And one thing I will say and I respect the press for this, that it was almost universally interesting. We have been praised for the agreement that we made yesterday with Israel and with, you know, two very important countries in the Middle East and the United Arab Emirates in particular, where it is a very powerful group, it is a warlike country, it is led by a great warrior and a man who is very respected and if you take a look at that and Bahrain and Israel making a deal, I will tell you that we have at least four or five more that I want to come in, they would have come yesterday, I spoke to two of them yesterday and they are ready to jog and I think you're going to have a complete level of peace with no blood in the entire arena, no one was shot, no one was killed.

We killed hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle East, that's all it's ever been, I always say it's, uh, it's the bloodiest arena in the world and it didn't have to be that way. The worst decision our country made was Go to the Middle East, not just the millions of people killed, and I include people on both sides. You know, some people say, "Oh, you shouldn't say that, I said, I'll say it on both sides. Something so horrible was done. A mistake was made, we're doing this in a different way, so we have those two countries with the that we have at least five that we are negotiating with right now and you know you can only negotiate with a limited number of them, I think they are all going to come in.

I think ultimately the Palestinians are going to come in. people who fund them. You know, I stopped funding the Palestinians pretty early because they were saying bad things about our country, I mean, we're giving them 750 million dollars a year and they're saying all the bad things about our country, like that. that I stopped financing them from the beginning, but they receive financing from other very rich countries for them, it is like a specification, it is nothing more than that they receive financing and I think that now that these countries These very rich countries are part of the agreement and they will see it in the next fairly short period of time.

Other countries will enter. I think ultimately Saudi Arabia will come in as well. I think getting Saudi Arabia will be fantastic, but I think Saudi Arabia is what I feel is not based on knowledge other than a couple of conversations I had with the king, but I think Saudi Arabia will come too and you will end up with peace in the Middle East and nobody thought about it. "It could be done and no one thought it could be done this way. I went to some very smart people. I went to some people in the Middle East and they said, 'You'll never be able to do it.' It is not possible to make peace." They are telling me that no one ever thought about doing this, everyone thought that the deal with the Palestinians was done first, it had to be that way and I will say that the resistance was that some countries did not want to do it unless The Palestinians were there first.

It was just a psychological thing more than anything else, but they were wrong, those guys, the people, our great representatives who have been doing this for 35 years, who were telling me how to do it but they all failed, they were wrong. the Clinton administration, they were in Bush they were in uh obama all these great, brilliant people are all telling me how to do it and I said they were wrong and I guess I was right and when you see let me, well, let's talk, let's finish this when you see the countries that will come in a very short period of time, I'm not talking in a long period of time, uh, all the countries that will come, as you saw yesterday in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, and I can think of that I mean at least five that are going to go. to be quick and easy, others will be quick and easy too once the five come in, then you'll have something: there will be peace in the Middle East and we want out, you know, we want our soldiers to be Coming home, I said the endless wars , the ridiculous endless wars, and he will say this if I don't withdraw our country from that horrible nuclear deal with Iran, that horrible, stupid deal where President Obama paid 150 billion dollars for nothing and gave 1.8 billion dollars in 1.8 billion in cash, you know, it's 1.8 billion in cash, that's more impressive than the 150 billion normally paid, but he gave all this money, all these chips that we had, we had these chips and he gave them all away and we didn't get anything. and you know it was a short-term deal, it would practically be expiring now, it's practically starting to expire right now, but it practically would be and there's no way we're going to allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, just remember there's no way that's going to happen. be so.

It's going to happen, okay, David, you never responded. I'll leave this out, but do you want to take back what you told Woodward about the 13-14 month timeline for a vaccine? Well, the vaccine at that time I thought I could take that period. of time, but we have ramped it up very substantially and now I just tell you this is exactly what it is, we have been able to ramp it up very, very quickly. I never thought we could have a vaccine as quickly as we did, but I released it. I freed the FDA. Dr. Hahn has done a great job and they are ready to approve something when it arrives.

The other thing that's happening is very different: you look at a company like Pfizer, a big company. of the big companies in the world johnson and johnson are all big companies they are doing a lot of testing at a very fast pace and no one has ever seen anything like this you know they are in third place they are in third place level of testing and I think you are going to see things that are surprising when I made statements like that. That's an old statement. When I made statements like that, I had no idea that we could produce as well as we are producing, but just because of what I've done with the FDA and other things, can we get numbers like that?

We're lucky we don't have to because that was considered quick if it was a past administration and I think I can say a lot beyond Obama, it was other administrations and we wouldn't have a vaccine for two and a half and three years and we're going to have a vaccine within a couple of months at most. Okay, Mr. President, if I could ask you about the coronavirus. Relief: Do you support the Problem Solvers Caucus proposal that was introduced? Are you comfortable with the financial volumes for this? Something like that. Yes, I like the larger quantity. I've said that you know some of the Republicans don't agree, but I think I can. convince him toto accept that because I like the bigger number uh I want to see people get money I want to see that it wasn't their fault that this happened, it was China's fault, you know, people say, oh, maybe you shouldn't say that.

That's not nice, it was China's fault, so I would like to see the number higher. Yes, I would like to see it. There are some things I don't agree with, but I'm sure they can be negotiating now. I heard Nancy Pelosi say no. I want to leave until we reach an agreement. She has come a long way. That would be great if I said she's come a long way. I agree with her. We must reach an agreement. People must be helped and they must be helped as quickly as possible. And I think it's going to happen, I think it's very important, so the problem solvers came up with it's a group of people in Congress, you know, you know them all, I know them all, they're very good People, I guess you'd consider them to be in the center, but in many cases they're not, they're left-wing, they're right, but they came up with this idea and I think they're on the right track.

Your way of suggesting some pretty good things, yeah, I agree with a lot of things in terms of things you don't agree with, are you comfortable with the 500? I think the things I don't agree with we can probably negotiate, but I think I've made some progress over the last week and I think it was positive that they released that report just to close this out. Would you support that proposal? Well, it's not a proposal, but we're getting closer, we're getting closer, I like it. a lot of money was sent to people who were really unnecessarily harmed by China because they could have stopped it, they stopped it from coming into their country, they could have stopped it from coming to our country and from going to Europe and from going to the rest of the world 188 different countries around the world please president the cdc director also testified today that in his opinion a mask is guaranteed to protect the american public more from the chronovirus than a vaccine. invested a lot of resources in the development of a vaccine, why not dedicate your privacy?

Why not dedicate your energy now to a campaign to get every American to wear a mask? Something that, if more effective than a vaccine, would also help schools in the number one economy. it's not more effective in any way than a vaccine and I called him to tell him those were the two things I discussed with him and I think if you asked him he would probably say he didn't understand the question because I told him I asked him those two questions, the only one question that we covered and the math question, and they didn't answer me correctly because last night I was with George, George Stephanopoulos, and I enjoyed it, I think people enjoyed it, you know, a lot of people said. very good things about the show, I hope they did well, but they said a lot of good things about the show, but they always cut off my sentences, you know, they cut it on the masks and the masks have problems too and I talked about the masks. be handled very delicately, very carefully, I see that in restaurants there are people with masks and they are playing with their mask and they have it, they have their fingers in the mask and then they serve with plates, I mean, I think there are a lot of problems with the masks.

No vaccine is much more effective than the maximum and if we receive the vaccine, we have added the fact that our numbers are going down a lot. You know, you see the numbers. I'm just reading you statistics that are from wherever. They get them, but they are very qualified statistics, but no, the mask is not as important as the vaccine. The mask might help, don't forget that many people didn't like the concept of masks. Initially, Dr. Fauci didn't like it. I don't like it and a lot of people didn't like it and I don't criticize anyone because I understand both sides of the argument, but when I called Robert today I said what about the mask, he said, I think I answered that question. incorrectly, I think maybe he misunderstood, I mean, you know you have two questions, maybe he misunderstood them, but the answer to one is that it will be a much faster distribution than what he said, maybe he's not aware of the distribution process, actually it is not.

Yours is as much as it would be, say, mine, but the distribution will be much faster when it comes to the mask. I hope that the vaccine will be much more beneficial than the masks because people have used the masks, but When I looked at the graph that we put up, if you look, you know we're right, if you do the good job, it adds up to, I guess, 240,000, but if You do good, if it worked well, now look, one death is too many. one death is too many, it should never have happened, but the bottom level was at 240,000 between 100 something and 240,000.

As far as the mask goes, he made a mistake, but with the masks I mean, maybe they are part of the paper. for the decrease in cases, because they are effective as you just said, I know you have warned that no, they can be effective and I use them when I am in a hospital or when I am in an environment with a lot of my The question is why why we are not more often or have the White House staff use it more often to set an example for the country. Well, they test me and sometimes it surprises me when I see someone sitting and with Joe Joe they feel very safe. with a mask I don't know maybe he doesn't want to expose his face I don't know what's going on he'll be very far from people or close to people there won't be anyone with him he doesn't draw anyone crowds so have circles these big circles will be far away, there's no reason for him to have masks, we get tested, I get tested, I test people when people come into the oval office, it's like a big deal no matter who they are.

They're the heads of countries, everyone gets tested, so I'm in a different position, uh, and maybe if I wasn't in that position, I would wear it more, but I've worn masks and I especially like wearing them. when I'm in the hospital, not so much for myself but for other people, okay, thank you, yes, Mr. President, can I ask you two questions? Mr. President, one of our doctors, dr. Atlas, you mentioned that minorities would be the first focus of the distribution. How exactly would that work in practice when you distribute specifically to minorities and then for years you say minorities and seniors do, but can you tell us a little bit more about the focus on distribution to minorities and how that would work? and then for you, Mr.

President, you mentioned the drop in the poverty rate specifically, we noticed just with the

news

that the poverty rate for African Americans hit historic lows, that household wealth increased historically for African Americans, which drove that increase in wealth for African Americans and now. In 2020, with the coronavirus and unemployment rising, what would be your second term plan to improve lives? Well, I'll go first because your question, I appreciate your question and yes, we have had a tremendous fall into poverty for all people in our nation. but particularly for African Americans and that statistic came out and it's because the African American community, the black community, has had the lowest and the best employment numbers that we've ever had, both employment and unemployment, depending on how you want to define it, but we We have had the best employment figures we have ever had.

Now we had the largest employment in the country. Almost 160 million people. We've never been close to that number, but we were just six months ago and, yeah, I'm very. proud of the numbers, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, they had the best numbers they've ever had, by far, both employment and unemployment, depending on the definition, uh, thank you very much for that question, Scott, do you want to answer that, like this? that what I should clarify said that the first priority is high-risk people and frontline healthcare workers, but just to reiterate what I said, there are 51,000 distribution points for vaccination and there are more than 14,000 federally qualified health centers that are particularly targeted to minorities and low-income people. -income areas for that to be a focus.

I want to point out two other things. We are also prioritizing testing at historically black colleges and universities and are in the process of finalizing that because we know there are high rates of morbidity. with certain ethnic groups and the last thing I would say is that it is a particularly egregious and egregious abuse of the media to instill fear in people about taking a vaccine because there are no shortcuts here, everything is safe, everything is effective and for the people which are particularly an influence in minority communities to ameliorate fear and doubt. Is the scandalous abuse of public policy and leadership particularly true?

These are people who are at higher risk, so I implore everyone, as a high-risk category, that when we get a safe and effective vaccine, you should do it. take the vaccine, I will say that this is a phenomenon that only happened when they realized that it is very possible that we will have the vaccine before a very important date, that is, November 3, once they heard that the Democrats started only to show them how bad the intention is. They started hitting the vaccine it had nothing to do with the vaccine it was totally invented it's all misinformation just like they put an ad about football just like they did about me I'm the one who recovered football and I was always against them coming out that was ridiculous big ten and now I hope Pac-10 returns and I say that even worse they released a completely false advertisement, totally invented, it was a story invented by a third-rate magazine where the The boss, I guess he is the boss.

I have no idea who he is. I don't know him, but he's friends with Obama and Clinton, so they made up this horrible story and then made ads. They also made up this story. This story is very simple, they started ruling out the vaccine as soon as they found out that this could actually come out before the election, now it may or may not, but it will be in a matter of weeks, it will be in a matter of weeks from November, it will be ready for Go and it is ready for mass distribution to everyone with a focus again on seniors and I will say also the historically black colleges and universities that we are doing at my suggestion because they have had a difficult problem there, we are doing more testing there and more precise tests.

We've got our big thing there, but when you look at what we've done in testing in terms of technology and the quantity, it's been really amazing, in fact I think we're going to surpass 100 million tests very soon in the very near future. In the future we will carry out 100 million tests. Now what that does is that more cases appear. If we didn't test, we wouldn't have cases. You wouldn't have cases. Other countries do not test. We have cases and then they say, "Oh, America, well, but we're proud of it because it shows where there may be a problem and it helps people, but we're doing tremendous testing at historically black colleges and universities and that was a suggestion." .

I did and I think it's a good, I think it's a good suggestion, yeah, go ahead, thank you. The core of Vice President Biden's argument is that you don't trust scientists, you don't listen to them, and you're here on the podium today. you are contradicting twice the director of your own cdc on science who testified before congress today no, he is contradicting himself I think he misunderstood the question well, he was testifying you know what I think I think he misunderstood I told you I don't have To analyze this, I think you misunderstood the questions, but I tell you that the final distribution will be very fast.

You may not know that you may not be aware of it and may not be dealing with the military etc. like I do. the distribution is going to be very fast and the vaccine is going to be very powerful it is going to solve a tremendous problem it is going to be very powerful the american people trust you about the pandemic when you are contradicting the head of the cdc and because of the We have made a great job for the great things we have done in other fields and also for the fact that we created ventilators, we built thousands of ventilators and now we supply them to the world thanks to all the incredible work we have done.

I've done it for governors who are on every call saying this is awesome, this is great, this is great, sometimes they're not as friendly at a press

conference

when there are people covering it, but we've done a phenomenal job on Covet 19 like they. I like to call it, I call it other things, but we have done a phenomenal job. I get calls from other people in other countries, they can't believe the work we've done and then they say: is there a way to get it? us fans I say how many do you need? 1,000 fans I said we will be able to handle it we are making thousands of very complex fans very expensive something very difficult to do we are making thousands a month the closet was bare when I got here and I will tell you that our distribution will be very fast and will cover everything we we will focus on certain groups that have problems with older people, etc., but it is very powerful.

It's going to be a very powerful distribution, it will cover everyone and it will cover them quickly. I don't know if the doctor knows how much it covers or not, but I called him because I asked him why you said so long. I wasn't so aware of it andthe other was the mask the vaccine is going to have tremendous power it's going to be extremely strong it's going to be extremely successful we're not going to have any problems and the mask can help and I hope it helps and I think it probably does, but again, the mask It's a mix, there are some people, professionals, Scott, you would know a lot of them, but there are some people who don't like the mask because of the susceptibility and contact. so you're touching everything else they have, they feel like the masks have problems, so anyway, keep going, in the background, president, do you trust the doctor?, do I?, do I?, You just said I do it well.

I think maybe a question was misunderstood, but we're past that. Now we are really in the final stages of vaccinations. We are preparing to move into phase one of distribution and I think it may come out even sooner than you think. I think the vaccine. It's going to be even better than people originally thought. I think people will be very surprised by the success of the vaccine. I think it will be a tremendous success and, in my opinion, we are fighting a very powerful party with a poor candidate. but we are fighting a very, very powerful party and they are media partners and because they are working together very closely and they only started giving the vaccine when they came up with the vaccine, they only came up with it when they realized that wow, this It's amazing, they may have had it even before the election, suddenly they didn't like the vaccine. a lot in the back place thank you very much Mr.

President, were you informed about the positive cases of coronavirus? I can not listen to it. I'm sorry. Have you been informed about coronavirus cases? positive cases in the white house today about today yes, I understand this understanding today sir, yes. I will show you that you understand the reports from White House staff members possibly conducting testing. Oh, I see about the staff. You mean I found out this morning on a very small level? Yes, I found out this week. I don't know, we can send you a report. If you think it's necessary but it's small, it was last night that I first heard about this and it's a small number of cases, maybe they're not even cases, you know?

Do you have any idea? If so, we will not confirm. the identities of the yeah, okay, yeah, but it didn't affect the event and the press wasn't close to the end and there's no one that was close to me. From what I heard, a very small number, I think you can probably give the number. We'll find out later when you find out what a person could be, it was a person, okay, it was a person, I mean, not too much, it's not a person I was associated with, thank you very much everyone, thank you, thank you.