Ahead of students returning to school. At the white house, President Trump released the names of 20 individuals he would consider nominated to the Supreme Court consider nominating to the Supreme Court in the event of a vacancy. He also responded to reports that he intentionally downplayed the coronavirus threat while being interviewed for an upcoming book by bob woodward. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] pres. Trump thank you very much. My fellow americans, the nomination of a Supreme Court justice is the most important decision an american president can make. Candidates for president of the American People a specific list of individuals they consider for the United StatesSupreme Court. Four years ago i announced my first list of highly qualified candidates and promised to fill Justice Scalias vacancy from among those names. Just days after my inauguration, i kept that promise when i nominated judge neil gorsuch, and as you know, he has been very spectacular. A year later, i nominated and the Senate Confirmed another outstanding justice, brett kavanaugh. By the end of my first term, we will have confirmed a Record Number of federal judges, over 300, all of whom will faithfully uphold our constitution as written. What has always made america exceptional is our reverence for the impartial rule of law. People have come from all over the world to pursue the American Dream based on this sacred principle, equality under the law is the bedrock of our society. It is the principal that that is the principle inspired american heroes to abolish slavery and end segregation and build the most free and just nation. Unfortunately, there is a growing radical Left Movement that rejects the principle of equal treatment under the law. If this extreme movement is granted a majority on the Supreme Court, it will fundamentally transform america without a single vote of congress. Radical justices will erase the second amendment, silence political speech, and require taxpayers to fund extreme lateterm abortion. It will give manufacturers the power to destroy millions of american jobs. They will remove the words under god from the pledge of allegiance. They will unilaterally declare the Death Penalty unconstitutional, even for the most depraved mass murderers. They will erase national borders, cripple police departments, and grant new protections to anarchists, rioters, violent criminals, and terrorists. In the recent past, many of our most treasured freedoms, including free speech, liberty free speech, religious liberty, and the right to bear arms have been saved by a single vote on the United StatesSupreme Court. Now our cherished rights are at risk, including the right to life and our great second amendment. Over the next four years, americas president will choose hundreds of federal judges and two,l likelihood, one, three, and even four Supreme Court justices. The outcome will determine whether we hold fast to our nations founding principles are principles or whether they are lost forever. Today, i am announcing 20 additions to my original list of candidates for the United StatesSupreme Court. Should there be another vacancy on the Supreme Court during my presidency, my nominee will come from the names i have shared with the American Public, including the original list and these 20 additions. Joe biden has refused to release his list, perhaps because he knows the names are so extremely farleft that they could never withstand public scrutiny or receive acceptance. He must release a list of justices for people to properly make a decision as to how they will vote. It is very important that he do so. My original list of potential justices include many of our nations brightest legal minds, or, amy coneypry barrett, and thomas hardiman, outstanding people. Like those distinguished individuals, the 20 additions i am announcing today would be in the mold of justices antonin scalia, clarence thomas, and samuel alito. Their names are are as follows. Bridget badey of arizona, judge on the ninth Circuit Court of appeals. Daniel cameron of kentucky, attorney general of the commonwealth of kentucky. Paul clement of virginia, former solicitor general of the United States. Senator tom cotton of arkansas. Senator ted cruz of texas. Stewart kyle duncan of louisiana, judge on the fifth Circuit Court of appeals. Stephen engel of the district of columbia, assistant attorney general for the office of Legal Counsel at the department of justice. Noel francisco, former solicitor general of the United States. Senator josh hawley of missouri. James ho of texas, judge on the fifth Circuit Court of appeals. Gregory catsis of virginia, judge on the district of columbia circuit of dust Circuit Court of appeals. Barbara l. Of georgia, and judge on the second court of appeals. Christopher landau of maryland, United States ambassador to mexico. Carlos mooneys, of florida, justice on the Supreme Court of florida. Martha p. Of illinois, judge on the District Court for the Northern District of illinois. Peter phipps of pennsylvania, judge on the third Circuit Court of appeals. Sarah pitlyk of missouri, judge on the District Court for the Eastern District of missouri. Allison jones rushing of north carolina, judge on the fourth Circuit Court of appeals. Kate todd of virginia, Deputy Assistant to the president and deputy counsel to the president. Lawrence van dyck of nevada, judge on the ninth Circuit Court of appeals. Every one of these individuals will ensure equal justice, equal treatment, and equal rights for citizens of every race, color, religion, and creed. Together, we will defend our righteous heritage and preserve our magnificent american way of life. Thank you. God bless america. Thank you very much. Does anybody have any questions on the judges . Please. Anybody . On the judges . Excuse me. Any questions . They are outstanding people. Very important decision. Very important that joe biden put out potential nominees. I think its a very important thing for our country that he do that. Ok, please go ahead. Do you have a question . President , can you address the concerns from the woodward book in regard to whether you misled the public by saying you downplayed the coronavirus, and repeatedly did that . Pres. Trump i think if you said in order to reduce panic, perhaps that is so. The fact is, i am a cheerleader for this country, i love our country, and i dont want people to be frightened, i dont want to create panic. Certainly, i am not going to drive this country or the world into a frenzy. We want to show confidence. We want to show strength. We want to show strength as a nation, and thats what ive done, and weve done well from any standard. You look at our numbers compared to other countries, other parts of the world, its been an amazing job that weve done. I think its very sad in many respects because the incredible individuals working so hard, including our Vice President , they have done this great job and they have not been acknowledged by the news media. And theyd should and they should, for the job theyve done. Whether its ventilators, now you will see very soon with vaccines and with therapeutics. The job we have done has been incredible. But we dont want to instill panic. We dont want to jump up and down and start shouting that we have a problem that is a tremendous problem, scare everybody. And i will tell you the other thing, we immediately started buying, all over the world, we started buying masks, gowns, and everything else. We dont want to cause pricing to go up to a level that becomes almost unaffordable. So in that sense, i agree. Please. How do you reassure the American PublicGoing Forward that they can trust what you are saying . Pres. Trump thats a big part of trust. We have to have leadership and show leadership. The last thing you want to do is create a panic in the country. This was a horrible thing. It was sent to us by china. Should not have happened. Should never have happened. This is a disgusting, terrible foisted upont was us. We have to show the best word is panic. We dont want to have to show panic. We are not going to show panic. And that is exactly what i did. I was very open whether it is to , woodward or anybody else. Its just another political hit job. But whether it was woodward or anybody else, you cannot show a sense of panic, or you are going to have bigger problems than you ever had before. Please. [indiscernible] pres. Trump please, please. Mr. President , dont you think if you were more forthright with the American People, more lives could have been saved . Do you take responsibility at all for the 200,000 deaths . Pres. Trump i think if we did not do what we did, we would have had millions of people die. We closed up our country. We close it up very quickly and very effectively. We did a job. We learned about this horrible disease, along with the rest of the world, which had to learn about it. Now we know the vulnerable. We have opened it up. We know who it attacks and who its vicious against. I think we have done, from every standpoint, an incredible job. We should not have lost anybody, nobody should have lost. China released something that they should not have been allowed to release. It came out of china, it went to europe, it went all over the world. It should have never happened. They could have stopped it. They stopped it from going into the remainder of china. It started in wuhan, and they stopped it. But they did not stop it from coming to our country. Now, we had to show calm. We have to show if it was up to you or whoever, i have no idea what he said in the book. Again, its a book that i gave him some quotes, and frankly, we will see how the book turned out. I have no idea. Youre asking me questions for the first time. But again, the last thing we can show is panic, or excitement, or fear, or anything else. We had to take care of the situation we were given. Now, long before anybody else wanted to do it, i closed our borders to a very heavily infected china. If i did not do that, we would have had hundreds of thousands more people die. Dr. Fauci said it, many people said it, it was a great decision. It was a decision i made, and i had to make. A decision a lot of people thought was wrong. Nancy pelosi said i was wrong. Joe biden said i was wrong. They all came back and said it was the right decision, and i was way early. That was the end of january. That was a very good thing we did. Otherwise, we would have had hundreds of thousands more. But if we did not close the country, we would have been talking about millions of people instead of the numbers we have right now. Mr. President you mentioned , you were trying to avoid price gouging. But you mentioned to bob woodward that you recognized the virus spread through the air on february 7. Untildnt begin that march. You didnt use the Government Act until march. Pres. Trump you did not really think it was going to be to the point where it was. All, the world was infected. All of a sudden, the world was infected. The entire world was infected. The entire world was infected. Everyone was scrambling around looking where to buy face masks and all of the other things. We have opened up factories. We have had tremendous success with face masks, shields, and ventilators. We are now supplying the rest of the world. We have all the ventilators we can use. And remember this, the ventilators were important. Not one person that needed a ventilator did not get it. And these are very complex and expensive machines to make. We opened up something that had not been done since the second world war. We honestly, we have done an incredible job. But we dont want to run around screaming, shouting, look at this, look at this. We have to show leadership. And leadership is all about confidence, and confidence is confidence in our country. And our people have been great, we have been put through a lot by china by releasing this, by having this come here. We were put through a lot. They could have done something about it and they chose not to. , i am very honored to have presented to you today a list of 20 incredible people. And we will talk later. Im sure we will be meeting later in the day. Thank you very much. [indiscernible] coveragempaign 2020 continues with candidates campaigning and debating. Cspan, your unfiltered view of politics. Joe biden was on the campaign trail in warren, michigan to talk about his plan for creating jobs and expanding u. S. Manufacturing. The former Vice President also commented on recent reports that President Trump intentionally downplayed the coronavirus threat, based on a series of interviews with journalist bob woodward