Transcripts For FBC After The Bell 20240713

Expecting to hear from President Trump momentarily in the rose garden here as the president and the white house will tout the progress that has been made on testing. Senior Administration Officials say across the country, 1. 9 million tests over last week, nine million since the start of covid19. Senor officials are pointing to go going ward, that 11 billion set to the states, that is money set aside in the cares age. They identified state goals and needs for month of may. Earlier today, Vice President , when he spoke to state governors encouraged those governors to have Staff Members within Nursing Homes tested. Testing of course what many positives want to see ramped up before states reopened but the president criticized many governors, the president saying that he believes that states arent reopening because of politics this Election Year this is part of the tweet from President Trump earlier today saying quote, the democrats are moving slowly all over the usa for political purposes. They would wait until november third if it were up to them. Dont play politics. Be safe, move quickly. Elsewhere within the white house today one of the president s top advisors also suggested that china should pay up for its handling of covid19. Listen. I strongly believe, and i think the American People strongly believe that china inflicted trillions of dollars of damage on this country and there should be some form of compensatory damages. It frosts me that disneyland in shanghai is opening this morning while my own disneyland in my homeland in, in orange county, in anaheim where disneyland was born is still shot because of the Chinese Communist party. Reporter connell and melissa, also of note today the white house is now saying Staff Members when they are on the premise of the white house should be Wearing Masks if they are not alone inside of their office. This of course is reaction to one of the president s valets testing positive for covid19 last week along with the Vice President s press secretary. Back to you. Melissa all right. Blake, thank you. Here is Dan Henninger from the wall street journal. He is also a fox news contributor. And, dan, let me ask you, so the president is about to talk about testing here. They will focus 11 billion from the cares act on testing. Do they need more money for that, or does it need to be more targeted . I ask because im in new york which is obviously the epicenter in this thing. It is easy to get a test here. Go out to any urgent care center. Theyre not turning anybody away. I had two antibody tests and two regular tests. Are we concentrating them in the right spaces . Should we reserve them for Nursing Homes . What are your thoughts . I think there will be enough money available for testing for sure as the state economies reopen across the country. I this one of the big issues there is going to be testing people who are going back to work, going back to their offices. Theyre going to want to know whether, how many people in those buildings are testing positive for coronavirus and a lot of that, i would guess is going to be supported by the private sector itself. It is mainly a matter of making sure that the tests are available, that they are reliable. And the fda, i think is moving as quickly as it can to insure those two things. That they will be widely available and most importantly they will be reliable but again i think the private sector is probably going to pick up the cost of a lot of that testing. Melissa yeah, you jumped right ahead to my thinking because it was, the urgent cares in new york city wanted to have the tests to get people in so they could, you know, charge for them. So they went out and made deals with Different Companies to get tests. It strikes me that employers will have to do the same thing. Youre not going to sit around to wait for the government to tell your employees where they can go test. Dont Big Companies need to secure testing for employees and what does that have to do with the governments budget . They may want some sort of tax credit or something for that testing but you think this probably falls under a legitimate cost of business to pay for the testing of your employees. We shouldnt rely on the federal government doing all of that. They may have to, pick up some testing costs for people who do not have employers like that. This is the story of this lockdown. People who work for large corporations, who still have their jobs, who are working for, from home, they have a steady salary stream. Theyre getting support, work place support from their employers, but individuals working in Small Businesses, restaurants, shops, and the like, they do not have that kind of financial support. Theyre sitting at home by themselves and they are the ones who probably best able to, they are the ones who should be targeted with any federal money that is going towards Something Like testing. Melissa the flipside, if the government will spend money it makes more sense, i guess, tell me if im wrong, to spend money now on trying to help things reopen as opposed to trying to design programs keeping various industries afloat . It didnt necessarily work that well. A lot of unintended programs out there havent been perfect. Probably the best solution to help the economy is help everyone get back to work as quickly as possible what are your thoughts . Yeah, i agree with that. You know, we are not talking about having a swooshshaped recovery, a deep decline, then a very slow, painful recovery. I read a couple weeks ago the white house was working on a schedule of deregulatory moves they could make at the federal level to try to back out of the way of companies and businesses recovering and i honestly think a deregulatory holiday, at every level of government, federal, state, local, whether Small Businesses like restaurants and large companies, like aviation industry, oil industry, just step away from the Regulatory Burden for the moment so they can concentrate on nothing but getting their businesses restarted would be a terrific idea. Short of that, allowing the private sector to get back to business as quickly as possible because they will adjust is probably the best thing we can do and by and large looks like that is gradually beginning to take shape across the states. Melissa dan, thank you so much. Brilliant as always. Connell . Connell as we await for president out in the rose garden any minute now lets get to Lauren Simonetti to get a recap of the up and down day we had on wall street. Lauren. Lauren really choppy session, connell. Wall street is skiddish reopening main street potentially causing infections. As you can see the dow down 109 points. S p up higher, barely. Look at nasdaq, longest winning streak this year, up six days in a row, up another 71 points. It is within 7 of its alltime highs. Big cap tech titans continue to lead the market. Look at netflix, netflix stock closing at a record high, 440 a share. Health care was another big winner today. The fda granted emergency authorization to two types of coronavirus tests, and antigen tests. That stock hit an alltime high. To abbotts antibody blood test. Be a bod says it can ship 60 million in june. Look at economy reopening, casinos, hotels, looking at the dow specifically, materials, financials, Energy Stocks sold off the most and you can see that there. Boeing down 3 , caterpillar, jpmorgan, all losing today. Connell, melissa, back to you guys. Connell lauren, thank you, Lauren Simonetti. Melissa . Melissa preparing for a possible floor vote within days House Democrats are moving forward on a more than one trillion dollar Coronavirus Relief package. Hillary vaughn is in washington with the details. Hillary . Reporter republicans in the house are framing this cares act 2. 0 as a bill going nowhere because House Democrats have been keeping republicans in the dark. The white house says theyre in no rush to approve an additional round of funding when billions of dollars from the original cares act is still being spent. The treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin also says that he is not involved in negotiations with democrats. Theyre just basically having a conversation about it. We now have over 3 trillion. Were putting into the economy, a lot of that money is just beginning to get into the economy. Were working with the Federal Reserve on close to another 3 trillion of facility liquidities. These are all beginning to have a very positive impact. The president said, wants to make sure, before we rush back to do the next bill and spend more taxes taxpayer money we want to be thoughtful and considering everything on the table. Reporter the price tag could be as high as two trillion dollars but the details are still being work the out. Lear is where they want the money to go. Another round ever direct payments similar to 1200 a lot of people received in their bank accounts. More money for expanded nutritional benefits and Food Assistance for americans. Billions of dollars for u. S. Postal service. Expanded unemployment benefits. Most of the money, nearly one trillion dollars could go to state and local governments. That is an idea the president pushed back on because he doesnt want to bail out state and cities that mismanaged the budgets leading up to the crisis. Two republican priorities that House Speaker nancy pelosi said absolutely will not be in her version of a cares act 2. 0 is Liability Insurance for businesses and also a payroll tax cut the president floated as an idea he might want to see in the recovery package to come. Melissa . Melissa thank you. Hillary vaughn. Connell. Connell getting back to business. We keep talking about it. Now at least 39 states have taken some steps to reopen their economies. Today the governor of new york andrew cuomo said some regions across this state can safely start to reopen this friday. So well have the latest on that. It comes after new york saw its lowest oneday virus death toll back in march. Coming up the very latest on the pandemic from a number of different angles, including a look at industries fighting back. Any minute now well take you to the rose garden once the president comes out. Looks like Jared Kushner just sat down in the front row. President trump will give us an update on covid19 testing. Once that event start well take you back there. Well be right back. I was born in 37. It was a very struggling period of time. Up and down. Depression to exuberance. And you could name many, many cycles like that over the years. My generation, having come through so many wars and so many things. Melissa we are awaiting remarks from President Trump. The president is expected to announce new developments in testing. I think we see him there. Lets listen in. This afternoon i will also announce new steps were taking to make tests even more widely available. To battle a virus my administration marshalled every resource at our nations disposal, public, private, military, economic, scientific and industrial, all at your disposal. We launched the largest manufacturing rampup since the second world war. There has been nothing like it since. At the center of this industrial and scientific mobilization was development of our coronavirus testing capabilities had. In the span of just a few short months we developed a Testing Capacity unmatched and unrivaled anywhere in the world and it is not even close. This is a core element of our plan to safely and gradually reopen america and were opening and were starting and there is enthusiasm like i havent seen in a long time. Every american should be proud of the amazing array of talent, skill, enterprise our nation has brought to this challenge. In three months the fda has authorized more than 92 different tests and over nine million have been performed here in the United States. Three weeks ago we were conducted roughly 150,000 tests per day. Now were doing approximately 300,000 tests per day, a 100 increase and it will go up substantially from that number. This week the United States will pass 10 million tests conducted, nearly double the number of any other country. Were testing more people per capita than south korea, united kingdom, france, sweden, finland and many other countries and in some cases combined. On friday the fda authorized coronavirus antiagain tests, alternative Testing Technology that can be much more readily manufactured. Quidel which makes this newly authorized this new point of care test estimates it will be able to manufacture 150,000 tests per day immediately, increasing to 300,000 tests per day within just a few weeks. To further expand our nations testing capabilities this afternoon i am announcing that my administration we got this all approved, its all done is sending one billion dollars to americas states, territories and tribes. It has all been approved. We gotten it done, completed, the money is going out. This major investment will insure that america continues to conduct more tests than any country on earth by far. I said from the beginning that the federal government would back up the states and help them build their testing capabilities and capacities and that is exactly what happened. This partnership has truly flourished. We have really had a very Good Relationship with the states and the governors and other representatives within the states. A relationship like i think i can honestly say has not been seen in this country for many, many years. The governors and us are working together very closely, not only on testing but on ventilators where we have a capacity thats at this point virtually unlimited and were sending ventilators as you probably heard from other countries, we are sending many, many thousands of ventilators to other countries because theyre in tremendous need. I think bidding up a lot of goodwill but much more importantly than that were saving a lot of lives. Most states are now doing a great job. My administration located 5000 machines in 700 labs across all 50 states and governors have learned how to maximize these testing resources. The federal government is also supporting states with vital supplies, quick approvals of new tests and oneonone coaching from the team here at the white house on how to increase capacity and increase it very quickly. In recent weeks we held multiple Conference Calls with every state as well as with d. C. And puerto rico. We jointly developed testing projections and goals for each state for the month of may, all together totaling 12. 9 million tests. Think of that, 12. 9 million tests. Today im announcing that my administration will provide the collection supplies to help states meet their targets and meet them rapidly. During the month of may fema and hhs will be delivering 12. 9 million swabs to states nationwide. We already have them. The delivery will be very quick. Were prepared to provide millions of additional swabs if any state is on a pace to surpass its goal and their folks are very high. We set them very high. We told them to set them very high. My administration will provide approximately nine million transport media which are used to transfer swabs to the lab processing, a complicated process but we made it simple. As a result of these actions every single state will be able to test more people per capita in may alone than south korea tested in 4 00 months since the outbreak began. This major commitment is made possible because of massive mobilization of industry, Puritan Medical Products u. S. Cotton and abbott labs and thermofisher. Some of these incredible companies produced, produced rapidly for us and their products are here with us this afternoon. These are all productsly rally just developed. If you can imagine that. These are the best machines and best equipment anywhere in the world and other countries are calling us and were trying to work as much as we cannot only on ventilators but also with testing. My administration also continues our tireless effort to expand testing in the most underserved communities. Through our partnership with the private sector, leading pharmacies and retailers are now operating over 240 testing sites across the country. That is in addition to all of the other sites that we have working. 70 of these sites are located in communities with unique vulnerabilities. There will be more than 300 sites by the end of this week and retailers are making plans to open up hundreds and hundreds more locations within the next 30 days. These additional sites are helping us to insure access to testing in every community. My administration is fighting relentlessly to protect all citizens of every color and creed from this terrible virus, the invisible enemy. In addition to vast amounts of testing supplies my administration has partnered with the private sector to coordinate the delivery of more than 90 million n95 masks and these are of the highest quality. Many are made right here in the United States, a capacity we didnt have at all at the beginning. 126 million surgical masks, likewise many are made here. Nine million face shields, 21 million surgical gowns, 993 million gloves and thousand 690 ventilators. Were building thousands of ventilators in numerous plants across our country. It is incredible actually. This Global Pandemic has inflicted great pain and hardship on our people. It hud never been allowed to happen. It should have been stopped at source. We mourn for every life the virus has claimed and we share the grief of all of you who lost a loved one, and that goes worldwide too. Many, many countries, 184 countries at least. Thanks to the courage of our citizens and our aggressive strategy hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved and we have saved and if you look at on a per 100,000 basis were at the best part of the pack, right on the bottom. Germany and us are leading the world. Germany and the United States are leading the world. Lives saved per 100,000. In every generation through every challenge and hardship and danger america has risen to the task. We have met the moment and we have prevailed. Americans do whatever it takes to find solutions, pioneer breakthroughs and harness the energies we need to achieve a total victory. Day after day were making tremendous strides, with the dedication of our doctors and nurses, these are incredible people, these are brave people. These are warriors. With the devotion of our manufacturing workers, food suppliers and Lab Technicians and with the profound patriotism of the American People we will defeat this horrible enemy. We will revive our economy and we will transition into greatness. That is a phrase youre going to hear a lot because thats whats going to happen. Were going into the Third Quarter and were going to do well. In the Fourth Quarter were going to do very good. Next year i think we will have one of the best years we ever had because there is tremendous pentup demand. There is demand, im feeling it, i felt things a lot over my life and i made a lot of good calls, it is a demand like i dont think i ever seen. There is pentup demand, a spirit in this country like few have seen. I think you can say, we helped a lot of the countries a lot, really a lot. There is a tremendous spirit all over the world, to beat this terrible, terrible thing. But were transitioning to greatness and the greatness is going to be in the Fourth Quarter but really going to be next year and it will be a year like we never had before, i really believe that. As good as weve done and weve done great. We had the best economy in the history of the world, not just here but anywhere in the world. You can talk china. You can talk any other country, we had the best connie anywhere in the world. We were going for numbers whether it was unemployment numbers, where we had our best numbers, employment also, numbers, a little different. Where we had our best numbers, almost 160 million people, all of that, we had the greatest stock market numbers ever. I think we had 142 days where we set records, in a short period of time. 152 days we set records in the stock market. We rebuilt our military. All built in the United States. All of our equipment built, 1. 5 trillion plus. On the southern border the wall is being built. It is being built rapidly. Now you do not hear the opponents talking too much about the border. They dont like to talk about it because it seemed that we were right on a lot of things. One of the things we were right about, one of the many things was the border. We have a very powerful border now. We had one of the best weeks in the history of our border between the United States and mexico, our southern border. We had very few people coming in, very, very few. Almost record low numbers. And the wall is being built. It is up to 181 miles already. It is being built. It is being built rapidly. People dont talk about it anymore because it is very successful. In the area where the wall has built, there is a lot still, but we want to be up to 450 by very short period of time, early next year, we should be up to 450. Very shortly after that, over 500 miles will be completed. But, it has had tremendous impact. But again weve had the best numbers. Last thing we want now, with this pandemic is for people to come across our southern border, and, again, were doing record numbers, meaning record low numbers. So i just want to thank everybody and i want to introduce admiral giroir, if you could, please come up, brad smith. They will do a little explaining what weve done with regard to testing and how successful its been. Well take some questions after that. Thank you very much. Well, thank you, mr. President. For your leadership and High Expectations that really made this all come together and for the uniform support of everyone in the white house and the administration, and thank you, secretary azar, for providing his leadership at hhs and allowing both brad and i the opportunity to work on this project. I think it is clear that america does lead the world in testing. I will go through some of the charts to show we lead quantitatively. I will also suggest that we lead in the diversity of tests which are very important to establish the testing ecosystem, to keep america safe, and clearly as weve said multiple times, no one beats america when it comes to quality. So lets start potentially with the next slide. This may be hard to see but if you look at the line on top, thats the total numbers of tests done by the United States. No other country in the world comes close to the total numbers. As the president said, today we will top over nine million tests and if you look at per capita, everyone talks about the south korea being the standard, today we will have done more than twice the per capita rate of testing that was accomplished in south korea, no matter how you look at it, america is leading the world in testing and how did we get there . Look at the next slide. Next slide, please. Of very important component of how we came to this point was the authorization by the fda under the leadership of our secretary of many different diagnostic tests, of diagnostic devices and now of serology tests. So you have heard a lot about the different testing. You see some of the machines up here. Most of the diagnostic tests, all but one, rely on the amplification of the viral rna, the viral genetic material and we talked to but the diversity of tests. There are very high throughput tests done at big reference labs like labcorp and quest. There tests you heard us talking about cepheid, delivering two million tests to rural americans and places that dont have very large infrastructure. Youve also seen the abbott test we talked about. There it is on the left of the president. Delivering about 1. 4 million tests as a point of care test. You get the result within five to 15 minutes. We have deployed over 235,000 of these tests to the state Public Health laboratories in every state of this country, to make sure that that point of care testing capability is there to research outbreaks like in Nursing Homes or in certain industrial capacities. And well over 90,000 to the Indian Health service so they can test at a point of care in remote locations. The president also talked about a first this class test. This is listed as antiagain baste test. Very important, you heard ambassador birx talked about this many times, antigent testing although many complex less than the nucleic acid. Quidel had it authorized by the fda. As the president said they will make over 300,000 tests per day. Do the math. That is nine million point of care tests that we will have every month in just a few weeks. It will clearly add to, to a certain degree transform our landscape. What you dont see up here is the important work the fda did. Im a swab guy now. Im very interested in swabs. In order to make all these tests work you have to show that a certain swab made of a certain material performed performed inn way, deliver as highly accurate result. And what youre seeing up here are some of the fruits of that labor without authorizations of for example, the foam nasal swab, we would be blowing through ppe across the country for need of full ppe just to take a test. That has been really been changed by this diverse authorization and a recent authorization allows the great manufacturer, u. S. Cotton to join our foundational industry of puritan. Next slide. Last week we did over 1. 9 million tests and that number is growing and again as the president said and brad will talk about, our states aspire to do well over 12 million tests over the next four weeks. You see the graph growing. But what you also see very importantly, is that Little Orange bar on the bottom is the cumulative number of positives. Our percent positives are going down, that is what we want to see. Inin fact, in 31 states as of lt night the Positivity Rate is less than 10 , which is not a litmus test but it is a good idea that were doing plenty enough testing that we can enter phase one for careful reopening. I also want to take the opportunity to say this doesnt happen by accident. Im seeing everyone in the audience here, and i am so pleased they can be here. People sitting in the front have been working literally 18 to 20 hours a day every single day of the week for at least the past two months. None of this happens by accident. It happens because of their hard work, their sacrifice, their sacrifice of their family all for a common good. Im very, very honored to consider you all as my colleagues. In my last slide, as the president said, 11 billion are now being announced to be delivered to the states for the sole support of testing. This will give them the resources to partner as they have with the federal government, the president , the Vice President s task force, with brad and i, to achieve their testing goals. Well be very specific and they know it. That there needs to be minimum numbers to be planned to test. They have to have plans for their vulnerable communities, including Nursing Homes, including those who are disabled, including those who are in prisons or working environments that they may have have a more likelihood to spread the infection. Combined with that, secretarys office of Minority Health will soon be awarding a large contract to guarranty a National Network of state, local, and communitybased organizations to assure that those underserved, particularly racial and ethnic minorities are linked to the services they need, not only testing but in care as well. And with that i would like to hand it over to brad smith who is the director of the center of medicare, Medicaid Innovation but has been the chief operating officer to make all of this come together. Brad . Thank you, admiral. I want to talk through a little bit specifically the work weve been doing with the states. So as the admiral mentioned over the past few weeks we worked with each state to set a target for their testing goal in may. Over a series of couple of deliver the calls we aligned what those goals are. As the admiral mentioned and president mentioned that dadds up to nine million tests for the month of may. This is over two million of the 307lation in their state and for many states it is much higher. As you president mentioned south korea, south korea was below 2 , not for ant mo but total tests to date for the rest of the year. Our states come together to set really Ambitious Goals were excited to support them in meeting. Go to the next slide. As i talked about last time in the test briefing there are three parts to making sure a test can happen. The first part is the specimen collection supplies, the second part is the machines and the third part are 9 lab supplies that the machines need to run. What weve been working to do is make sure each state has all three parts to be able to conduct the numbers of tests. The first smartpart is the is the specimen collection supplies. A large number of these supplies already to states and already to hospitals but we wanted to insure every state had more than what they needed to conduct the number of tests theyre aiming in may. We purchased enough tests to support the state testing goals for may and june. So we will be sending more than 12. 9 million swabs and over 10 million media to the states over the course of may and similar or greater number over the course of june. In addition we have several million in reserve. So if states are able it exceed their goal in the third and fourth week of play we can provide more swabs and transport media. In addition this is in addition what is available in the commercial market. Next slide. Large numbers, talked about many times, a large number of testing machines across the country, over 5000 different machines that can conduct these tests. The key part is making sure that the machines and that the labs have enough supplies to run the machines. There will be in the month of may commercially produced over 25 million test kits which is pcr extraction kits or the cartridges to be able to support tests in their effort, states in their testing efforts and what weve been working to do with each state is understand their total goal and each of the manufacturers has been a great partner with us and told us how many tests theyre shipping to each lab and each state over the course of may. What we know in the aggregate the number of test kits the state is getting is greater than their testing goal for the month of may. In addition to what the states already purchased there is seven million additional tests remain unpurchased, the majority from thermofisher which is the most common machine in the country. We feel very confident the states will not only have the specimen collection supplies and the machines but also the extraction kits and reagents they need to hit or potentially exceed their testing goals. If you go to the last slide, the last piece of the puzzle is making sure americans had access to these tests. Health care providers, hospitals, primary care physicians are already providing these tests today and we for the past six or seven weeks are partnering with the retailers who massively been ramping up their effort. Today over 240 retail sites. Weve been working with the retailers to make sure theyre specifically targeting low income and other vulnerable communities across the country and were talking with them about potentially opening more than another 1000 additional sites over the next month or two. We hope we put together the right pieces of the puzzle, having Access Points for patients and americans across the country, having the specimen collection supplies needed to take the tests, having the machines and also having the lab testing supplies with the machines. So thank you very much. Thank you very much, brad. Maybe you will both stay there. Could be some questions. Okay, please, john, go ahead. Reporter can hear me . We had a situation here at the white house on friday where a member of the Vice President s staff tested positive for the coronavirus which caused three of the top u. S. Officials involved in the Coronavirus Response to selfisolate. Twopart question. Where did the system break down to allow that to happen, and where, what would you say to employers who look at the experience here at the white house and say, are we ready for this . I dont think the system broke down at all. One person tested positive, surprisingly because the previous day tested negative. And three people that were in contact relative contact, who i believe they have all tested totally negative but they are going to for a period of time selfisolate. So that is not breaking down. It can happen. It is hidden enemy. It is the hidden enemy so things happen. But the three tested negative. The one who tested positive will be fine. Absolutely fine. John . Reporter what do you say, mr. President to other companies who may look at this i dont know if were ready for all of this. We had a lot of people at white house, basically had one. We have a lot of people that work here. This building shocking if you looked at numbers and it lists tremendous numbers of people coming in. Normally you wouldnt do that, because were running a country we want to keep our country running so we have a lot of people coming in and out. Many of those people, most of those people are tested depending on what portion of the oval office area they are going in. Everybody coming into the president s office gets tested. And i felt no vulnerability whatsoever, john. But, the two people as i said and three people are, they have been tested and it is negative. And they will be probably out of quarantine very quickly. Okay . Reporter if i can follow up on that, your staff, your senior staff as you just referenced is able to get tested every day. When will it be that americans across the country will be able to get tested every day as they go back to work . Very soon. Really very soon. That is an interesting question because normally you would have said that you are not tested and you would have been you know knocking us for not getting tested. So if we get tested it is a problem. If we dont get tested it is a problem but i like the way your question was phrased better this way because it is a positive. We are tested. We have great capability. You have look at all the machines here. Theyre incredible machines. The best anywhere in the world. No place in the world has this kind of equipment. Other countries are calling, sophisticated countries theyre calling, lots of countries and were trying to make as much as we can available to them because there is nothing like what weve been able to do. Literally a couple of months what they have been able to doshes the private sector, what they, how they got it done, this is a five to 15 minute test as an example. The Abbott Laboratories test. These tests are highly sophisticated, very quick, very good. This is things that didnt even exist a short while ago. So we do have a great testing capability at the white house. Were doing it and i think generally speaking we had a call with the governors the other day, generally speaking, without exception they were all extremely happy with what is going on with respect to testing. Reporter should people be told to go back to work until they have assurance that they and their coworkers are able to get a test which were still not there . Were leafing that up to the governors as you know. If we see something wrong well call them out and stop it. Were leaving that up to the governors. Some are being not aggressive enough in my opinion and some are being a little bit aggressive you about being very careful and people of country, they learned a lot over the last few months. If they learned about social distancing and washing your hands and other things that weve all learned and we talked about, they learned about, i see everybody, just about everybody has a facemask on. They have learned about facemasks, the good and bad, by the way. It is not a onesided thing believe it or not but our country has learned. Our country has been incredible. And you sigh the numbers, theyre dropping very substantially, the numbers are dropping around our country very, have you substantially. We leave that, john, up to the governors and you think theyre making a lot of good decisions. We have had as i said freight relationship with governors democrat and republican and i think overall theyre making very good decisions. Nobody in this group. Ones behind the rope, that is interesting. Please. Reporter thank you, mr. President. You said in your comments earlier we have met the moment, we have prevailed. To you, sir is the Mission Accomplished even with . No, we prevailed on testing what i was preferring to. That is with regard to testing. You never prevail, when you have 90,000 people, 100,000 people, when you have 80,000 people as of today, when you have, the kind of death youre talking about, when you have potentially millions of people throughout the world, that are dying, that is not prevailing. What im talking about is we have a great Testing Capacity now. It is getting even better. There is nobody close to us in the world and we certainly have done a great job on testing and testing is a big, is a very big, important function. By the way, some people consider it more important than others to be honest with you but testing certainly is a very important function. And we have prevailed. We have the best equipment anywhere in the world. Okay. Please. Yeah. Go ahead. Reporter there are a variety of reports that chinese hackers are attempting to steal Technology Related to vaccine research. Is this something youre concerned about . What can you say . So what else is new with china, what else is new . Tell me. Im not happy with china. They should have stopped this at the source. They could have stopped it right at the source. So now youre telling me theyre hacking. So, i just say this, steve, what else is new . Were watching it very closely. Reporter if i could follow up, sir, the south China Morning post, the beijing newspaper says china would like to reopen negotiations on the trade deal to make the terms more favorable to them. Is this something you would be interested in doing . No. Not at all. Not even a little bit, no. Im not interested. We signed a deal. I had heard that too, they would like to reopen the trade talk to make it a better deal for them. China has been taking advantage of the United States for many, many years, for decades, because we had people at this position right here where im standing, sitting right in that office, the oval office, that allowed that to happen. No, im not interested in that. Lets see if they live up to the deal that they signed. Okay . Please, go ahead. Reporter mr. President , what are your thoughts about a second round of direct payments to americans that is included in the House Democratic bill . Were talking about that with a lot of different people. I want to see a payroll tax cut. I want to see various things that we want. I want the workers to be taken care of. But we are talking about that. Were negotiating with the democrats. Well see what happens but as i said, it is a transition and, this is really going to be in my opinion, well see, but i think it is going to be something that is going to be very special. It is a transition to greatness and greatness is next year, right from the beginning, i think well do fantastically well. I view the Third Quarter as i said as a transition quarter. Could be pretty good but a transition quarter. Toward the end of the Fourth Quarter, youre going to see some numbers that are going to be tremendous i think and next year you are going to have potentially the kind of numbers that you saw before and maybe even better because there is that pentup demand that is, a lot of people wanted to do things, they were ready did to do things they have had to hold back because of the virus. So i think youre going to have with the pentup demand a phenomenal year next year. Unless somebody messes it up by coming along raising taxes, doubling, tripling quadrupling your taxes like a certain party, namely the democrats want to do will mess it up. We had the greatest in the world. I presided, this administration presided over it. It got great for a reason. Well do it again, very quickly and easily i see that happening. Yes, maam, please. Thank you, mr. President. Almost everyone as you noted in the rose garden is wearing a mask today. Why havent you required everyone at the white house to wear masks before now . Well, there are certain distance from me or if they are a certain distance from each other they do. In the case of me, im not close to anybody. I would like to be close to these two gentlemen. Theyre hardworking great men but they just said, frankly lets keep it this way. So obviously in my case im very far away from everyone. But if you look at all of those people over there, everyone of them from what i see, these are white house staffers. Theyre white house representatives. Theyre white house executives. Everybody has a mask on. Weve had just about everybody, i have seen today has worn a mask. Yes yeah. Reporter why were you the one required that, sir . Yeah i did. I required it. Yeah, please. Reporter mr. President , youre now promising every one who needs a test will be able to get one at some point soon. Can you give us some figures what youre changing to ramp up testing . When will that be a true statement exactly . And how exactly are you going to to accomplish that . It is a true statement already. We have more testing than anybody in the world by far. I will let the admiral go into the future. When you look attesting numbers we worked with collaboratively with the state leadership, not just with the governor, but with the state health officers, state epidemiologist abouts, the Public Health labs it is combination of testing those who need something for diagnosis, diagnostic testing, tracing, those around people with a diagnosis, but the largest fraction that is moving into surveillance, testing those asymptomatic. When you do the numbers, this amount of testing on a state to state basis really is in the range that we need to accomplish all of that. Certainly within the range that we need. So it really encompasses those three things. The other thing i would say is, particularly as we move into the summer there are surveillance mechanisms, and i talked about them before like a weather radar. Think about the weather radar, the influenzalike illness network which is 75 of Health Care Institutions and syndromic surveillance. So if we see a blip on that weather radar combined with cdc personnel in every single state we really run to the fire, right . That is when you detect, you trace, you shut off that outbreak right when it starts. Reporter mr. President , there does seem to be a double standard here, mr. President , where members of your own staff can get tests frequently when they need it but ordinary americans cannot. When will the rest of america have the same access as members of your own white house have to testing . You know what . If we didnt get the tests, did no tests in the white house you would be up complaining why arent you getting tests for the white house. We cant win, if we didnt get the tests we understand, i understand you very well, better than you understand yourself. If we did gets its up now complain about the facts we didnt have the tests done. Were doing well on tests so fast, five minutes, et cetera so accurate, youre complaining getting too many tests. You cant win. Go ahead, phil. Reporter mr. President , Many Americans want to return to their normal lives but they are afraid to do so. How can you insure americans it is safe to go to their own work places when the most secure work place in the country the white house cannot contain the spread of coronavirus, it infected some of your own staff. You say some. We have a person, and the person got, something happened right after a test was done. Three other people met that person, came into relative contact, very little contact. And theyre selfquarantining. That is not exactly not controlling it. I think we controlled it very well. We have hundreds and hundreds of people a day pouring into the white house. It is a Massive Office complex, including the very large building right behind us that you know so well. I think were really doing a very good job watching it, and i think it is very wellcontained actually. Part of the reason it is because of all the tests were able to give. It was one person and other people were only people that quarantined, you understand this, phil, they quarantined for a i specific reason. The reason they were in the general proximity of one person, the short person will be fine in very short time. Reporter Vice President pence followed cdc guidelines of selfisolation and other people might have i have is to ask, he will give you that information. Whatever he is proceeding and doing he will give you that information. I will make sure they put out a notice. John, go ahead, please. Reporter mr. President , up until now it was thought the most Vulnerable People were those above the age of 60, 70, 80, children were pretty much i dont want to say immune about this, werent affected by it, all day long in the news weve been hearing this terrible syndrome some 85 children have now, three of them have died. What is the task force talking about in terms of that, and what could be done about it . Were seeing that all over the world now with young children, very, very tiny percentage but it is still, the swelling and skin rash and were looking at that very closely, john. It is a phenomena just been brought to everyones attention couple weeks ago. Admiral, you may have something to say about that. So thank you for pointing that out. Again i said many times im a pea trish shurn and pediatric icu doctor. This syndrome which we call or similar to kawasaki syndrome, it has been seen in a Novel Coronavirus before and it is associated with illnesses. So we have a very strong activation on this. We do know treatments for this but the cdc is interacting actively with the pediatric intensive care unit network to create case definitions and to understand how this is going and if there are predispositions. National heart lung innings statute i spoke to dr. Gary gibbons who directs that, directing Many Research projects on that. Secretary for preparedness and response has a team out in several areas looking if there are any special treatments. We know what the basic treatment is, but this is a little bit different than we normally see. So there is really activation among all the branches within hhs working with networks, at childrens hospitals and icu nets. It is a small percentage but quite frightening. This reflects the fact that this virus affects the vast cue la ture. We see clotting, we see strokes. This vast port board with this emerging new syndrome among children, what do you say to parents and looking kids to get back to school, and afraid to do that . Again it is a tiny percentage, it is right, were longing into it very strongly. The admiral has known about this long before it happened. But it is a very, very small percentage. And people recover from that, the children recover from that. Right . Yes, sir. Most do recover from this but it is a, it is a serious and can be a fatal condition. So we do want to make sure that parents understand that high fevers, red rashes, particularly in your child you may need to contact your health care provider. There are treatments for this. They work very effectively if gotten early, at least for the vast majority of cases. Were studying that very closely. And its been on the radar for weeks actually because weve seen this for quite a while. But it has been very rare but were, were looking at it very closely. It is very important to us. I think one of the things were most proud of is, this just came in, deaths per 100,000 people, death, so deaths per 100,000 people, germany and the United States are at the lowest rung of that ladder, meaning low is a positive, not a negative. Germany and the United States are the two best in deaths per 100,000 people. Which frankly, to me, that is perhaps the most important number there is. Please, go in the thank you. Thank you, mr. President. I have a few questions, one on the coronavirus. The first on the coronavirus, the Vice President is said to be in some sort of selfisolating, keeping his distance from people. What do you say to americans who say how can you keep me safe, how can you reopen the government if even the Vice President is selfisolating, and why hasnt testing gotten to the point where every american who wants a test can get a test in. Well, the Vice President , first of all, has been tested, and hes negative. He was tested yesterday, tested today, and hes negative. Hes in very good shape, and i think that thats going to to be fine. As far as americans getting a test, they should all be able to get a test right now. They should be able to get a test. Thats the problem with a question like that. We go through a whole announcement saying were number one in the world by far by a factor of two and even three and four depending on where you look, and i get a question, when will everybody be able to be tested. Theyll be able to be tested if they want to be tested right now. As far as i think its horrible, and its certainly being looked at by many people. Im speaking to many people about it. He looked i saw the picture of him in his tuxedo, it was so beautiful. He looks like a wonderful young guy, would have been a wonderful i mean, just a wonderful guy. I think its a horrible thing. I think its a horrible thing. Now, with that being said, as you know, theyre studying the case very carefully. Theyre interviewing everybody involved, and well see what happens. To me, its a very sad thing. I spoke to a number of people that are very much involved in it. Ive been following that one very closely. It breaks your heart to watch it. It breaks your heart. And, certainly are, the video was a terrible looking video to me, but you have a lot of people looking at it. Hopefully an answers going to be arrived at very quickly. But its something that is heartbreaking. A question about the case, if i could ask it . Go ahead. The specific question that i have you said there possibly are things that happened that were not recorded on the tape. Could you expound on what you mean by that and your thoughts well, i saw the tape, and when they moved left, i dont believe with, when they moved left outside of the tape, nobody saw what was going on. Nobody saw its an empty spot on the tape, i guess. Now do we have additional tapes, i hope, but i will say that its something that based on what i saw doesnt look good. Somebody that i have a lot of respect for is senator scott of south carolina, you know who im talking about. Hes a great gentleman. Hes a great senator, hes a great gentleman, tim scott. And i called him two days ago. I said, tim, what do you think . Tell me, what do you think. Hes very disturbed by it. Hes very disturbed and im very disturbed also. Please, go ahead. President trump, thank you. I have two questions, one on testing and one on democratic states that youve tweeted about. First, the money for this new testing support today comes from the care act, cares act which you signed into law 42 days ago. Did your delayed embracing widespread testing have anything to do with the desire to suppress the official number of u. S. Cases and deaths as you try to reopen the country . No. We just wanted to make sure that we had the proper machinery, apparatus and Everything Else out there before people started wasting money. So method of saving money. We wanted to make sure we had even things like this, plus they have machines that are far more complex than this. They have massive machines at some of the laboratories that can do millions of tests. We wanted to make sure everything was in place, okay . Go ahead. And earlier today you tweeted that democrats are moving slowly for political purposes. Why do you believe that their motive is politics rather than public safety, and how to you respond to criticism that youre also motivated by politics to try to grow the economy ahead of the election . Well, i think that if you look at pennsylvania as an example, if you look at various other states i wont get into them if the people want to go back, the numbers are getting to a point where they can, and there just seems to be no effort on certain blue states to get back into gear. And the people arent going to stand for it. They want to get back. Theyre not melissa that was the president talking about the level of testing here in the United States. That does it for us on after the bell. Lou good evening, everybody. President trump taking questions this hour in the white house rose garden after he updated reports about his administrations efforts to test more americans for the wuhan virus. In his update the task force focusing on how the United States does lead the world on testing. About 300,000 tests each day. The president also sending billions of dollars and millions of tests and personal protective equipment to get states to reopen. White House Task Force testing czar admiral breath guroir says the country