Azar, secretary of housing and urban development, ben carson, who are the way, was fantastic over that weekend in various interviews you did, then, really good job, i appreciate it. Secretary of veterans affairs, robert wilkie, administrator seema verma, chief postal inspector of the United States postal infection inspection service, gary barstow, and he has done a great job especially spotting drugs come into our country. My administration is working tirelessly to stop the depraved criminals who seek to defraud american seniors of which there are many but we are doing a very strong number on a lot of them. And nobody has ever done what we have done. Three month ago we have launched the National Elder fraud hotline , which has already received 1800 calls. In three years we have charged 1000 defendants involving 2. 2 billion in fraud against our seniors and this afternoon the doj has announced a 2 million grant to help enforcement identify victims and bring lawbreakers to justice. These actions are one part of our unwavering devotion to our Senior Citizens. Last month i announced a deal to ofsh out of pocket costs insulin and insulin is such a big deal, and such a big factor of importance for our Senior Citizens. We slashed costs for hundreds of thousands of medicare beneficiaries. Impacted seniors will pay just 35 per month, an average saving of 6 to 100 . 60 to one had a percent. It was the biggest slashing of insulin and no one has ever done it before. Where working on one and call it a trap you get a lot of traps to get putting your way so you cannot do these things but we did it and we think we are even going to be able to go further. So we have 35 a month. We vastly expanded medicare, telehealth services, that has gone up, probably more than any other thing. That is the only thing, probably the only thing you can to about covid, telehealth has been used at levels that nobody ever thought even possible and it has been fantastic. And i think a lot of people are going to continue to use it. Premiumbasic part d dropped 13. 5 and Medicare Advantage premiums have dropped 27 percent on average. Foster was the first year where drug prices and 52 years, where drug prices have gone down. The cost of Prescription Drugs. We are strongly defending medicare and Social Security and we always well and will always protect our Senior Citizens and everybody against preexisting conditions. My administration has also taken vital action to protect seniors in Nursing Homes. We delivered 81 million for increased inspections. We provided every medicare certified nursing home with shipments of personal protective equipment. Very hard with the governors of the states on their Nursing Homes because obviously that was very sad situation what happened to some of the states where they did not do a good job with respect to Nursing Homes. They were caught unaware. There were caught unaware, unfortunately. So we are working hard with the governors and with everybody having to do with Nursing Homes because that is a vulnerability. It is a real soft spot. In terms of the covid or any of the 15 names you want to call it and there are plenty out there. All we know is it came from china, that is all we know. We now require Nursing Homes to report the coronavirus cases directly to cdc. Residents and family members, all family members, we are working with extreme vigilance to protect nursing home residents from the virus. Importanteen a very thing for us to be doing. Everybody working with the governors on that. My administration will never waver in our relentless commitment to keep americas seniors safe. We have to keep all of our seniors safe. And this is a very perilous time. And i think we are going to be finishing up. I think we are going to mike has some very good numbers to tell you about having to do with the cases. Again, our testing is so far advanced, it is so much bigger and better than any other country, that we will have more cases. We will have more cases. As i said this morning, that is probably the downside of having good cases as you find cases that other countries who do not test do not have. If you do not test you do not have any cases. If we stop testing that we would have very few cases if any. What we do. We are at a level that if mike is going to talk about it that is so high. Cases would show more when other countries have far more cases than we do but they just dont talk about it. The testing on the other hand is very good because we find out where it is going, how it is going, who is going to, and we take care of it. So with that i will just say that we are fighting for americas seniors like noah administration has ever fought, we are doing a great job and bringing down costs and we have other things like transparency that are going to be coming online. In january or for bright. That will be an incredible thing. Nobody thought we could get that approved. We think we will see numbers there that will be incredible. In terms of Cost Reduction for our seniors that is very good. Mike pence, if you would. Vp. Pence thank you, mr. President. It is a privilege to sit with you. And to reflect on this day in efforts to protect our seniors and make sure they are financially secure and also see to the health and wellbeing of Senior Citizens. For the time you tapped me to lead the White House Coronavirus task force we knew that seniors with serious Underlying Health conditions represented the most vulnerable to serious outcomes from the coronavirus. It was the reason early on at your direction we raised the Infectious Disease standards at every nursing home in america and we deployed all 8000 of our inspectors across the country to focus exclusively on Infectious Diseases. And in addition to all of the measures you just reflected on, delivering personal protective equipment to the more than 15,000 Nursing Homes. And dramatically expanding telehealth. We have continued to work closely with governors to focus on longterm care and Nursing Homes and our seniors. People across the country have looked after family members who are Senior Citizens with honorable conditions and we urge them to continue to do that, even as we have made steady progress each and every day toward putting the coronavirus farther and farther in the past. Mr. President there has been much reported in the news as he reflected about increased cases in some states and our team has been working with governors over the past week and we are carefully analyzing those new cases and we really believe that the vast majority of new cases is a reflection, as you said, of a dramatic increase in testing. Governor newsom in california told me that on saturday alone, california performed 70,000 tests all across the state. 78,000 tests all across the state. In the state of california, their hospitalization never to remain flat. Their positivity numbers remain flat. In the areas of just a few sais or c a few states where sweezy Positivity Rates go up, we will be talking to governors today in states like georgia and arizona and texas about deploying additional cbc personnel to help them identify where those outbreaks are cdc personnel to help them identify where those topics are occurring and how to mitigate those outbreaks. Because of what the American People did to slow the spread, each and every day we are demonstrating that we can safely reopen. All 50 states and our territories are not reopening america again but as the theme of this conversation is, that is important that we continue to focus resources on those who are vulnerable even while we see overall across the country cases going down, hospitalizations going down and most importantly, our mortality rate is going down all across america. Now we are going to continue to focus with our governors on making sure we deploy testing to our longterm care facilities and to our Nursing Homes. Today, mr. President , to continue that effort, as we are going to put the interests of all america first, but as we move into this next stage and through the summer, putting the coronavirus in the past each and every day, we will focus on ensuring that our seniors and all of those most vulnerable are protected. Pres. Trump thank you, mike, very much. Great job. Thank you for your commitment to protecting americas elder citizens. Have made it combating fraud against elders one of the departments highest priorities, and that is partly because we have seen a skyrocketing of abuse against elders as we see a growing older population coupled with new technology, particularly the internet, which has given fraudsters new opportunities for their schemes, and it is a priority also, because the elder population are particularly vulnerable, because if they lose their savings, they do not have much time to regain their footing, so it is frequently a permanent loss for them. Ad so we have appointed Senior Department official to be a fulltime coordinator across the entire department. This has been going on for the last couple of years, and we our every single one of u. S. Attorneys offices with a coordinator to focus exclusively on rooting out fraud against elders. Senior citizens lose billions of dollars each year. Is average for an individual 34,000 when they fall victim to a fraudulent scheme, and we have found that many of the perpetrators and, in fact, frequently the brains behind these schemes are actually outside of the United States and part of transnational criminal organizations. There are three things i would like to highlight today. Thefirst, this month marks oneyear anniversary of our transNational Elder fraud strike force. We started seeing the signs of International Organizations involved in this, and we decided we had to run up the chain and try to go to the source of this as well as combating it at a local level, and we set up this group to do that. And over the past year, we have made a lot of progress in dismantling the infrastructure of these organizations, much of it involving the use of fraudulent robo calling. In january, we brought landmark civil actions to shut down some of the largest carriers of fraudulent robo calls. In fact, we were able to shut down two of the five entities that were responsible for the robo calls in the United States. Just one of these, to give you an example of the scale of these companies, carried 720 million during the period reaching every state in the union. After these cases, we saw a sharp decline in robo calls to consumers, so stopping this wave of robo calls by going after the International Organizations is a key part of our strategy, and we are also getting some success. At the same time, we have cracked down on a network of financial operatives that are frequently called money mules, who take money from seniors and send it back to their bosses overseas. The Postal Service has been instrumental in this success, and the chief postal inspector, gary barksdale, is here to describe its efforts in more detail. We are proud of all the strikeforce has accomplished in the first year, but we are in a sense just getting started. Have asked the fbi and every u. S. Attorneys office to prioritize elder fraud cases, and each year for the past three years, we have had a sweep across the nation, targeting these fraudsters. This year, we indicted 400 fraudsters for causing over 1 billion in losses to elders. We are not letting up. Fraudsters have gained new opportunities with been19, so we have also bearing down on covid19 fraud schemes. The third thing is, as the president mentioned, we set up a dedicated elder fraud hotline. A call fora 911 with elder fraud. It is staffed seven days a week, and we help victims when they call get the resources that they need to deal with the fraud. One of the things we found is our seniorntly, citizens are afraid to report or hesitant to report fraud, because they feel that they have failed, and they are embarrassed that they were taken advantage of, so everything we can do to encourage them to report is very important at getting after these criminals, and finally, as the president mentioned, we are making grants to the National White collar crime center, which will enable that group to work with local police departments, local Law Enforcement to develop training and tools to combat elder fraud, so this is the daytoday work being done at the local level. You know, i was once used as a before they president appointed me as attorney general. My official government image from the last time i was attorney general was being used to attract elders to a website. If they sent money in, i would help them get grants, and i would get these very pathetic because of people into my office of people who have lost everything, and they would say, i feel so stupid. You have lost everything, and they just did not know how to call, and i would call the sheriff, and he was not sure what to do. These are people frequently living in rural areas, and so at the local level, it is important to train local Law Enforcement as to how to respond to these kinds of sophisticated frauds from theseming in foreign organizations. So that, mr. President , thanks to convening this session keep americas seniors safe. Pres. Trump thank you, bill. Appreciate it. Gary, go ahead. Thank you, mr. President , mr. Vice president. Lead to be here to speak about what were doing at the u. S. Postal service to address transNational Elder fraud. Protecting our elders and our veterans is one of our highest priorities, especially now as we start to see fraudsters start to take advantage of the coronavirus to incorporate that into some of their schemes. As attorney general barr said, one of our methods is to attack the money mules. They get the money from the u. S. To their overseas accounts. Victims typically send money andugh the mail, ups, sometimes they ask the victims to Wire Transfer the money, and oftentimes, we see them asked to buy gift cards and send them to money mules overseas, so we see that as a crucial link to disrupt with this type of fraud. We have had some significant enforcement efforts. I also have some prevention methods. Is of our primary strategies we partner with the department of justice, as attorney general barr, mention, with the strikeforce, enabling postal inspectors and the department to work handinhand with trial attorneys to bring some of these cases to justice. We have 17 field divisions with the u. S. Attorney offices and their elder justice coordinators with the fraud investigations, and we have conducted significant Enforcement Actions this past year dealing with the money mules. Just some of the stats, we have initiated this year over 100 investigations. These cases are associated with nearly 450 million in victim losses. 2000ve also served over money transmitter warning letters to suspects, and the department of justice issued over 30 civil injunctions. 17 arrests from these cases. We have also seen over six. Also, the annual Money Mule Initiative that we work in coronation with the fbi and the secret service, our financial partners, and in addition to the indictments he mentioned, law with 600nt worked money mules, so where we did not arrest, we sent them letters to put them on notice to stop today. Another example of recent success is in november of this last year, with federal prison in order to pay over 500 500,000 dollars to lottery scam victims. We are also looking at Service Providers in helping to send victim funds overseas. The money gram. Working with the department of justice, we received access to settlements worth well over 100 million. Our goal here, mr. President , is to try to get some of the money back to the victims. Working with the doj and our other partners, we have returned over on hundred 50 million to the victims, which was over 109 fraud victims. And prevent a crime before a crime occurs, we have put a lot of resources and with a platform on our website and printed material, social media, working with the department of justice. Briefly,st mentioned and i would just mention, mr. President , we are also looking at others to do their part in preventing elderly fraud, and id like to thank you for providing awareness and making this one of the priorities of your administration. Thank you. Pres. Trump thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, mr. President. This is an important meeting for us at v. A. , but it comes on the heels of almost two years of constant reform that we have had at the department. We serve a unique population that has performed unique services to america, and i am happy to report to the president that our Approval Ratings at v. A. Are almost 40 points higher than they were in 2014 and 2016. As a result of that pres. Trump that is a big difference. Yes. Wilkie last year, we set a Record Number of internal appointments at the v. A. , 59. 9 million, an alltime high. The reason that is an importance is that so many veterans have trusted us with their lives and also with the wellbeing of their families. 134 Nursing Homes in the department of veterans affairs, 7500 patients. Over half of those come from world war ii and korea. Only fours we speak, of those 7,500 who have tested positive of the covid virus. One of the reasons those numbers are so low is a decision that the president made when we discussed what to do that first week of march. We had to make a drastic decision to cut off these deserving veterans, primarily from korea and world war