Face covering, theyre wearing it to protect their neighbors from getting the coronavirus because, again, they could have asymptomatic spread. So mr. President , thank you very much for that. Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity to update everybody. Great job. Okay. John . Mr. President , dr. Fauci last night said that every state should have stayathome orders right now. Do you agree with that . Should every state have the stayathome orders . I leave it up to the governors. The governors know what theyre doing. I guess were close to 90 anyway. And states that were talking about are not in jeopardy. No. I would leave to it the governors. I like that from the standpoint of governing, and i like that from the standpoint of even our constitution. Please . Mr. President , to address the shortage of the blood supply, the food and Drug Administration a different voice. A much different voice. Go ahead. Well get you later. Going to the oil meeting previously, is the u. S. Willing to cut economic Oil Production . What came out of the meeting . What was the consensus . Well, a lot of things came out. Its a great industry. Its an important industry. Its a tremendous job producing industry, and its just vital. And it was also very interesting because they all were given the test before they came into the room. So you have the head of exxonmobil, you have all these guys taking the test, and they all passed with flying colors. So that was good. They left happy in that respect, at least. Its just an overabundance of oil right now, oil and gas. Tremendous overabundance. And it was caused they were doing a great job. They were producing a lot of energy. But then you had the virus come along. And it knocked another 35 , maybe 40 off of the market. So there is too much oil. There is a glut. And these are great companies. And theyll figure it out. Its a free market. Well figure it out. You spoke to president putin. Whats on the table here with
him . They were having a competition. Well see how it all works out. I think its going to work out very well. Its going to take a long time to get rid of that. There is massive excess amount of oil and gas, massive. Like probably there has never been. So where that does work out well, i guess you could say is for drivers. I think in certain locations its down to 90 and 95 cents a gallon right now on the road. But we have a tremendous industry, a great industry, a tremendously important industry from the standpoint of jobs. And were energy independent. We have to make sure we keep it that way. All right, please . Mr. President , as i was saying, the food and Drug Administration to address the blood supply announced yesterday it would ease the restrictions on certain donor, including gay men now required to be answer meant the for three months instead of 12 months. Did you a hand in that . No, i had nothing to do with
that. That was done by the fda, very capable people. Both the Government Of Canada and 3m are pushing back on this dea not export n95 respirators. 3m i dont blame them. They can push back if they want. Were not happy with 3m. Were not happy. The people that dealt with it directly are not at all happy with 3m. I heard what he had to say today. I dont know the gentleman. But were not happy with 3m. Go ahead. And where is dr. Fauci . I dont know. But every time you ask that question, whenever he is not here, look, you say where is he . And youll say is there a problem . No problem whatsoever. Every time he is not here, sometimes ill ask him to come because thats the first question you and a couple of others from the fake news establishment ask is where is dr. Fauci. Were doing great together. Different subject if i may ask. Were covering a different subject . Go ahead, jim. Mr. President , you have said nobody could have seen this pandemic coming. But in fact Secretary Azar at a Biodefense Summit in april 2019 said of course the thing that people ask what keeps you most up at night in the biodefense world, pandemic flu, of course. I think everyone in this room probably shares that concern. Your own health and Human Services secretary was aware that this had potential of being a very big problem around the world, a pandemic of this nature. Who dropped the ball . Well, i always knew that pandemics are one of the worst things that could happen. There has been nothing like this since probably 1917. That was the big one. In europe, it started actually here and went to europe, probably. Ive heard about excuse me, wait a minute, let me finish. Ive heard about this for a long time, pandemics. You dont want pandemics. And i dont think he was talking about a specific pandemic. He was talking about the threat of a pandemic could happen. And it could happen. Most people thought it wouldnt, and most people didnt
understand the severity of it. This is a very severe. Whats happened is very severe. But id let you answer that. I assume that he was talking about the concept of a pandemic. Thank you, mr. President. Absolutely for 15 years now this country has had a massive effort at the federal, state and local level of preparedness for pandemic. Now that largely has been, as i said in those remarks, about Pandemic Flu Preparedness. We knew about sars. We knew about mers, which were earlier modifications or variants of the coronavirus. None of those achieved anything like what were seeing today. But thats why for successive presidency, including the leadership of President Trump, there has been a great focus on pandemic preparedness. In fact, it was just in november, i believe, that the president signed the Pandemic Flu Preparedness executive order that we have and we have also updated the pandemic Crisis Action plan, which has been the playbook from which weve been working, the pandemic flu plan. Again, the action plan from which we have been working that coordinates the whole of government, the whole economy approach here. So weve all been very focused on pandemic preparedness. Its what we do. But this particular strain of pandem pandemic, who would have known this particular strain. If you were preparing for pandemic, if this government were preparing for pandemic, why is it we dont have enough masks . Why is it we dont have enough medical equipment . Previous administrations gave us very little ammunition for the military and very little shelf let me just tell it. You know it. You know the answer. The previous administration, the shelves were empty. The shelves were empty. So what you should do is speak to the people from the previous administration, jim, and ask them that question. Because the shelves were empty. You know what else . The Military Shelves were also empty. We had no ammunition, literally. That was said by one of your favorite generals. We have, sir, we have no ammunition. Guess what . We had very little medical supply also. All right go ahead. Well get you back. Well get you back. Please . Jim, well get you back. Please, go ahead. The dpa, you said there will be a ban on exporting of all what does it cover . Masks . Gloves . But if somebody ordered if italy, if spain who has big problems, these are countries with tremendous problems, france, if they ordered, if they have longterm orders and theyre in there and they want to get certain things, id let them go out in certain instances because i think its only fair. They have problems that are proportionately or relatively bigger than our problems. So if they ordered something and theyre waiting for something for example masks made here, and going to italy, im not going to be stopping that. I think it would be very unfair. And by the way, speaking about being fair and unfair, two very big cruise liners, as you know,
i allowed them to dock today. We worked with the governor of florida, ron desantis, and we worked on it. And we had tremendous security. And we took the sick people and were working with them. We have doctors. We have great doctor, military doctors. And from a humane standpoint, not that were in love with this, these are two massive ships, but we have to take care of people. We have to take care. We sent many back to canada. The canadians came and worked very closely with us, as did the uk. We had a lot of people from the uk. And we took care of the americans. We took care of the sick. We had some people very sick. I think we have three to four, maybe five people that had died on the boat, one of the boat, actually. And we had to take care of these people so we couldnt let them float aimlessly into the ocean looking for port, as they have been doing for a long time. I made the decision we had to take them in. Homeland security and a lot of other people did a great job. But we have to help people. These are people that were very, very sick. Some were dying. Some died. Please . Go ahead. Mr. President , your staff today said that people in close proximity to you and the Vice President will get a coronavirus test. Im wondering, are you concerned that the people youve been hanging around with may have the virus . No, im not concerned, no. I had a test yesterday. Whats the reason for the order for people who meet with you and talk with you . I dont know. I heard from the oil executives. These are people most of them had not had the test. And frankly, i think they left the room feeling good about a lot of things. But they felt good about the test. This was a test that took i guess 13 minutes to visit finalized. They took the test. I dont know. I didnt know they were doing that. Maybe they did it just for them. I dont know. But it seems that a lot of people, because now we have tests that really work well, in this case, abbott. We have other tests being developed right now that are also fantastic. The original test, the ones we
inherited, jim, as an example, they were broken. They were obsolete. They were not good tests. And thats what we got stuck with. Weve developed some incredible tests. But this took 13 to 15 minutes. And they were all fine. Go ahead, finish your question. The problem some people have raised is if the u. S. Stopped exporting, what you could have is other countries deciding that they are going to stop exporting, and the result of that then will be a net decrease in the amount of supplies that american doctor, american hospitals have. How do you address that . Well, i address it in the following manner. We really are very well supplied. We are not the principle. Its the hospitals, the states, the cities. They were supposed to get everything they can and stock up in case Something Like this happens. But nobody could have ever assumed that Something Like this happened. So we started supplying. We brought tremendous amounts to new york today, and over the last few days we brought them to louisiana. We brought them to michigan. We brought them to los angeles. A lot of equipment. You read the amount of masks that we had. I think i said over 8 million masks. The n95 masks, the more expensive, more complicated, better, whatever, masks, the ones they use in the hospitals. We have millions of them now. And weve given them to a lot. We sent to bellevue in new york today. That was from mayor de blasio, 200,000 of them. But we have 8. 1 million. Were going have more than that. And were getting them from various source, including the military. Were rapidly then replacing them, because we have to replace them, in case there is another emergency. I would be gowns too. We have many gowns being delivered and have been delivered. Our people have done an incredible job. Most people have said, and i said this yesterday, governors have said thank you very much. Great job. If theyre a democrat governor, in some case, not in all cases
at all, if i said here is a thousand ventilators, how many do you want . We want one thousand. Here is a thousand. You got them. But you know what were going to do . Were going add another 5,000. That good . They said wow, thats great. And if jim acosta goes are you happy with the president . No, he should have given us 10,000. Thats whats happening. Thats a standard political answer, and thats a shame. Because we have done a job like nobody has ever done a job. But we just delivered a lot of masks. We just delivered a lot of gowns and protective gear. But, you know, youre talking about a massive number. As of this morning, people were very, very happy. Steve . Executives ask you for a bailout . No, they didnt ask for a bailout. What did they ask for . It was really more of a discussion than asking. We did discuss the concept of tariffs. Because as you know, this was a dispute among a couple of countries that i think they want
to be able to get it solved. And they had a dispute. They had a competition. But they want the get it resolved. Russia and saudi arabia. I think they want yeah, i think they want to get it resolved. Theyre working very hard. They told me, they want to get it resolved. Theyre working very hard. Go ahead. Thank you. Yesterday Jared Kushner said the notion of the federal stockpile was it was supposed to be our stock prime minister. Its not supposed to be State Stockpiles that they then use. What did he mean by our . And even the fact that taxpayers i gotcha, gotcha. You know what our means . United states of america. Thats what it means. The states . Our, our. It means the United States of america. And then we take that our and we distribute it to the states. Not supposed to be State Stockpiles. Because we need it for the government. And we need it for the federal government. But when the states no, to also who are you giving it to, if
its not for the states . To keep for our country . Because the federal government needs it too, not just the states. But out of that, we oftentimes choose, as an example, we have almost 10,000 ventilators, and we are ready to rock with those ventilators. Were going bring them to various areas of the country that need them. But when he says our, he is talking about our country. He excuse me. He is talking about the federal government. I mean, its such a basic, simple question, and you try and make it sound so bad. Its not bad. Im just trying to understand. You ought to be ashamed. Its such a simple question. He said our. And our means for the country. And our means for the states because the states are a part of the country. Dont make it sound bad. Dont make it sound bad. Go ahead. Steve. Back here. Just even change the language. You just asked your question in a very nasty tone. I didnt think it was nasty. You didnt give me an answer. Please. I gave you a perfect answer. You know it. Go ahead. Just to follow up on that, when we have the federal stockpile, i mean, isnt that designed to be able to distribute to the states . Sure. Its also needed for the federal government. We have a federal stockpile and they have State Stockpiles. And frankly, they were many of the states were totally unprepared for this. So we had to go into the federal stockpile. But were not an ordering clerk. They have to have for themselves. Now some of the states were in good shape. Some of the states were not in good shape. Thats probably something you could expect. We have been helping states. We have been spending a tremendous amount of time, effort, and billions and billions of dollars on making sure that they have what they have. I mean, take new york. We built them hospitals. I built them four hospital, built them medical centers, sent a ship with a thousand rooms and 12 operating rooms. And then on top of that, gave vast numbers of ventilators and
vast numbers of surgical gowns, equipment, masks, everything else. Now they had a chance to order ventilators over the years. They had a chance to order very big, but they didnt choose to do it. We were there and we helped them. And i think the governor of new york is very thankful for the help that we gave. But we have a stockpile. Its a federal stockpile. Well can use that for states or use it for ourselves. We do use it for the federal government. We have a very big federal government. Have you decided not to use your powers to be essentially a traffic cop for all the essential medical supplies were not a traffic cop. Were a humanitarian cop. We help. Its like the ships. Do you think we wanted to take two big ships into our country that have obvious problems, and you know the problems im talking about . So i have a decision to make. Do i take them in or do i save lives . Do i take them or do i save. I decided to take them in. And we have tremendous
protection. We have great doctors there to help the people. They had four or five people that died. That was as of last night. They died on the ships. We took care of it. And now the people are in the process of and many are already back in canada. Theyre back in the uk, united kingdom. And many of them were american citizens. Some were very sick. Were taking care of the sick people. Were testing all of the others very, very carefully. Very, very carefully. They are being tested like you wouldnt believe. And we solved a humanitarian catastrophe. You know why . Nobody else would take the ships. Nobody else would take them. We docked them i think in ft. Lauderdale. Why you dont say were the federal government and there is a shortage of masks. We do say that. And were going to we do say that. We say and we use the act. Excuse me. We do say that and we use the act. And weve used it a number of times very powerfully, and a lot of times we dont have to use it, because we say were going to use it if you dont do this or that. And then we also have companies that act incredibly well. We have plenty of them. Mostly them. But weve used the act very powerfully. And a lot of times you dont have to exercise the act. All you have to do is tell them, look, if you dont do this, were going use the act. And weve done a good job with it. Maybe great job. Yeah . Mr. President , there are new reports that you want to sign the Stimulus Checks that are going out here in several months. That right . No. There is millions of checks. Im going to sign them . No. Its a Trump Administration initiative, but do i want to sign them . No. The people are getting their money. There is a lot of stimulus going in a lot of different ways. There is also stimulus going for companies that were, if it werent for our government, and some companies who were very strong a month ago. Again, we had the strongest
economy in the world. We had our best effort. We had probably the best economy in the history of the world, bigger than china, bigger than anybody. And n one day we have to say close it up, stop. Everybody go home. And you know what . Thats pretty tough to do that