Happening with suicides. Please go ahead. Reporter mr. President , americans have been selfquarantining for several months now. Social distancing. Yet we are still seeing about 20,000 new cases a day. 1,000 to 2,000 deaths. Is there anything else the administration is planning to do to get these new cases under control . We seem to be on a plateau. President trump the numbers are way down from what they were two weeks ago. The numbers are really coming down. Very substantially. This weekend was one of the lowest weve had. The numbers are coming down very rapidly. All throughout the country by the way. There may be one exception. All throughout the country the numbers are coming down or trickle rapidly. I think you see that, admiral. Reporter 130,000 cases through august. Do you agree with those models . Is that your expectation . President trump the models havent been exactly accurate. They are done by think tanks and universities. Some of the models have been way off. A few of the models have been accurate. As far as the models are concerned, you go by the model, we were going to lose 2. 2 million people. And because we took, we mitigated. We did things that were very tough for our country to do frankly. We had to turn off our whole magnificent economy. We had to turn down the whole country. The lowest of all the models. If you look at, i guess 120,000 people would be the low side. There is nothing low. Nothing low. One is too many people and i sang all the time. One person to lose for this is too many people. Its a disgrace what happened. But if you look at the models, we are at the lowest of those projections. But the models are not models done necessarily by the white house. They are done by many people all over the world. If you take the most respected of those people, many of those models are wrong, i mean, theyve been wrong as far as the u. S. Is concerned because those numbers are nowhere near what was projected potentially. Reporter expectation about the death toll is going to look like by the summer. You know what, i dont want to think about it even. I know we are doing everything we can. We are doing a good job. We are acting early. We acted early and keeping china out of our country and banning people from china coming at other than our citizens which we obviously had it taken. They were quarantined, watched carefully. We had about 40,000 people coming in from china, from asia. We had to obviously take the people. Can you imagine, if we said youre a u. S. Citizen. Were not going to take you. That doesnt work. I was with ron desantis. He said they put literally the people who came from china in quarantine for a substantial period of time. That was a big decision. I think we saved hundreds of thousands of lives by acting very early. When i did this, i think the admiral can say, everybody was against my doing it, everybody, everybody was. The professionals, the doctors. I was pretty much by myself on that one. It was a lucky thing we did it because we saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Please, go ahead. Reporter thank you, mr. President. Earlier today the Vice President urged governors to have their nursing home residents tested. Why not just mandate that . Why not require it . Have you considered that . President trump i would certainly consider that. I would mandate it if youd like. I think its important to do and i think frankly some of the governors were very lax with respect to Nursing Homes. It was obvious right from the beginning. The state of washington where 26 or 20 people died very early on, and i wouldve said Nursing Homes and i did say Nursing Homes. Many of the states arent doing that. I think all of the states, they have the capacity to do it. They should be doing Nursing Homes. Thats of real vulnerability. The two staffers that were announced last week is testing positive, are you aware of any additional white house staff . President trump no, not at all. Im only aware of people who thought them were tested. The tests were negative. And they are quarantining anyw anyway. Please go ahead. Reporter i wanted to ask, are you now or are you considering separating some more with Vice President pence as a precautionary measure . President trump well, first of all, the job hes done on task force, the job hes done frankly is the Vice President of the United States has been outstanding. Hes a warrior too, just like doctors and nurses. I mean, hes working so hard and hes coming into contact with a lot of people. But again, he tested negative. We have to understand that. But he comes into contact with a lot of people. Its something probably during this quarantine period will probably talk about. I have not seen them since then. But i would say that he will come here and i will be talking about that. Yeah, we can talk on the phone. Reporter for the admiral, the president just said that dr. Fauci, dr. Hahn have tested negative. Why do they need to be isolated . Is there some concern that they could be spreading the virus in summary, is there a concern about that testing . Why do they need to isolate . This is a fundamental concept and im happy that you brought it up. It underlies a lot of the questions. If you test negative at that one point, it just means you tested negative for that point in time. We know that the incubation period back for this virus can be many days. So the cdc guidelines really say if youre in close contact, just testing negative on that one day doesnt mean you wont be positive later on. So the prudent and recommended thing to do is to solve isolate yourself for the entire period of incubation and really then some. Thats what they are doing. Its a precautionary measure because they were negative. We hope they remain negative. If they turned positive in a day or two or became symptomatic, thats still possible, even with a negative test. President trump go ahead, phil. Reporter mr. President , in one of your mothers day tweets you appeared to accuse president obama of the biggest political crime in american history, those are your words. What crime exactly are you accusing president obama of committing into you believe the Justice Department should prosecute him . President trump obama gate. Its been going on for a long time. Going out from before i got elected. Its a disgrace that it happened and if you look at whats going on and if you look at now come all this information thats being released and from what i understand its only the beginning. Some terrible things happened, and it should never be allowed to happen in our country again. Youll be saying whats going on over the next, over the coming weeks. I wish she would write honestly about it but unfortunately you choose not to do so. John, please. Reporter what is the crime exactly . President trump you know what the crime is. The crime the crematory office to everybody you just have to read the newspapers, except yours. Reporter if i can get clarification. The numbers of tests have been going up. You said twice that every american was attesting that a test. Thats not the case. 1. 9 million tests per day is far short of every american that wants to test. President trump i will say just from listening and hearing what you do, what we all do, not everybody should get a test because they have to have certain things. They are going to know when theyre not feeling right. Those of the people it will be getting the test. Admiral, i will you take it from there. Everybody who needs a test can get a test. We have plenty of tests. Right now in america anybody who needs a test get a test in america, with the numbers we have. If youre symptomatic with a respiratory illness, thats an indication for a test and you can get a test. If you need to be Contact Tracing, you can get a test. And we hope not hope, we are starting to have asymptomatic surveillance which is very important. Again, thats over 3 million tests per week. That is sufficient for everyone who needs a test, symptomatic, Contact Tracing. Into our best protections the asymptomatic kind of surveillance we need to get that, and thats the way it is. Remember, i work at hhs. I work there every day. I dont get tested every day. I get monitored for my symptoms. Do i have symptoms . I wear a mask when i go in. That is a safe Work Environment for the environment we have. If i became symptomatic, i would get a test. If it were positive, i would isolate and there would be Contact Tracing to stop it just the way it was done here. If im not symptomatically, i do the precautions, as everyone has recommended in phase one, and thats the essence of safely opening america. President trump john, the numbers are coming way down in the coming down rapidly and thats a beautiful thing to see. Thats pretty much universally all across the country. Theyre coming down very rapidly. Very important. Please go ahead. Reporter for the admiral, americans who are going back work shouldnt expect and shouldnt need, shouldnt want to have the same thing that people coming to work here at the white house avenue, which is the ability to get tested regularly regardless of sympto symptoms. Let me clarify. People who come into close contact with the president get tested on regular basis. If i were not in close contact with the president specifically, i would not get tested, like most people here do not get tested. Its a very specific circumstance. When i work at hhs, i go there, i dont get tested. I do the exact thing that we ask americans to do. Monitor your symptoms. If you are symptomatic, self isolate, get tested. One of our Community Based testing sites, your hospital. There is even at home testing thats been authorized. And cooperate, that if you need to be contact raised, be Contact Tracing cooperate with your local public health. Not everybody who walks in here gets tested every time they do. If youre symptomatic here at hhs, at a meatpacking plant, at a school, you need to get tested. President trump the meat packing plants are doing very well, great testing around those plans and were finding out who are the problem and they are being quarantined and the meatpacking is moving along very nicely. But they were trouble spots. They were hot zones definitely. You know one thing i think its very important, just to finish. We have now, nobody says it. They just dont want to write it. By far, more tests than any other country in the world. Not even a contest. The quality of our test since the best anywhere in the world. Thats very important to say. Reporter to make sure i understand the white houses position, are you saying that right now you feel theres enough testing, adequate testing across the United States. Do you feel it needs to be ramped up and by how much if so . I think we have been clear all along that we believe in the data indicate we have enough testing to do the phase one gradual reopening that has been supported in the president s plan and the task forces plan. It has to be a phased reopening. Nobody is saying turn the light switch on and everyone go. Then it would be really impossible to control the spread of the virus. You know, there are many, many models out there. The Rockefeller Foundation published their recommendations about 3 million tests per week. Thats exactly what were doing. If you look at our agentbased models, its far below that. If you take these center at harvard and correct their missed assumptions, the sensitivity of the tests in the mitigation process and how many people get hospitalized, you get about that number. Now, im not going to come here and say we can absolutely swear, gods truth, that this is the number we need. But we know we have enough to open and we are going to be very careful. Our surveillance programs, and with the data coming into inform us even further. Let me add a little bit to that. Most days i dont come to the white house to work. I go to fema or hhs. Let me talk you through the protocols. I would never get tested if i wasnt coming to the white house. Every day when we come in we get our temperature taken and we get asked questions about if we have symptoms. If you dont, then you enter the workplace. There is Hand Sanitizer all over the place, and rooms made for Conference Rooms they put pieces of paper that say dont sit every other or every third seat to separate people. Theres a lot of precautions that we are taking in the federal government separate from testing of those other precautions that the agency, admiral giroir and i are working on every day. President trump if people want to get tested, they get tested. We have the greatest capacity in the world, not even close. If people want to get tested they get tested but for the most part they shouldnt want to get tested. There is no reason. They feel good. They dont have sniffles. They dont have sore throats. They dont have any problem. If they do feel theres something happening, they have the absolute easy in fact, ron desantis of florida, the governor, doing a fantastic job in florida. He said hes got a little bit of the opposite problem hes got so much testing that people sit around and wait for mabel to come in. They have an over capacity. There are numerous other states. Thats a good problem, not a bad problem. Reporter you have said many times that the u. S. Is doing far better than any other country when it comes to testing. Why does that matter . Why is it global competition to you if every day americans are still losing their lives and we are still seeing more cases every day . President trump well, theyre losing their lives everywhere in the world and maybe thats a question you should ask china. Dont ask me. Ask china that question, okay. We asked them that question, you make it a very unusual answer. Behind you please. Reporter sir, why are you saying that to me specifically. President trump im not saying it specifically to anybody. Im saying that to anyone who would ask a nasty question like that. Reporter its not a nasty question. President trump anyone else . In the back. Reporter i have two questions. President trump next. Reporter you called on me. President trump you didnt respond. Reporter i just wanted to let my colleagues President Trump ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Dana welcome to the five, busy day of news. White house wrapping up a News Conference on testing as more states began to open up. President trump saying every state now has the capacity to do the amount of testing that south korea did. It comes as coronavirus concerns have hit the white house. Staffers that are being asked to wear masks in the west wing unless they are at their desks. Two white house employees tested positive, forcing some top officials like dr. Anthony fauci into a modified quarantine. The president reacting a moment ago. President trump i dont think the system broke down at all. One person tested positive, surprisingly. Because the previous day tested negative. Three people that were in contact, relative contact, who i believe theyve all tested totally negative. But they are going to for period of time self isolate. Its not breaking down. Dana im here with all of my friends at the five. Let me see if i can see them. I have jesse, greg, juan. Greg, let me start with you. Thoughts about that and testing. We talked about this for five weeks ago saying whats the deal on testing . We got more answers today. Greg one of the confusing things and we have said this before. All good things could happen sooner. Why wasnt this happening sooner . I dont think its possible. We keep hearing so many things about testing and then we just dont see it. We dont understand it. Its one of those things. I dont know if its going to play that big of a role right now and getting us back to work, because its so confusing. I do find the binary nature of this debate right now to be somewhat arbitrary. If trump had actually been screaming for an indefinite shutdown, i believe the other side would say you are destroying the economy and youre targeting the poor in the week. But because he wants to open the economy, you get the reverse. You could easily flip the script. All you have to do is take trump to the opposite narrative and have everyone take the opposite point of view. I go back to this all the time, people need to understand risk. I pretend that i have a risk riskometer and it beeps the closest i get to death. When i step in the tub, it beeps. When i step out, it stops. When youre passing a truck on a narrow road it beeps high. Every decision in your life has some sort of rest. Adults manage risk. Thats all we do. Children cant manage risk. Its why they need supervision. We do not need supervision. What we need is our brain to be a riskometer to think about how we reduce risks in all areas of life. Illnesses that do not have a vaccine for a long time. Maybe tess will have false positives and false negatives. Maybe the tests wont be they just wont be there for you. You have to manage your risk. We are adults. Dana right. Jesse, theres so many different types of tests. Antibody tests. Have the Vice President s press secretary testing negative one day and positive the next. Theres a lot of things we dont know. The media today at the white house, they were very, very interested about white house precautions about not Wearing Masks if youre in the west wing unless youre at your desk. And the ability for people that are near the president , something they made clear, youre getting tested regularly if you are in contact or near the president which makes sense to me. Jesse these reporters are so dumb and nasty. Theyre acting like theyre president of the United States is just some average guy who doesnt need extra protection. If youre 25 years old and you live in idaho and its time to go back to work at the restaurant and youre perfectly healthy, you dont need a test. But if youre going to the white house and interacting with the commander in chief, youre probably going to need a test. They are acting like its a scandal of people around the most powerful man in the world get a test. People that may be have to go back to work in a county with one case dont need it. Theres a huge difference. Like greg said, they are trying to scandalize something thats just not necessary. The federal government hasnt been perfect on testing, i would admit that. But what has the federal government ever been perfect at . We wage war and collect taxes really, really well. Other than that, its usually kind of mediocre. This is a state thing. Private labs are going to do this stuff. The former presi