Research and development effort. Operation warp speed will integrate existing efforts that are coordinating vaccine therapeutic and Countermeasure Development including nihs active and rad x initiatives. This week hhs and dod already announced new contracts to manufacture hundreds of millions of needle and syringes here in america for distributing an eventual vaccine. Finally, the president s efforts will ensure not only that we get vaccines, therapeutics and doctor tick diagnostics, but we get large donations so theyre affordable for the American People. So, thank you, mr. President , and thank you to all of the american scientists and inventers at hhs, dod and elsewhere hard at work already. I want to express my personal appreciation to secretary esper and the department of defense because this partnership is what is going to make this truly an historic endeavor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, thank you, mr. President , for your leadership of this bold and historic initiative. The department of defense is very excited and committed to working closely with our partners at hhs, across the government and in the private sector to accomplish the mission we have been given. Winning matters and we will deliver by the end of this year a vaccine at scale to treat the American People and our partners abroad. You know, the department of defense has been in this fight since day one, going back to january. We stayed ahead of the curve every step of the way. Today, on americas streets, across the nation, over of 60,000 Service Members from all branches of the service are still out there, whether it is doctors and nurses in hospitals, whether it is National Guard on the streets of america, or the core of engineers continuing to build out capacity at americas hospitals, we are there and we will be there, mr. President. And we look forward to this next greatest phase of this fight against the coronavirus. We are all in then, we are all in now and we will be all in in the future and we will deliver on time, bringing the full weight to to bear the full weight of the department of defense, all of our first class, world class, researchers and scientists, our ability to manage logistics at scale, and our great distributional capabilities. We will deliver, we will win this fight, and mr. President , thank you again for all that youve done. We will get the job done. Thank you. I know you will. I know you will. Any questions, please . Yeah, go ahead. Mr. President , you said no vaccines, vaccine or no vaccine . What did you mean by that . We think were going to have a vaccine in the pretty near future and if we do, were going to really be a big step ahead and if we dont, were going to be like so many other cases where you had a problem come in, it will go away at some point and will go away, and it may flare up and may not flare up, well have to see what happens. If it does flare up, well put out the fire and well put it out quickly and efficiently. We have learned a lot. Steve, do you have a question . We heard that the vaccine typically would take 12 to 18 months to develop. How can you do it in a speedier fashion . What makes you think this will work . Well, they started actually i guess you heard in january, early january, and they have been working on it, i know so many and private companies have been working on it, government has been working on it. So we have got the time because we put a very they literally have been working 24 hours a day. So we have got we have got the time and we hope to be able to do something by the end of the year, or shortly thereafter. But, again, you know, it is not solely vaccinebased. Other things have never had a vaccine and they go away. So i dont want people to think this is all dependent on vaccine, but a vaccine would be a tremendous thing and i will tell you, therapeutically or therapeutics what is going on there is equally as impressive. We have some things happening, you know, we have the remdesivir from gilead, and other things that are very good, things are happening therapeutically. I cant say it is equal to what is going on with vaccines, but it is doing very well, very well. So therapeutics are a big factor. Yeah, please. Is there a global competition to develop this vaccine, like, france develops it first, will they share it with us . Yeah, if and we have that very well worked out. Whoever gets it is going to be very proud to give it and develop it and they developed it and well see what happens. We have got countries that are allies that are we have some countries frankly that arent allies where were working very closely together. Were working together with many different countries, and, again, we have no ego, we have no ego, whoever gets it, we think it is great, well work with them, theyll work with us. Likewise, if we get it, well work with them. Good question, actually. Please . What do you say to the Business Owners and other people who are really questioning the guidance that the cdc put out last night . There was a concern that it would be overly prescriptive. Now a concern it is not prescriptive enough. What are Business Owners to do . I thought the guidance was very good. I heard very good reviews on the guidance. Media will never be satisfied. If we gave you more description, that would be no good. If we gave you less, that would be no good. I thought it was good. I heard a lot of good things. Go ahead, please, green. Do you have any concerns about the abbott tests given no, abbott, it is a great test, a very quick test, it can always be very rapidly doublechecked. If youre testing positive or negative, it can always be doublechecked. But it is a very good test. Very portable. Very quick. Okay. And what about china, what happens if it is china that develops the vaccine. Will the u. S. Still have access to that vaccine . I would say the answer would be yes. I would say the answer is yes. Go ahead, please. Do you need a fully approved vaccine for everyone . Excuse me, youve going to have to remove it, cant hear through you to need a fully approved vaccine for the entire general public or partially approved vaccine for emergency use . Sorry, let me repeat that now that im closer to the mic. Do you mean a fully approved vaccine for everyone, the full public or a partially approved vaccine with emergency use . Were looking for a full vaccine for everyone that wants to get it. Not everybody is going to want to get it. Were looking at a full vaccine. Is that a correct statement . Yeah. Please so the answer is yes, were working for a fully approved vaccine, but well also use the tools we have for instance emergency use authorization as appropriate. We use all of our regulatory tools to bring vaccine available for the entire American Population by january. Okay. And then mr. President , can you clarify why are some of you wearing a mask and why some of you not wearing a mask . We have all been tested. Ive been tested. We have all been tested and were quite a distance away and were outdoors, so i told them, i gave them the option, they could wear it or not. You can blame it on me, but i gave them the option, wear it or not. Please. Would a u. S. Vaccine be delivered to rest of the world at an affordable rate, at a low cost . The last thing anybody is looking for is profit in terms of what were doing. Every company, they want to get it out. We had that we had a great experience on remdesivir, great experience on everything we have done. People are looking to come up with the answer. Theyre not looking in theyre saying how much am i going to make . They really there has been a great spirit on this. They want to get to the bottom of it. And i think well be able to do that. Mr. President , the Indian American community appreciating your help in fighting the coronavirus. India has been so great and as you know your Prime Minister has been a very good friend of mine. I just got back a short while ago from india recently. And were working very much with india too and we have a tremendous indian population in the United States. And many of the people that you are talking about are working on the vaccine too. Great scientists and researchers, yeah. Were working very closely also with india, correct. And say hello to your Prime Minister. Yeah, please, go ahead. Thank you, mr. President. What steps, if any, is your administration taking to ensure that the communities and the states that are hardest hit will have first access to the vaccine . Have these discussions been had or are there i think we have been a good job with that. Certain areas have been hit very hard, new york, new jersey, et cetera. Were working closely with the governors. We worked with all the governors. We made a lot of people look very good with what we did on ventilators, with what we have done on testing. Were working with all the governors. I just spoke to the governor of new jersey, who is a terrific person, by the way, i have to tell you, i told him, a lot of money is coming your way for the transit and also i spoke with governor of new york, governor cuomo, we just had a conversation yesterday, were sending them a lot of transportation money. So it is important. But we have had a very good relationship, working with all of the states, regardless, all of the states. And if we do get fortunate enough and i think were skilled enough, but fortunate enough to have a vaccine, it will get out fairly and quickly. Do you foresee that states that are hardest hit will have first dibs so will, like, new york and new jersey have i think that makes sense, perhaps, perhaps it does. But, you know, i would say probably, but i think theyre all going to get well distributed. If you remember, where we started, we had no ventilators. We had to make them. We became a very major manufacturer of ventilators. Now were helping countries all over the world with ventilators. Were sending them to many countries all over the world. When we started, we didnt have ventilators, i inherited nothing. I inherited practically nothing from the previous administration. Unfortunately. Yeah, go ahead. Mr. President , it has been three months since you signed the china trade deal. Between what happened with coronavirus and the lagging agricultural purchases, are you at any point considering reimposing additional tariffs on china or tearing up the deal in any other way . I dont want to talk about it. I can say china is buying a lot of our product. But the trade deal, the ink was barely dry when it came in from china. So it is not like were thrilled. Okay, go ahead. Please. Can i ask one more yeah. Im wondering if youre standing by the nomination of michael pat to i dont know what happened. I know that voice of america is run in a terrible manner. Terrible. Theyre not the voice of america. Theyre the opposite of the voice of america. And we have a man who is very good, i dont know, hes in the nominating process. But ill have to check that out. Yeah. Please. Thank you, mr. President. If Public Confidence is the main thing of getting people back to work, and back to schools, and so on, is this even possible without a vaccine . How would it be possible without a vaccine . Public confidence in. I think a very big factor, frankly, is that very few people are, you know, we read about all of the very sad, very tragic, ive lost friends, many of us have lost friends, we read about that, and we see that and thats what the news covers, but a very, very a very small percentage, it is a very, very small percentage. I say it all the time. It is a tiny percentage. The vast majority, many people dont even know they have it. They have it or they have sniffles or a minor sign and they recover, not only recover, they probably have immunity, whether it is shortterm, longterm. But they have probably immunity. And i think people have to understand that, thats why i think the schools should be back in the fall. I think that lots of things should happen. I dont think that you should have 70yearold teachers back yet. They should wait until everything is gone. I dont think you should have a professor that is 65 and has diabetes or has a bad heart back necessarily or somebody that is older than that. But we want to see our schools back, we want to see our country start to work again. We created the greatest economy in the history of the world. And were going to do it again and youre going to see that next year and it is going to start youll start to see it in the fourth quarter, maybe even before that. Yeah in. Are you at all concerned about children or teachers who are in the school bringing it home to their families . Their spouses . Their grandparents . Im concerned about everything. Im also concerned about our country. Our country has to get back. And, you know what youre talking is when you are doing what we did with the shutdown, that causes death also. It causes massive depression. It causes drugs. It causes suicide. It causes a lot of problems also. No, our country has to get back to work again and you see that just looking and reading everything that is happening, our people want to get back. They want to get back. Sir, do you have plan to prevent the spread . We do. We have a great plan to prevent the spread. That doesnt mean were going to close our country for five years. Not going to happen. Go ahead. The current death toll is about 86,000 . At current, it is about 86,000, yes. Do you think thats accurate or do you think it is higher than that . I dont or lower than that. I dont know. I dont know. Those are the numbers that are being reported. I assume theyre correct. Unlike other countries, i mean, you have some countries obviously, some that are obviously ridiculous, but our numbers are accurate numbers. We dont do anything with the numbers one way or the other. Whatever it is, thats what we do. We take the numbers as reported. Okay. Do you have any indication they could be lower than that . I dont know. I dont know. If they were, i would be very happy if they were lower. I would like to see numbers lower, id like to see no death at all. One death is too many. This should have never happened. This came from china. It should have been stopped in china before it got out to the world. We have 186 it has been updated this morning, 186 countries are affected. And each country that is affected is the same thing. Russia now is badly affected. France is badly affected. You look at what each country and you can say, affected or you can say infected. Either way you want to put it. But you look at these countries, look at italy and you look at spain and look at all of these great countries in many cases, how they have how they had to fight through this. It is a terrible thing that happened. Could have been stopped at the source. Should have been stopped at the source, but it wasnt. Thank you, all, very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Im chuck todd with my cohost katie tur. President trump just wrapped up. This comes one day after the nations top vaccine expert dr. Rick bright testified before the house and yesterday dr. Bright warned he believes the timeline for a vaccine will be much longer than the 12 to 18 month prediction being touted now. But President Trump struck a much more optimistic tone today, telling the American People he would like to see a vaccine ready to distribute by the end of this year. Another essential pillar of our strategy to keep america open is the development of effective treatments and vaccines as quickly as possible. Want to see if we can do that very quickly. Were looking to when i say quickly, were looking to get it by the end of the year, if we can. Maybe before. Were doing tremendously well. Its objective is to finish developing and then to manufacture and distribute a proven Coronavirus Vaccine as fast as possible. Again, we would love to see if we could do it prior to the end of the year. And joining us now from the white house is nbc news shannon petty pace. Dr. Moncaf slaoui, a former pharmaceutical exec, why him . And what is the hope that he brings to this operation . Well, he has a tremendous amount of experience bringing vaccines to market. One of those is the Cervical Cancer vaccine that came in the market within the past ten years and hes supposed to be maybe the vaccine czar, if i can use that word. But the head adviser for this group that the president is now announcing today. There has been a lot of work going on with vaccines since this virus was first identified. But the president is trying to announce, the message hes trying to get across today, hes hoping to bring together the military and the Public Health and hhs aspects of the government to do some sort of manhattan style project to incredibly accelerate the development of a vaccine. You heard him talk about the end of the year. Normally it takes decades. Thats the goal and the benchmark hes laying out today. And this group isnt necessarily doing the Vaccine Research. This group, correct me if im wrong, their job is to prepare to distribute a massive amount of the vaccine. The Vaccine Research is going on throughout there in multiple countries, mulle pharmaceutical labs, right . Multiple universities. This is all the different trials going on all over, i assume this is almost as much about distribution as anything else . Right. I mean, there are parts of the u. S. Government that are involved in the research. The nih, for example, it is pharmaceutical companies, it is other countries, it is independent Research Labs out there that are doing the real science to this. What the u. S. Government can do is help expedite the process, get some of the red tape moved out of the way, help get a quicker fda review for starting a Clinical Trial or reviewing the date why and the mia and th component of this. Trump is saying the military will be the ones sent out to distribute what could be hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine across the country. So not only do we need to develop a vaccine, but we have to distribute it widely which is unlike anything we have ever had to do before and as a country, to distribute quickly a vaccine on that level. So thats what the president is trying to bring the government together to do. Shannon, i was struck by how confidently and optimistically not just the president was speaking, but dr. Clowy was speaking, promising millions of doses by the end of 2020. That doesnt line up with what were hearing from the other experts that have been testifying on capitol hill or ones that we have spoken to here at nbc news and msnbc. They all said 12 to 18 months is absolutely the fastest you can