President Trump’s Remarks in White House Press Briefing on COVID-19

President Donald Trump

  • Begin by expressing our sadness at the passing of a wonderful man and a dear friend of mine, Herman Cain. He was a very special person. I got to know him very well.
  • Unfortunately, he passed away from the thing called the China virus. We send our prayers to Herman’s great wife, Gloria. Wonderful family. 
  • America grieves for all of the 150,000 Americans who had their lives taken by this horrible, invisible enemy. We mourn their loss, as a nation; we mourn their loss, as people that love one another. We’re working very hard to not only contain this horrible event, this horrible plague — it’s what it is, is a plague — but also to come up with therapeutics and vaccines. We’re making a lot of strides. 
  • All over the world, they’re having tremendous problems. A resurgence has taken place in many countries that people thought were doing well. Despite a wide range of approaches to the pandemic between countries, this resurgence in cases is occurring throughout large portions of our planet, in Japan, China, Australia, Belgium, Spain, France, Germany, Hong Kong, and places where they thought it was — they had really done great. It came back. In a couple of cases, it came back very strongly. 
  • The virus was said to be under control, but new cases have risen very significantly once again. When you think somebody is doing well, sometimes you have to hold your decision on that; you have to hold your statement. 
  • Since the beginning of June, daily new cases have increased by a factor of 14 times in Israel; 35 times in Japan; nearly 30 times in Australia, just to name a few. These were countries that were doing incredibly well; leadership was being praised. Latin America now leads the world in confirmed infections. With the scarcity of testing in Latin America, the true numbers, you have no idea what they might be. I can say “scarcity of testing.” Almost anywhere, except for our country. 
  • This disease is highly contagious and presents unique challenges to our border states. Meanwhile, states like California, Washington State, Maryland, Virginia, Nevada, Illinois, Oregon, and many others — they were thought to be doing well, and they had a big resurgence and were hit very hard. 
  • Governors that were extremely popular are not so popular anymore. They were held up as models to follow, and then they got hit. Now, I’m not even saying this is their fault. It’s probably not their fault. It’s just the way it is. That’s the way it is. Highly infectious, one of the most infectious diseases that anybody has ever seen. Not since 1917, over 100 years ago, has anyone seen anything like what we’re witnessing now. 
  • These states have also seen the virus substantially rebound. Again, no one is immune. No one is immune. These facts illustrate the imposing determinant that a blanket shutdown to achieve a temporary reduction in cases is certainly not a viable long-term strategy for any country. People are starting to understand the disease now. We certainly have understood a lot about the disease that we didn’t have any idea. Nobody ever saw anything like this. 
  • The primary purpose of a shutdown was to flatten the curve, ensure sufficient hospital capacity, and develop effective treatments and therapies to reduce mortality. We’ve done that. But it can come rearing back when you least suspect it. 
  • We did the right thing initially. We saved millions of lives, what we did. We did the right thing. But a permanent shutdown would no longer be the answer at all. A small shutdown of certain areas can be very helpful, but not for long periods of time. 
  • We understand what we’re dealing with now, but it’s a very complex situation. I can only say: Thank Heaven that we are so advanced in what we’re doing, in terms of vaccines and therapies. 
  • We now know a great deal about the virus and how to treat it and who it targets. Almost half of the deaths come from less than 1 percent of our population. Think of it: Half of the deaths, a tremendous number, half of the deaths come from less than 1 percent of our population, those living in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. The average age of those who die from the illness is 78. 
  • We’ve announced very strong measures to protect those who are most vulnerable. The scientific path forward is to protect those at highest risk, while allowing those at lower risk to carefully return to work and to school with appropriate precautions. 
  • I’m once again urging the American people to protect their dear family and friends and anybody who’s elderly especially if somebody is elderly and they have heart problems, if they have certain illnesses. Diabetes is a very bad one, having to do with what we’re discussing. But you want to protect the elderly and socially distance, wear a mask if you cannot socially distance, and practice vigorous hygiene.
  • Everyone, even healthy young people, should be taking extraordinary care to avoid infecting those at the highest risk from this terrible disease. The elderly and those with chronic health issues have to be protected. 
  • In the current hotspots across the Sun Belt, the data is showing very encouraging signs. Arizona, in particular, has crossed an important threshold. For every person with the virus, we’re now seeing an average of less than one additional person infected. And the numbers are coming down and coming down very substantially. They’re starting to come down in Florida. Arizona is really leading the way. 
  • I was in Texas yesterday, and they’re starting to come down significantly, we believe, in Texas. Need another few days to figure that one out, but it looks like they’re coming down very significantly. 
  • Earlier today, I visited the Red Cross headquarters to discuss plasma therapy, a tremendous thing that they’re looking at, and they have a lot of experience with it. Potentially lifesaving treatments that infuse sick patients with powerful antibodies donated by those who have recovered successfully from this disease. 
  • More than 2 million Americans have recovered from the virus, and today we’re asking them to visit Coronavirus.gov and volunteer to donate plasma. We need plasma. It’s something that’s been very effective, and we need plasma from those that were infected and successfully recovered, as most people do. Most people do. 
  • Plasma is one of the many promising treatments my administration is accelerating. We’ve secured over 90 percent of the world’s supply of remdesivir, an encouraging antiviral drug that can effectively block replication of the virus. 
  • We’ve also approved the use of the widely available steroid dexamethasone, which has shown success, even in patients at more advanced stages of the disease. 
  • On July 17th, we announced a $450 million agreement with Regeneron to build manufacturing plants and hundreds of thousands of doses of its antibody treatment, which is currently in late-stage clinical trials moving along very rapidly. That’s Regeneron. 
  • As a result of such significant strides in treatment, the mortality rate in those over the age of 18 is 85 percent lower than it was just in April. In a very short period of time.
  • Now I want to provide an update on our efforts to ensure a strong economic comeback, including our negotiations on Capitol Hill. Throughout this crisis, my Administration has taken the most aggressive action in history to rescue American workers. We love our American workers. We’ve set records on job creation two months in a row. 
  • We enacted a $3 trillion economic relief package. The Paycheck Protection Program alone saved over 50 million jobs. We delivered $300 billion to direct cash payments to Americans. We approved $500 billion for our hardest-hit industries.
  • We allowed struggling homeowners to reduce or defer their mortgage payments, and we put a nationwide moratorium on evictions from federally backed properties. It was a big thing, a very big thing. 
  • We also suspended student loan payments for six months, and we’re looking to do that additionally and for additional periods of time. 
  • As a result of these extraordinary steps by the administration, we added a record 7 million jobs in the two months past alone. 
  • To ensure this comeback continues, which we think it will, we had a great foundation to build on. We were the strongest country in the world; nobody close. We were outdoing everybody from China. If you remember, for many years, you heard that in 2019, China would surpass the United States.
  • We gained on them very significantly. We took it to a level that nobody has ever seen, and we’ll be back there very shortly. It won’t take very long, based on everything that we’re seeing. It’s not going to take very long. I think next year is going to be an excellent year, maybe one of our best years ever, from an economic standpoint. 
  • We can never, ever forget the people that have been lost, and we never will. We’ll never forget them; never forget what happened. This could have been stopped in China. They should have stopped it, and they didn’t.
  • I’m asking Congress to pass additional legislation to support Americans in need. First, we want a temporary extension of expanded unemployment benefits. This will provide a critical bridge for Americans who lost their jobs to the pandemic through no fault of their own. This was not anybody’s fault. From the standpoint of jobs, it happened. A terrible thing happened. Could’ve been stopped. It happened.
  • I want to thank Senate Republicans for fighting to extend unemployment benefits today in the face of very strong Democrat obstruction, which I’m surprised because this is great for our country and it’s great for our workers, and it wasn’t our workers’ fault. 
  • Second, we’re asking Democrats to work with us to find a solution that will temporarily stop evictions. We do not want people who have lost their jobs due to the virus to be evicted from their homes or apartments. We don’t want that to happen.
  • Third, we need Democrats to join us to pass additional economic relief payments for American citizens, like the payments sent directly to 160 million Americans earlier this year, which was a tremendously successful program. This money will help millions of hardworking families get by.
  • My Administration is also asking Democrats to work with us to pass $105 billion to help schools safely reopen. Children are not at the lowest risk. If you look at what’s going on: the younger, the better. Amazing the immune system. For children, the lower they are in age, the lower the risk, in terms of the age group itself. 
  • I tell the story that, in New Jersey, with thousands and thousands of people dying — sadly, dying, the Governor Phil Murphy, told me that only one died under the age of 18. That’s incredible. Where thousands of people that died in the state of New Jersey, one made an impact; one died under the age of 18.
  • Children are at the lowest risk of any age group from the virus. Indefinite school closures will inflict lasting harm to our nation’s children. We must follow the science and get students safely back to school, while protecting children, teachers, staff, and family.
  • We have to remember that there’s another side to this: Keeping them out of school and keeping work closed is causing death also. Economic harm, but it’s causing death for different reasons. Probably more death.
  • If Governors do not want to open the public schools, the money should go to parents so they can send their children to the school of their choice. So we say if a school doesn’t want to open or if a governor doesn’t want to open, maybe for a political reason and maybe not. There is some of that going on, the money should go to the parents so they can send their children to the school of their choice. 
  • If schools stay closed, the money should follow the students, so families are in control of decisions about their sons and daughters.
  • To pass a bill, Democrats must reject the extreme, partisan voices in their party. They have tremendous voices. They’re looking at November 3rd. And probably a day later, they’ll say, “Let’s open up the country.” 
  • The Democrats have to reject the extreme, partisan voices in their party so that we can get our country going even quicker than it’s going right now. We have a lot opening, and we have a lot of states that you thought were doing pretty poorly, from the standpoint of the virus, and they’re actually coming back very strong. 
  • This pandemic has underscored the importance of economic policies that put American families and workers first. I got elected on the fact that I put America first. 
  • For many, many decades, in my opinion, we put America last. If you look at the crazy, horrible, disgraceful trade deals that we’ve watched for many years destroy our country — NAFTA, we terminated it. We have USMCA now, which is a great deal, and our farmers are doing really well despite the pandemic. We put America first, America’s families first, and America’s workers first.
  • That means bringing jobs and factories back to our shores, reducing unnecessary regulations, and creating new training opportunities for jobs and for the future. We’ve cut regulations at a level that no President has ever cut regulations. And we’ve cut taxes more than any President in the history of our country.
  • Americans always rise to the challenge, and we will emerge more resilient, more self-reliant, more independent, and more prosperous than ever before. 
  • I just want to thank you all.

Topics covered in the answer and question portion of the briefing can be found here: July 30 Briefing

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