--SUPERS--
:00-:04
Donald Trump
(R) Presidential Nominee

:21-:25
Donald Trump
(R) Presidential Nominee

:32-:35
Donald Trump
(R) Presidential Nominee

:42-:55
Donald Trump
(R) Presidential Nominee

1:03-1:08
Ivanka Trump
Donald Trump"s Daughter

1:20-1:35
Donald Trump
(R) Presidential Nominee

1:40-1:52
Donald Trump
(R) Presidential Nominee

 --LEAD IN--
PRESIDENT OBAMA IS TAKING ISSUE WITH PARTS OF DONALD TRUMP"S SPEECH AT THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION.
WHILE TRUMP SPENT HIS FIRST DAY AS THE OFFICIAL G-O-P NOMINEE DEFENDING SOME OF HIS WORDS AGAINST TED CRUZ.
SUNLEN SERFATY REPORTS
 --REPORTER PKG-AS FOLLOWS--
(Donald Trump/ (R) Presidential Nominee) "We had an amazing convention, it was one of the best."
THE NEWLY-MINTED NOMINEE, HIS RUNNING MATE AND FRESHLY BRANDED PLANE ARE TRYING TO MOVE FORWARD.
(Donald Trump/ (R) Presidential Nominee) "The party"s just come together."
….BUT TWELVE HOURS AFTER DELIVERING THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL AND CAREFULLY-TAILORED SPEECH OF HIS LIFE, DONALD TRUMP IS LOOKING BACKWARD.
(Donald Trump/ (R) Presidential Nominee) "I don"t want his endorsement. Just, Ted, stay home, relax, enjoy yourself."
... RENEWING AN OLD FIGHT.
(Donald Trump/ (R) Presidential Nominee) "...somebody got booed the hell out of a place by thousands and thousands of people."
RESURRECTING NOT ONLY HIS FEUD WITH SENATOR TED CRUZ BUT AGAIN RAISING A BASELESS ATTACK ON CRUZ"S FATHER.
(Donald Trump/ (R) Presidential Nominee) "All I did is point out the fact that on the cover of the National Enquirer there was a picture of him and crazy Lee Harvey Oswald having breakfast. Now, Ted never denied that it was his father."
TRUMP"S TIRADE IS THREATENING TO OVERSHADOW HIS TRIUMPHANT MOMENT AND BLUNT THE MOMENTUM COMING OFF HIS CONVENTION.
(Ivanka Trump/ Donald Trump"s Daughter) "Our next president, Donald J. Trump!"
THE NOMINEE CAPPED OFF THE WEEK DELIVERING A MORE SERIOUS ADDRESS.
(Donald Trump/ (R) Presidential Nominee) "I alone can fix it!"
....AS HE ACCEPTED THE GOP NOMINATION THURSDAY NIGHT IN CLEVELAND.
(Donald Trump/ (R) Presidential Nominee) "Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and the terrorism of our cities, threaten our very way of life."
... PAINTING A DARK AND OMINOUS PICTURE OF A NATION IN CHAOS.
(Donald Trump/ (R) Presidential Nominee) "Homicides last year increased by 17% in America"s fifty largest cities. That"s the largest increase in 25 years."
THAT VIEW DRAWING A QUICK REBUKE FROM PRESIDENT OBAMA TODAY.
(Pres. Obama) "This idea that America is somehow on the verge of collapse, this vision of violence and chaos everywhere, doesn"t really jive with the experience of most people." 
COUNTERING THE GOP NOMINEE"S CLAIMS ABOUT RISING CRIME RATES.
(Pres. Obama) "The fact of the matter is that the murder rate today, the violence rate today is far lower than it was when Ronald Reagan was president and lower than when I took office."
 --SUGGESTED TAG--
THE POLITICAL WORLD IS NOW TURNING ITS ATTENTION TO NEXT WEEK"S DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION IN PHILADELPHIA.
SOME OF THE BIG SPEAKERS WILL INCLUDE: FORMER CANDIDATE SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS, FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA AND OF COURSE HILLARY CLINTON, WHO IS SCHEDULED TO ACCEPT HER PARTY"S NOMINATION THURSDAY NIGHT.
 -----END-----CNN.SCRIPT-----

 --KEYWORD TAGS--
TRUMP CONVENTION CRUZ OBAMA POLITICS



United Garment workers (UGW) Union members discuss plan for 1914 convention in Nashville Tennessee. View from railroad locomotive traveling on a straight train track. A steam locomotive pulling a passenger train. Trainman on rail car waving a lantern. Views of the convention, October 12, 1914, in Nashville, headed by UGW President Thomas A. Rickert of Chicago. Labor union locals from New York, Boston, Rochester, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, were deemed in arrears on dues (although they had been on strike) and not allowed to participate. They walked out, with the Chicago delegation too. View of Telegram sent from Nashville, by the dissidents, to Sidney Hillman in New York, October, 1914, asking him to head a rival union. Photo of Hillman taking telephone call. A special convention at Webster Hall, in New York City, where dissidents join with Journeyman Tailors union and form the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, with Sidney Hillman as President. Key members of the new union are seen standing in front of a car. Sidney Hillman in his office dictating to his secretary. Copies of the new union's House organs in various languages. Amalgamated Clothing Workers holding signs in various languages. Workers pose on a truck by a sign reading:"A Fair Deal, A Chance to Live, Arbitration is all we ask." Workers in cars. Girls on roller skates wearing sashes reading: "Don't Be A Scab." A man in a barrel with sign reading: "Can't afford to wear pants. Pa works in an open shop." Women pose in sandwich boards that spell out: "Closed Shop." Philadelphia garment worker ostensibly writing letter to Sidney Hillman. Shop owners examine sewn item and shop records while man works at sewing machine. Location: United States USA. Date: 1914.

It Happened in Mayfair

VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE SENATOR LLOYD BENTSEN (D-TEX) CAMPAIGNS IN PENNSYLVANIA. 04:05:00 bentsen works an airport crowd, boards a jet and waves. he arrives at an airport in northeast philadelphia, pennsylvania and attends a union workers rally. cu of banners on a wall for the following unions, electricians, glaziers, clothiers, drywall finishers and steam fitters. bentsen appears on stage and delivers a campaign speech tailored for workers. CI: PERSONALITIES: BENTSEN, LLOYD. POLITICS: PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 1988.

NAME: US CAMPAIGN 150704N TAPE: EF04/0715 IN_TIME: 11:19:05:22 DURATION: 00:02:36:07 SOURCES: APTN/ABC DATELINE: Philadelphia/Washington DC - 15 July 2004 RESTRICTIONS: Part No Access Internet SHOTLIST: ABC - No Access Internet Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry walks through crowd shaking hands 2. Kerry walks on stage, hugs National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) President Kweisi Mfume and Chairman Julian Bond 3. SOUNDBITE: (English) John Kerry, US Democratic presidential candidate: "Now, I want you to know I'm honoured to be here. I understand, listening to Julian (Bond, NAACP Chairman) and recognising what has been going on, I understand you've been having trouble getting some speakers (laughter). So I want to thank you for the invitation. Some people may have better things to do, but there's no place that I'd rather be right now than right here in Philadelphia with the NAACP." 4. Kerry at lectern 5. SOUNDBITE: (English) John Kerry, US Democratic presidential candidate: "I will be a president who truly is a uniter, not one who seeks to divide one nation by race, or riches, or any other label. And you know something, the president may be too busy to speak to you now, but I got news for you, he's going to have plenty of time after November 2nd." (Applause) APTN Washington DC 6. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan walking to podium 7. SOUNDBITE: (English) Scott McClellan, White House press secretary: "The president has many friends who are members of the NAACP. This president has been an inclusive leader who has set a positive tone for this country and he has a proven record of working to improve the quality of life for all Americans and a proven record of reaching out to all Americans. I think it really is disappointing to see the current leadership continue to repeat the hostile rhetoric they have used which really shows that they're not interested in a constructive dialogue. Nevertheless, the president is committed to continuing to reaching out to the African-American community and committed to continuing reaching out to NAACP members and he will do that based on his record and based on his vision." 8. McClellan leaving White House briefing room STORYLINE: US Democratic presidential contender John Kerry has accused President Bush of dividing America by race and riches. Taking advantage of a White House feud with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Kerry declared himself a leader of all people as he addressed the crowd at the annual convention of the NAACP. Bush skipped the convention to protest against the NAACP's criticism of his policies, but plans to address another influential black organisation, the Urban League, next week. White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters that the current leadership of the NAACP had clearly crossed the line in partisanship, making it impossible to have a constructive dialogue. President Bush hasn't spoken to the NAACP since the 2000 campaign, when the group's National Voter Fund ran an advert that portrayed him as unsympathetic to the killing of James Byrd, a black Texas man who was dragged to death behind a pickup truck by white men in 1998. Since the 2000 campaign, which ended in the Florida ballot fiasco that angered many black voters, the NAACP has called Bush an illegal president, compared his anti-abortion views to the Taliban and called his trip to Africa a photo opportunity. Kerry's address to the NAACP in Philadelphia on Thursday was tailored toward the supportive - yet sceptical - black community.

IS A CAREER IN THE SERVICE INDUSTRIES FOR YOU?

Work Pays America

TAPE_NUMBER: EF00/0855 IN_TIME: 03:32:45 - 07:29:31 - 09:19:30 LENGTH: 03:08 SOURCES: APTN RESTRICTIONS: FEED: VARIOUS (THE ABOVE TIME-CODE IS TIME-OF-DAY) SCRIPT: English/Nat XFA Four years ago, a handful of internet companies attempted to cover the Republican National Convention in San Diego. The Philadelphia 2000 convention has already been dubbed the first E-convention ... and new technology is promising to revolutionise the way Americans see and get involved in their political process. Scores of news organisations at the Convention have promised Internet users unprecedented access from living rooms across the country. Republican Conventions are not unaccustomed to the sight of thousands of party faithful, television, radio and print journalists covering the event. But this year there is an addition - the internet is making its presence felt right on the floor. As television networks scale back coverage, news organisations, from veteran ABC News to newcomer Pseudo, are turning to Web sites to fill the void. Yahoo!, C-Span, MSNBC and several other sites are Webcasting the conventions live, gavel to gavel. Some even let viewers choose vantage points for sight and sound. Pseudo.com has 360-degree remote cameras on the floor - and computer users around the world can direct the camera to the angle they want to catch all the action. That is, if the site is working - there have been a few technical hitches. "Internet Alley" is a short walk away from the convention floor. It's a crowded hall with more than 35 different organisations all tailoring their material for the internet. Small dot.com companies compete with the giant American Television networks - all trying to get their take on the convention. SOUNDBITE: (English) "And this is actually the first E-convention against which is going to be the benchmark for future conventions, so we had to make it work ... and I think it is working." SUPER CAPTION: Don Upson, Convention Internet Manager High profile guests are prominent features of this "e-convention." Republican Congressman David Drier took himself away from the convention floor to hold a chat session on-line with Excite.com. As chairman of the House of Representatives Rules committee, Drier is the convention's parliamentarian - the man who makes sure that all political procedures are correctly followed. Attracting the convention's big names down Internet Alley has not been a problem. SOUNDBITE: (English) "Its actually been really great. I think people are really excited about it. They get to basically come in and ask a question that has been on their mind and there is no filter to it. They just come in and ask their question and they get an answer right then and there from some one who is in a position to know." SUPER CAPTION: Cecilia Marihart, Excite.com So successful have the dot.com organisations been in attracting big names that the more traditional media outlets hang around Internet Alley to see who's paying a visit. New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman and Representative Jennifer Dunn were guests on ABC.com. Prominent television reporter and anchor Sam Donaldson played moderator - enthusiastic about his role in the new medium. SOUNDBITE: (English) "I think over the air broadcasting is going down the drain. I think one of the reasons why the networks are trying to get into this is because we recognize we are dinosaurs if we don't do something different to use this new technology in a few years people will look at us like a dinosaur say, here are the bones ... I wonder what it looked like, lets reconstruct it and put it in a museum." SUPER CAPTION: Sam Donaldson, ABC reporter Convention organisers are impressed with the enthusiasm generated by their newest medium and they can only dream what will happen down Internet Alley in 2004. SHOTLIST: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - July 31, 2000 1. Wide shot of crowded convention hall 2. Pull back from traditional TV camera, to 360 degree remote camera 3. Mid shot of dot.com company signs from convention floor 4. Tilt up shot of Pseudo.com camera and microphone 5. Pan of convention floor 6. Mid shot of computer 7. Close-up of computer screen showing video from convention floor 8. Pan of man with digital camera 9. Pull back of Internet Alley sign 10. Close-up of computer screen of TV cameraman 11. SOUNDBITE: (English) Don Upson, Convention Internet Manager 12. Close-up pan of Congressman David Drier arriving at Excite.com 13. Pull back shot of fingers typing 14. Mid shot Drier talking to computer operators 15. Wide shot of Drier talking to computer operators 16. SOUNDBITE: (English) Cecilia Marihart, Excite.com 17. Mid shot of computers 18. Pan from digital computers to booth 19. Push in shot of woman holding camera 20. Wide shot crowd around ABC.com booth 21. Various of ABC reporter Sam Donaldson talking to New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman and Representative Jennifer Dunn, (Republican-Washington) 22. Pull back view of web page 23. SOUNDBITE: (English) Sam Donaldson, ABC reporter 24. Pull back view of MSNBC.com 25. Close-up man working at voter.com 26. Close-up woman working at computer screen?

WORK PAYS AMERICA

TAPE_NUMBER: EF01/0286 IN_TIME: 14:28:57 LENGTH: 04:39 SOURCES: APTN/VAR. FILM DISTRIBUTORS RESTRICTIONS: No re-use/re-sale of film/video/tv clips without clearance FEED: SCRIPT: xfa English/Nat Title: Oscars: Best Actor Date: File Location: Various With the Oscars just six days away, the race for best Actor is one of the most open. The five nominees for the Academy Award are Tom Hanks for Castaway, Russell Crowe for Gladiator, Ed Harris for Pollock, Geoffrey Rush for Quills and Javier Bardem for Before Night Falls. The bookies' joint favorites are Tom Hanks and Russell Crowe. Tom Hanks is no stranger to the Oscars' podium having won twice previously for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump. With his latest film Cast Away, he has to carry the movie alone, aided only an inanimate object. Surviving a plane crash in the Pacific, he is stranded alone on a desert island with the few things that wash up on the island with him. One of those things is a football, on which he paints a face and adds some tufts of hair. The resulting object becomes his confidant and friend. A modest and likeable man, the actor, director, writer, producer sums up his career thus: "I've made 20 movies, and five of them are pretty good." Tom Hanks is married to actress Rita Wilson with whom he has two children. He was educated at Chabot Junior College, Hayward, California (attended one year) and California State University, Sacramento, where he majored in theatre. His mother worked in a hospital and his father, Amos Hanks, was a cook. Coincidentally, the father of fellow nominee, Russell Crowe, also works in the catering trade, albeit the showbiz end - Crowe's parents run a film catering company. Crowe, nominated for his powerful performance as Maximus in Gladiator, was born in Wellington, New Zealand, on April 7th 1964. He grew up in Australia, so has aspects of both cultures - the New Zealander's persistence twinned with a streak of Australian happy-go-lucky charm. He rose to fame as the quick-tempered, brutal cop Bud White in L.A. Confidential after playing opposite Gene Hackman and Sharon Stone in The Quick and the Dead. Other movies include Proof of LIfe, The Insider, Romper Stomper and Proof. Film runs in his blood. His Grandfather, Stan Wymess, was a cinematographer during WWII. He is cousin to Martin Crowe, the New Zealand cricket player. When he isn't making movies he spends his time on his Australian cattle station. In fact, he likes it so much he was reported recently to have left Meg Ryan, with whom he had an affair while shooting "Proof of Life", to spend more time with his cows. His previous awards include: Australian Film Institute: Best Supporting Actor, Proof 1992: Australian Film Institute: Best Actor, Romper Stomper 1999: National Board of Review: Best Actor, The Insider 1999: Los Angeles Film Critics Association: Best Actor, The Insider 1999: Broadcast Film Critics Association: Best Actor, The Insider 1999: National Society of Film Critics Award: Best Actor, The Insider. Ed Harris is nominated for his role in the Jackson Pollock biopic, Pollock, which he also directed. Marcia Gay Harden, who plays his wife in the film, has been nominated for a best Best Actress award. Harris first came into the public eye when he played the role of astronaut, John Glen in The Right Stuff. He actually made it into space (at least on-screen) when he took on the role of Gene Kranz in Apollo 13 for which he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. He was also praised for his part as the Controller in The Truman Show. He can currently be seen in Enemy at the Gate, in which he plays a German sniper. Australian born actor, Geoffrey Rush has been nominated for his role as the Marquis de Sade in Quills. Like Hanks, he has made the walk up to the stage before. He won the Best Actor Oscar for Shine in 1996. He has since starred in The Tailor of Panama, House on Haunted Hill, Shakespeare in Love, Elizabeth and Les Mis?rables. Spanish actor, Javier Bardem is the fifth nominee, cited for his role in Before Night Falls. Bardem had a shot at playing the villain in the 1999 James Bond movie ''The World Is Not Enough'' but ended up turning it down. ''With all my respects,'' he says, ''that's not the kind of thing I like to do.... I want to be on risk. Otherwise, this job has no meaning.'' Bardem certainly got his wish, playing persecuted gay Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas in the fact-based biopic ''Before Night Falls.'' Enlisted by director Julian Schnabel after Benicio Del Toro passed on the role, Bardem had less than two months to learn Arenas' highly idiosyncratic speaking style. He had to speak fluently in both Cuban-inflected Spanish, which is heavily colloquial, and Cuban-accented English. To master these argots, Bardem worked 11 hours a day for six weeks with a coach. At night, he listened to tapes of the writer reading his autobiography, a sad task because ''you can hear that he is dying.'' (Arenas, who fled Cuba in 1980, contracted AIDS and later died in New York City in 1990.) In one of the film's most astonishing passages, Bardem enacts the author's last quarter hour of life in real time. Bardem had to argue passionately to keep the scene at its true length. SHOTLIST: 1. FILM CLIP - BEFORE NIGHT FALLS 2. SOT JAVIER BARDEM ON BEING NOMINATED 3. FILM CLIP - GLADIATOR 4. SOT RIDLEY SCOTT ON RUSSELL CROWE 5. FILM CLIP - POLLOCK 6. SOT ED HARRIS 7. FILM CLIP - QUILLS 8. SOT GEOFFREY RUSH 9. FILM CLIP - CASTAWAY 10. SOT TOM HANKS?

Universal-International Newsreels

**LOGGED BY JOANNA SUAREZ AND JACLYN EVENS** In NY interplay as: RS 5105 CAMPAIGN 2012 ROMNEY ROUNDTABLE PHILADELPHIA PA 052412 P1 FTG OF PRESUMPTIVE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE MITT ROMNEY HOLDING A ROUNDTABLE WITH EDUCATORS AT UNIVERSAL BLUFORD CHARTER IN PHILADELPHIA, PA 052412 ROMNEY INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 08:52:53 Romney walks in, all sit down at roundtable 08:53:47 Romney shakes hands with Kenneth Gamble 08:53:53 KENNETH GAMBLE: On behalf of Universal Companies, and all the wonderful students we have in Philadelphia, I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome Governor Romney to the great city of Philadelphia. And today is a special day because of your presence, Governor. And we pray that your stay in Philadelphia is a pleasant one. And that we can discuss today the most important thing that we at Universal believe, AND THAT IS EDUCATION. And being that the experience of African Americans in this country where there was a time when it was against the law of the country for people of African descent to even read or write. It is even more important today that we discuss education for the African American community because of the conditions that are in the African American community as it relates to prisons and crimes. So I'm glad that you're here so we can discuss and find out what your thoughts are as it relates to the destiny and future of America. Because America is for everyone and the African American community is a major portion of this country. And that is our number one concern, is how do we develop the educational system that connects the African Americans with their history and past before slavery. So, once again, thank you for being here. 08:55:50 MITT ROMNEY: Thank you, thank you. Well, once again, Kenny, I appreciate the chance to be with you and I come to learn obviously from people who are having experiences that are unique and instructive, not just to me but I think to the nation. And I have my own experiences relating to education and the experiences of people in Massachusetts. I realize right now the rivalry between Boston and Philadelphia between the Seventy Sixers and the Celtics may strain this discussion (laughs) and instead talk about our young people. When I came in as a new governor, there were a number of features that concerned me about our education system. One - there was a very substantial gap in the achievement scores of minority students relative to Caucasian students and I wondered why that gap was as large as it was there some way to improve it. Secondly it was clear there were some schools that were succeeding and some schools that were not succeeding. And it was not entirely based on urban schools versus suburban and rural. But there was some correlation of that nature. There were reports of some charter schools being highly successful and others being less so. So I came in with an open mind with as to what we could do to improve our education system and give our kids a better chance. 08:57:56 Romney: I'm going to briefly tell you my limited experience in those four years, what I learned. But I'd like to get your experience from the front lines and first salute you for the investment you made, financial and personal, in establishing a pathway for hundreds, thousands of young people to have changed lives. (KENNETH: "THANK YOU") I can't imagine anything more rewarding and more important to do. I came into office and talked to people and said what do we do to improve our schools and a number of folks said we need smaller classroom sizes, that will make the biggest difference. So I gathered information across our state. We had 351 cities and towns and I said let's compare the average class size from each district with the performance of our students. Because we test our kids so I said let us see if there is a relationship. And there was not. As a matter of fact, the district with the smallest classrooms Cambridge had students performing in the bottom 10 percent. So just getting smaller classrooms didn't seem to be the key. We had begun doing a couple things that made a difference. We began testing our kids, that was done before my time by several years. Democrats and Republicans came together to fashion a program where we would measure the progress of our students. And to graduate from high school you had to pass a graduation exam. And I added something to that with my friends in the legislature - the Speaker of the House and the Senate President - we were bipartisan on this by the way. We came together and put in place the John and Abigail Adams Scholarship program which said when you took that graduation exam, if you scored in the top quarter of those in your high school when you took in then you were entitled to this scholarship which was four years tuition free at a Massachusetts Public institution of higher learning. Now that paid for tuition not for fees and fees in Massachusetts are much higher than tuition but it was a help. And it communicated we were interested in performance in excellence. We were able to see our schools rise to be number one in the nation - Massachusetts as you may know in the NAPE exams is number one for fourth graders and eighth graders in both English and Math. And I attribute that to a number of things - one is we have a lot of good Catholic schools in Boston and in Massachusetts so there's been a good deal of school choice and that has not only helped those kids that go to those schools but I think it's helped elevate the public schools around them. And made them more competitive and they do a better job. I believe also that the Boston School District has focused on hiring excellent teachers, trying to find among the best and brightest of kids coming out of school and helping them get into teaching. I believe that makes a difference. 09:00:24 I was happy to see, by the way, in our state the achievement gap between minority and non minority was cut by about half as I recall from when we began testing until the time I was leaving as governor. I don't take the credit for that, but I think the focus on school choice, we have more and more charter schools, we're testing our kids and the effort to try and hire very capable teachers, those things combined. And then when I stepped back and studied the topic from the standpoint of researchers it struck me that there were three things that they spoke about that have the biggest impact on the quality of education in helping our kids. One was great teachers, hiring among the very best and brightest of teachers and having them have a career path that was not just associated with becoming an administrator, but being a great teacher was a great career in and of itself. Number two was having, where possible, a mom and a dad, a two parent family where two people could invest in the child's education, where one could be more involved with the child's homework and so forth by virtue of having two parents in the home, which of course is a rarity in many circumstances. And number three was sound leadership. People who were able to guide the school and to focus on its primary mission to make sure that discipline is in place and that student achievement is being tracked. But those three things seem to be highly correlated with success in schools and interestingly a number of charter schools, parochial schools, private schools and a number of public schools were able to get those things right. Great teachers, good career path for the teachers, helping involve families to the extent possible. And where there were single parents, still finding ways to involve them in the education of their child. And then superb leaders. So that's a very top, if you will, line kind of view, but I'm told about the success of these institutions that you helped found and this institution in particular. And I would love to get your perspective on what makes it work and what makes it better. 09:02:40 The reason I say that is I've proposed at the federal level we do some things to help do what I think makes a difference - And one, I propose is this. Which is that federal money, IDEA and title one money follows the student so that if a student wants to go to a charter school or a parochial school or private school depending on state law, depending on state law which of those they can do, the student can go and the money goes with the student. So we allow more choice for parents. I like every parent to have a choice and every child to have a chance, which is the phrase that I am describing. And number two, the amount of federal funds that go to a state will be dependent in part upon whether they have ample school choice, whether they're grading their schools to see which ones are succeeding or failing. Whether they make sure they don't prevent digital learning. Digital learning-Cyber learning, so to speak, technologies are improving every day, my guess is 10 years from now we'll find digital learning plays a bigger role in helping tailor education to the needs of each child. So those among other things are designed to improve digital opportunities, school choice. 09:03:58 And then with regards to the quality of teaching, boy I don't recall the number, but it is dozens of teacher quality programs at the federal government level. I'd like take those monies, bundle them up, send them back to the states and have states guide programs to improve the quality of their teachers. So, with that as an introduction.(KENNETH GAMBLE INTERJECTS: "THAT SOUNDS GOOD. THAT WAS A GOOD AND LONG INTRODUCTION..THATS A LONG INTRODUCTION! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA" 09;04;20 Continued laughter. Romney: YEAH, IVE BEEN KNOWN TO DO THAT FROM TIME TO TIME.LAUGHS GAMBLE: LAUGHTER. WELL, I APPRECIATE IT. IT WAS GOOD, IT FELT GOOD. (ROMNEY: WELL, THANK YOU!).GAMBLE CONTINUES, "Ryan would you like to make a comment?" 09;04;38 Ryan: I think, I mean you guys have a tremendous amount of experts in education sitting at that end of the table far more than mine. Mine is based separate. For all the poor performing schools that we talk about, BEHIND THAT ARE KIDS-TRAPPED. So my fundamental belief is that we have to rustle control so we can correct that situation. So, my only thing that I would add, and I would definitely ask Nick and David and all those guys who are actually in the field doing the work. When we constantly see talking about poor performing schools and what we do about it from the top level down, there is never any support. So there is always a penalty. We are going to do this and we are going to do that, but the bottom line is AT THE END OF THE DAY THERE ARE THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN TRAPPED TO THESE POOR PERFORMING SCHOOLS. So, whatever policies that one punishes those schools, those policies should be coupled with support. And to just add to what you basically said, because I hear that constantly just in the past 15 years-We are going to identify the bad schools, we are going to force them. BUT AT THE END OF THE DAY, THAT FORCING AND THE TRANSITION OF THAT SCHOOL FROM BEING A POOR PERFORMING SCHOOL TO ACTUALLY BECOMING A GOOD SCHOOL COULD TAKE UP TO SEVEN OR EIGHT YEARS. HOW MANY STUDENTS DID WE LOSE IN THAT PERIOD OF TIME? (ROMNEY: YEAH.).And that, this is at the end of the day when Kenny Gamble talked about the African American specifically, we have lost too many children because of that. And those children are growing up and they are having children. In real estate development, we have a concept called structural deficit-WE HAVE TO REBUILD THIS SYSTEM BECAUSE IT IS STRUCTURALLY MESSED UP. SO WE WILL NEVER GET TO THAT POINT THAT YOU DESCRIBED ABOUT HAVING A TWO PARENT SITUATION-A PAIR OF SUPPORT-AS A KEY COMPONENT FOR YOUR THREE. IT MIGHT BE TO GET GOOD TEACHERS AND GET GOOD LEADERSHIP. BUT WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GET THE PARENT AND COMMUNITY SUPPORT BECAUSE IT IS UPSIDE DOWN. So we have to work at it both ways. And I don't want to be long.(Romney: No, that's alright).Go ahead, I think Nick and David, I think you guys are.. 09;07;00 Romney interjects: Let me note also, I didn't say, and I didn't mention that, but the WISDOM OF THE PEOPLE THAT PRECEDED ME IN MY STATE WAS THAT WHEN A SCHOOL WAS DEEMED TO BE FAILING, THEY HAD A PROVISION WHERE THE STATE WOULD THEN POTENTIALLY TAKE OVER THE SCHOOL AND BRING IN PLACE A CORE OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE AND EXPERIENCED SCHOOL LEADERS THAT WOULD COME IN AND TURN THE SCHOOL AROUND. And I think that was not just saying, OKAY THIS SCHOOL IS A DISASTER, TOO BAD. IT WAS SAYING, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?? AND I THINK THAT IS YOUR POINT. And I think that is a very critical and important point. Thank you. 09;07;40 Gamble: You know, Governor, YOU HAVE TO GO BACK AND REMEMBER HOW THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF EDUCATION HAS FAILED. YOU KNOW, YOU GO BACK A FEW YEARS, EVEN IN BOSTON WHEN THEY WERE TRYING TO INTEGRATE SCHOOLS AND THEY HAD YOUNG WHITE CHILDREN GOING INTO BLACK SCHOOLS AND THEY WERE THROWING EGGS AT LITTLE BLACK CHILDREN. SPITTING ON THEM AND CALLING THEM ALL KINDS OF NAMES. BOTTOM LINE IS THAT WILL NEVER WORK. THAT CONCEPT NEVER WORKED. THAT MINDSET WILL NEVER WORK. IT HAS TO BE A REGIMENT-IT IS A STRUCTURAL COMPONENT WITHIN THE THINKING OF AMERICA. And basically my job is to look after the African community in Philadelphia. And to look after what can I contribute during my lifetime. And what I see is trying to correct all of the miss-thinking as it relates to a people who has contributed SO MUCH TO THIS COUNTRY AND HAVE GOTTEN SO LITTLE BACK FROM THIS COUNTRY. So, I don't want us to think that the concepts, and I would like for you to know that basically, THIS WHOLE GOVERNMENT CONCEPT OF EDUCATION AND AFRICAN AMERICAN PEOPLE NEEDS A NEW MIND. You have to be able to take America, and look at America and say WHERE IS AMERICA GOING IN THE NEXT 10/20/40/50/100 YEARS? WHERE IS IT GOING??? 09;09;27 Romney chuckles..YOU AND I ARENT GOING TO BE THERE, BUT IT WOULD BE NICE TO WATCH IT.(mild chuckle) Gamble continues: But the key of it is, is that people remember you by what you build. NOTHING ELSE. Because when you go on vacation. Come to Philly. People come here, they want to see the liberty bell, want to see independence hall. THESE ARE THINGS THAT WERE BUILT BY THE FOUNDING FATHERS. You go to Greece, you go to Rome.All these other places. Those were built we have to build now. Because the foundation we are building on has a lot of DEFAULTS IN IT. And when I speak, I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT MY MAJOR CONCERN IS THE FUTURE OF THE AFRICAN AMERICAN PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY. Because once that problem is solved, then I think that all of America will benefit from it. (Romney: "I agree, I agree") Gamble continues: ALL OF AMERICA. And so it has been overlooked for many many years so I just want to keep that on the burner. IT IS NOT OKAY. NOTHING IS OKAY. See, I am almost 70 years old, you are a young guy. 09;10;41 Romney: WE'RE NOT FAR APART, IM 65 HA-HA-HA Gamble: OH WELL WE'RE IN THE SAME BOAT HERE! (laughter). So, when you get to be seventy years old, you start to look at life a bit different. So those persons who can make a change, THEY MUST STEP UP TO THE PLATE. And I think a lot of it will have to do about the people you have around you, the way that they think, the people you associate yourself with. BECAUSE HOW DO YOU GET THIS THING DONE? Because it's not going to get done in 4 to 8 years. It has to be a major major plan, and you are going to need PEOPLE POWER MORE SO THAN MONEY POWER. BECAUSE YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO GET ENOUGH MONEY-That will just drive yourself into a hole. We have to get the community and people behind because the most important resource that we have is the resource of people. (Romney: Thank you!) 09;11;47 (Man participating in roundtable): So, I just want to talk a little bit about the cyber education. I started a Bricks and Mortar school that focused Latino population. SIMILAR ISSUES-DUAL LANGUAGE-ACADEMICALLY DOING EXCELLENT. But the most important issue is start with the STUDENT. And who cares most about the student is always the parents. Whether you are Latino or white or of low income or wealthy, you care most about your kids. So our families start there. And then, as was said earlier, you get to the Charter Schools, and Charter Schools are driven by the local politics of what it is. We spend so much as adults fighting each other about what is the politics? WHO GETS TO SERVE THE KID. And we always reach this cap that we cannot get beyond. So if you are 300 or 700 students, but you have ten thousand applying, you can only spend 300 students. So it has kind of moved into this idea-some states have cyber applications. Now, there are a lot of debates on cyber and whether they work or don't work, and a lot of critiques out there. But, it is not cyber online learning, sure technology is moving really quickly and other Bricks and Mortar schools need to move with them. But cybers allow us to give parents other options for their kids if they are trapped within their local setting. But really, it is the concept-we are playing with the concept of blended learning models. So it is like you use the best of technology, but you don't give away the Bricks and Mortars face to face instruction that you are doing. So we are taking the cyber stuff, which ALLOWS YOU TO STAY ABOVE THE POLITICS AND REALLY FOCUS ON WHAT THE KIDS WANT. So do a school within a school model. ROMNEY: SO YOU ARE COMBINING IT? Continues: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A school within a school model. Specifically, we are focused on another in its population. So African Americans are considered a minority, Latinos. We are also saying there is a special needs population out there. Dyslexic kids, most of those kids out there are saying I get what I get at my school, and if it is good, FANTASTIC. But most parents are saying, it's not what I want or need-WHAT ARE MY OPTIONS? Private independent schools-20-40 thousand dollars a shot. Most families can't afford that. So it was like, we are trying to create another option for those parents. So it is another way to think of that. You look at LOCAL POLITICS, STATE POLITICS AND FEDERAL POLITICS. So your idea of like the dollar following the students is a fantastic one. Will it support a school entirely? Not necessarily, so then it gets to how are our states thinking. But states have state politics and then they have local ones, and PA has now got 3,000 districts and to get a charter into those districts is always a challenge. And the more districts have more. So that is kind of the hard thing with Politics. 09;14;25 Romney: How is cyber learning being received, if you will, at the local and the state level. Guy: So you have 30 thousand students in there that sometimes want it, but it's not the cyber education they necessarily want. So when you look at performance, they are not necessarily doing as well. That's why we are saying LETS DO THE BLENDED LEARNING MODEL. Because you don't need to do it just all online, but also face to face. But the question is how do you do it? So cybers are starting to adapt to these learning hub concepts. Like where do we establish learning hubs, still give them the best of technology but also face to face. So, that is kind of how-IF YOU DO THAT MODEL, THE PARENTS ARE VERY RECEPTIVE TO IT. IF ITS JUST THE PURELY ONLINE MODEL, SOME PARENTS ARE RECEPTIVE, BUT THEY ARE MORE JUST YOUR HOME SCHOOL POPULATION. 09;15;15 Romney: Yeah, I am thinking of a more blended setting within a charter school or a standard public school that digital learning-cyber learning is part of the curriculum and able to enhance, if you will, the way the learning experience is enhanced through the tailoring to each individual child. David it looked like you had something to add. 09;15;36 David: First of all, I want to say that I send a lot of guys up to MA.Our school is an all boys school, high school. It is called Boys Latin. And as the name implies, four years of Latin. What struck me was when Kenny talked about in Boston when they tried to integrate the schools. Whenever they talk about providing education for low income kids, they always talk about sending them to a school somewhere else. WHY CANT WE HAVE GOOD SCHOOLS IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD? And I think that is what you see in this school here. And that is what you see in our school. You see good education accessible by people they know in this community. People they know CARE ABOUT THEM. Everybody in this school wants to be here. WHY IS THIS SUCH A GOOD SCHOOL? BECAUSE EVERYONE WANTS TO BE HERE. The kids want to be here, the parents, the teachers, the administrators love it, the board loves it. EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE HERE AND THE POWER OF CHOICE BRINGS GREAT THINGS. GREAT OPPORTUNITIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS. AND THE THING YOU COULD DO AS PRESIDENT IS GIVE THEM AS MUCH CHOCE AS POSSIBLE. GIVE THEM THE OPPORTUNITY TO ACCESS GOOD EDUCATION IN THEIR COMMUNITIES. AND YOU WILL SEE THOSE COMMUNITIES CHANGE AND YOU WILL CERTAINLY SEE THOSE LIVES CHANGE. So that is why we can send these boys to great schools all over the country. Because they got a great education in their community where they were comfortable. It allowed them to have the ability to step out of their community, go forward and feel confident and capable to achieve. 09;18;00 Romney: Well, that is quite a story. And I'm glad you sent that point guard to Boston!! (laughter) David: I would get a season ticket if I were you! (EVERYONE: HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!!!) Romney: IM HOPING NOT TO HAVE TO BE ABLE TO SPEND TOO MUCH TIME IN MY HOME TOWN!! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!! Thank you QUESTION ABOUT CLASS SIZE 9:18:33 (man in red tie, music teacher, can't read his name):Yeah, I would like to bring up two concerns in terms of the way you opened up your introduction. These are things I think about as a teacher all the time, like one, is class size and the other is testing. Kind of like when I was driving to school today I heard your position on class size and testing and apparently it's a platform and education is I guess a topic right now. But you know I can't think of any teacher in the whole time I have been teaching, 13 years, who would say that more students [in the classroom] would benefit. And I can't think of a parent that would say I would like my teacher to be in a room with a lot of kids and only one teacher. So I'm wondering where this research comes from. And another thing is you're looking at their test scores. So you're saying that big class sizes don't affect the test scores. Well that to me is a whole different issue. I think kids are being over tested and I say this because I was listening to 7 Habits of Higher Individuals and he was saying that you know the really good instructor, a really good teacher, a really good leader is not getting their kids to answer questions, they're going to ask the questions. And I think a lot of our education system is directed to kids answering questions and not asking the right ones. And you'd be surprised how many faces I look at and there's no questions. You know it's like where are the hands going up? Isn't this music, science, art, history, culture. Don't you want to know about this stuff. And I feel like they feel like they're going to be tested on it. And in terms for me, lifelong learning, lifelong leadership has to do with asking the questions, wanting to learn. 0920:58 music teacher: So I believe in assessment but not in terms of like this school won't get no money if they don't get 98s. because there are so many things we're dealing with as the African American community that have to do with character development. And have to do with how do we even want to be educated in a society that has oppressed us. And I think they do want to be educated, but it's like where are the questions? If you really want to be educated, where are the questions? And it concerns me. the testing. It concerns me you know the class size. Mr. Bennett would you want more kids in the classroom? ROUNDTABLE LAUGHS BENNETT (Teaches Technology class): It's large enough, actually it's too large. It varies between classes but anywhere from 23 to 28 somewhere in there. And you can give more personalized attention to each student if you have a smaller class size. GAMBLE: What's your view on it? ROMNEY: On class size? Well if you had a class of five that would be terrific, if you had a class of 50 that's impossible. So there are points where I think those who have looked at schools in this country and schools around the world, McKenzie for instance, that consulting firm McKenzie Institute, which is a think tank type organization went around the world and looked at schools in Singapore and Finland and South Korea and the United States and looked at differences and said gosh, schools that are the highest performing in the world, their classroom sizes are about the same as in the United States. So it's not the classroom size that is driving the success of those school systems. And then they looked at it and said well what is driving the success of those school systems? It's parents very involved and the idea of choice means you have chosen to be involved, parents are involved, excellent teachers, drawing teachers from the very best and brightest of graduates. And administrators that are able to guide the school with good policies of discipline and getting the right resources. So it was those things that tended to drive the most successful nations relative to those that were less successful. 09:23:34 TEACHER (next to music teacher): There was a study done by the University of Tennessee, a definitive study about class size and what they said was that in first through third grade, if the class size is under 18 those kids stay ahead of everybody else all the way through school, including classes where you might have 25 in the class and co-teachers. Those students lose their gains after a couple years. If you have small classes in those primary years, those most important years, that's what makes the difference. And what it is, you go to school from first to third grade you learn to read. From third grade on, you read to learn. So if you don't get that reading piece you never catch up. That's where really is the most critical. And then once you do that, once you have kids kind of stabilized and everybody is on the same page, you can have kind of bigger classes. They used to have Catholic schools around here with 50 kids in the class and kids learned because everybody was there for the same reason. And that's where choice comes in. 09:24:47 But if you can find a way to help, especially in those primary years and make that a priority then when a kid comes out of third grade they can read, they can do basic computation, they have the foundation to move forward. TEACHER: We have spent all day talking about class size, but that's just one aspect of many systems that makes schools work. You talk a lot about your background in business. And in business, there are two sides of education. There's the education side but there's the business side. So all of those factors have to be working properly. All the systems. And the charter movement and as you know you talked about cyber, charter is a new phenomenon in many cases. You need to build that capacity, that infrastructure from leadership, from administrator, all the way down to teacher leadership. And when we compete against systems that are 100 years old. So when you compare it like that you know you need to provide that additional support. MOM AND DAD EXCHANGE 09:26:36 Patricia Coulter, President of the Philadelphia Urban League: The report we just released in 2012 says that African Americans are only 71 percent as well of as whites in America. And we do a statistical measurement of five areas - economics, education, health, social justice and civic engagement. And when you look at the independent entities in all those areas, the two that stand out the most for us happen to be economics and education. And so those two thinks are linked. So it's hard to talk about one without talking about the other. So jobs become really the basis for so much and as I listen to you talk about your three points of class size, parents, leadership, the thought that came to my mind was for those young people, those students, children where the parents are struggling to just keep food on the table, or a place to live. Are shuffling from a shelter to a relative and back to a shelter and back to a relative and the child is being upset each time that happens. How do you view that whole perspective? We're talking about a lot of children. [In] Philadelphia, and my colleagues can correct me, our poverty rate is close to 28 percent in Philadelphia. That's huge. So it's a lot of children that are in that position where they may not have the support of a parent or a guardian to really make good choice and good decisions. So as you think through that what do you see as elements that you would like to propose that could really help to move the needle a bit on that equality gap. In the last couple of years we've also measured the Latino gap and it's also falling in and around that same 70 percent. So something is happening and maybe it's the structural pieces that we're talking about that need to be. maybe as Kenny said we throw them all away and start over. We're losing so many people and I don't think America can afford to lose so many people. 9:29:38 ROMNEY: I totally agree. Education and the gap in the educational opportunity and achievement of people of color in this society I believe is the civil rights issue of our time. And you'll have a better perspective of that than I do but from my perspective our failure to provide kids with the skills they need for the jobs of today and tomorrow is a crisis. We have an American education crisis. And we keep doing the same things, expecting somehow things to get better. Guys, we gotta try some new things. We gotta be bold and you go back to the more foundational elements which I totally agree with you. For a single mom living in a shelter with a couple of kids, those kids are at an enormous disadvantage. There's no question about that. Relative to a home where a mom and a dad are able to be home for dinner. I remember that study a few years ago that showed what a big advantage it was to just have dinner together as a family (Roundtable nods, says right, right) 09:30:45 Romney: And to have a Mom and Dad home where if one is bushed the other can spend some time with the child and help them with their homework. If a parent sees a child isn't reading up to the level they should be they can talk to the school and say hey I'm upset my child isn't reading very well. Having two parents in the home makes an enormous difference. And so if we're thinking about the kids of tomorrow, trying to help move people to understand you know getting married and having families where there's a mom and a dad together has a big impact. And in my view that's critical down the road. For those that are already in the setting where they don't have two parents having good jobs. Right now with so many people out of work and particularly in the minority communities, this is devastating not just for the people that are out of work, but for their kids and the next generation. The cost of now 3 ½ - 4 years of recession like economics and employment opportunities, is not just born by the adults it's born by the next generation. And that's why in my opinion it's such an urgent priority to bring jobs back, to get this economy going again, to put people to work so they're not in a shelter, they're in an apartment or a home. The consequences is more than just those adults that are out of work. It's not just the 8, 10, 15 percent depending on how you're counting. It's instead the next generation. So jobs, intact families where that's possible. In many cases that's not possible. But where that is possible, intact families. And then the education experience. What was encouraging to me was the so-called education gap between minority and non-minority in our schools in MA-that difference was cut in half in part by the kinds of things that were done that preceded me, as well as through our term. For instance, the Adams Scholarship, saying if you do well in school you get to go to college and get a college tuition. It's not just a stick, it's also a carrot. And focusing on getting good teachers to the extent possible. If schools were failing, having the state be able to take over and get them back on track. In 1993, we had a provision that said if a school is consistently failing and a state takes it over, they can remove any provision within the union contract which they believe is interfering with the education of the children. SO IT HAD GREAT FREEDOM AND FLEXIBILITY TO FOCUS ON THE NEEDS OF THE CHILD AND HELP THE TEACHER IN THAT EFFORT. So we are learning lessons. I guess, what frustrates me IS MOST FOLKS KNOW WHAT THE ANSWERS ARE, WE JUST DON'T SEEM TO BE DOING WHAT IS NECESSARY TO IMPLEMENT THOSE ANSWERS. There are all these forces that don't want to see that change. David talks about letting the communities have choice within the community as opposed to having to go 40 miles out of the way for a private school. LETS CREATE THOSE CHOICES. THIS SHOULD BE A PRIORITY. 09;34;12 From off camera: CAN I MAKE A REQUEST? Building on that point. I don't think there has ever been a president in this country who wasn't pro-education. I don't think there has ever been a presidential candidate who wasn't pro-education. But what happens is you get in to that job I think and the education department is a small part of the budget compared to other things going on. But as you said, education is inexplicably linked to other big issues we have in this country. ON BEHALF OF EVERYONE HERE AND EVERY STUDENT IN THIS BUILDING, WE NEED A PRESIDENT WHO WAKES UP EVERY MORNING DETERMINED TO MAKE A MESSAGE OF THIS. Because, in this city and others in America, we have schools that are doing it for kids that are in the most challenging situations. And right across the street, we have schools who are not doing it. And what is the difference between those schools, from my experience? I MEAN, YOU ALREADY TALKED ABOUT GREAT TEACHING BEING THE MOST IMPORTANT (Romney nods). BUT WHAT REALLY SEPARATES THOSE SCHOOLS IN MY EXPERIENCE IS THERE IS A FOCUS IN THOSE BUILDINGS TO MAKE SURE THAT GREAT TEACHING HAPPENS IN EVERY CLASSROOM EVERY DAY, DAY IN AND DAY OUT. And the schools that aren't getting it done, it's not because they don't want to get it done. I have met very few people on education who didn't get into it to help kids. BUT IT IS BECAUSE THEY HAVE LOST THEIR FOCUS. OTHER FACTORS HAVE INTERVENED AND THEY HAVE LOST FOCUS. AND WE AS A COUNTRY HAVE LOST FOCUS. If half of the energy that has been spent in this country over the last years debating the different models, charter vs. public, private vs. public-If we put half of that energy that goes into those fights to getting the job done right for kids, we would be the number one country in the world on education. I HAVE NO DOUBT ABOUT IT BUT WE LOSE FOCUS. We need a president-at the end of the day, most education spending and policy is done locally. BUT YOU ARE ON THE RIGHT INSIGHT. MONEY AND FOCUS NEEDS TO FOLLOW THE KID. WE NEED TO STAY FOCUSED ON THE JOB. I WOULD SAY YOU NEED EVERY SPEECH ABOUT JOBS, THE ECONOMY, AND HIGHER EDUCATION TO COME BACK TO THOSE BASIC THINGS. THAT IS WHAT WE NEED TO DO. Romney: Thank you, thank you. 09;36;33 Gamble: Well, in closing, Governor, thank you for coming here to listen and also give your comments. I would just like to give one request to you. THAT YOU COME BACK TO US LATER. WHEN AND IF YOU ARE IN THE POSITION. Because it is one thing to come NOW. But if the spirit guides you to that point if you are POTUS, I want to see if you will come back. BECAUSE YOU NEED US. THE COUNTRY NEEDS US. THEY NEED THIS TYPE OF UNIT THAT CAN DEAL WITH THE REALITY OF AMERICA. NOT THE JOKES. Not the fictitious thing that we're dealing with. Because in the education of America, there is the fundamentals, the fluff, and then there is the business of America. THIS EDUCATION BUSINESS HAS BEEN A CASH COW FOR MANY PEOPLE FOR MANY YEARS. AND IT HAS TURNED OUT THE WORST PRODUCT THAT YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE. WHAT IT IS DOING IS IT IS FEEDING THE PRISON BUSINESS RIGHT NOW. AND SO WE SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING. DON'T THINK THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DOES NOT SEE WHAT IS GOING ON. The danger in that is YOU HAVE A COUNTRY THAT IS NOT BALANCED. And when you get imbalanced, you get problems. And America is too great of a country, too great of a concept and an idea to let it fail. So thank you for coming into Philadelphia. Romney: Thank you, Kenny, thank you very much! ROUND TABLE APPLAUDS. 09;38;30 BROLL CAMERA P/O TO A W/S OF ROUND TABLE. 09;38;35 ROMNEY: HELP US UNDERSTAND, AND YOU MAY MAKE A NOTE ON THIS. HOW DO YOU KEEP SCHOOLS FOCUSED ON THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS? WHY DOES THAT HAPPEN IN SOME SCHOOLS AND NOT OTHERS. ONE SIDE OF THE STREET AND NOT THE OTHER? BECAUSE YOU ARE RIGHT, YOU ARE DOING IT HERE! THAT'S WHAT IS INTERESTING. THAT IS HAPPENING AMONG THE PEOPLE IN THIS ROOM. THAT'S WHY WE ARE HERE, BECAUSE THIS IS A SUCCESSFUL ENTERPRISE. HOW DO WE MAKE THAT HAPPEN SCHOOL BY SCHOOL? WE WILL TALK ABOUT IT. THANK YOU EVERYONE. THANKS BUDDY. 09;39;00 BROLL members get up. Romney shakes hands with Kenneth Gamble. Stands and talks with members of roundtable.

President Barack Obama delivers remarks at the 95th National Convention of Disabled American Veterans Participants: President Barack Obama Time: 1:34 pm EDT, Date: Monday, August 1st, 2016 OBAMA: Thank you, DAV. (APPLAUSE) Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Please everybody have a seat. What an honor to be with you today. (APPLAUSE) Thank you and thanks to Bobby. You know, I'll never forget the time Bobby came to the Oval Office carrying a baseball bat. Secret Service got a little nervous. It was a genuine Louisville Slugger. Thank you for going to bat for our veterans. I want to thank Bobby for your devotion to our veterans, especially your fellow Vietnam vets. Thank you. Let's give Bobby a big round of applause.(APPLAUSE) OBAMA: I love you back. (APPLAUSE) I do. I want to thank our outstanding leadership team for welcoming me today including National Commander Moses McIntosh, Senior Vice Commander Dave Riley, National Adjutant Marc Burgess, Executive Director Barry Jesinoski, your voice in Washington Garry Augustine, and don't forget Pat Kemper and all the spouses and families of the DAV Auxiliary, thank you. I also want to acknowledge Mayor Kasim Reed and County Chairman John Eaves for welcoming us to the great state of Georgia and the beautiful city of Atlanta. I am pleased to be joined by our tireless Secretary of the V.A. Bob McDonald. I know he spoke to you yesterday. He is working hard, hard, every single day to transform the V.A. to serve our veterans better. He still gives out his cell phone number and his e-mail. Not many people know this but so far he's received more than 45,000 calls, e-mails and texts. And you know I don't know what his phone bill is looking like. I hope he has a good plan. But Bob and his team work to deal with each one of those texts or e-mails or phone calls he receives because every single veteran matters and he knows that. So thank you Bob for the great work you're doing. So it's good to be back with the Disabled American Vets. And what a journey that we've had together. It's great to be here. You know we worked together back when I was a Senator; you were one of the first veteran's organizations I called when I ran for president. I welcomed you to the White House as a partner. I came to your convention in my first term and my second, along with Michelle. And so it is fitting that my final major address to our nation's veterans as president is here at the DAV. And as I reflect on these past eight years, some of the most unforgettable experiences that I've had have been moments I've spent with you, America's veterans and your families. We stood together at Arlington to honor Corporal Frank Buckles, 110 years old, our last veteran from the First World War as he was laid to rest. I ordered our flags to be flown at half-staff because even after 100 years, we will never stop saluting those who served in our name. We stood together in Normandy to thank an entire generation, among them my grandfather who was in Patton's army, a generation that literally saved the world. It was Harry Kokwicz (ph) who returned to the beaches he helped liberate and told he could have anything he wanted said with the humility of a soldier, a hamburger will do just fine. I think of Luta McGrath, this past Veteran's Day, just before her 108th birthday, then the oldest known female veteran of World War II which was a reminder that women have always served to keep America strong and free. We've stood together at the memorial to our Korean War veterans and recalled how a soldier marching through the snow had a tiny pair of baby booties hanging from his rifle, a reminder of his unborn child. A story that had been lost to history. But we tracked him down. We found him. We shared the story of Korean War veteran Dick Shank (ph) who made it home to that baby boy and lived out his life at 84 years old he was still roller skating because no war should ever be forgotten and no veteran should ever be overlooked.OBAMA: We stood together at the Wall and remembered the lessons of Vietnam: that even when Americans may disagree about a war, we have to stand united in support of our troops. (APPLAUSE) And that for mothers like Sarah Chin (ph) who honored her missing son for more than four years, we will never stop working to bring home our prisoners of war and our missing in action. We leave nobody behind. No one. (APPLAUSE) And we've come together to welcome our newest veterans into your ranks. From Desert Storm, the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, our proud 9/11 generation. This is a time of transition. When I came into office we had nearly 180,000 American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. today, that number is less than 15,000. most of our troops have come home. (APPLAUSE) So all of you who served in Afghanistan, you can take enormous pride of the progress you helped achieve; driving Al Qaida out its camps, toppling the Taliban, delivering justice to Osama bin Laden, helping Afghans improve their lives. There are millions of boys and girls in school and democratic elections in a democratic government. Training Afghan forces to take responsibility for their own security so that we are no longer engaged in a major ground war in Afghanistan. That is your legacy. And today we salute our forces serving there on a more limited mission, supporting Afghan forces, going after terrorists because we must never allow Afghanistan to be used as a safe haven for terrorists to attack our nation again. To all of you... (APPLAUSE) To all of you who served in Iraq, we saw your heroism in pushing out a dictators whose brutality must be condemned, never praised and defeating an insurgency and giving the Iraqi people a chance. And no matter what has happened since, you're valor in the deserts in fierce urban combat will be honored in the notes (ph) of military history. And let me say something else about this generation. As commander in chief, I'm pretty tired of some folk's trash talking America's military and troops. (APPLAUSE) Our military is somewhat smaller after two major ground wars come to a close, that's natural. And we're going to keep them doing everything we need to do to improve readiness and modernize our forces. But lets get some facts straight. America's army is the best trained, best equipped land force on the planet. (APPLAUSE) Our Navy is the largest and most lethal in the world. (APPLAUSE) The precision of and reach of our Air Force is unmatched. (APPLAUSE) Our Marines are the world's only truly expeditionary force. (APPLAUSE) We have the world's finest Coast Guard. We have the most capable fighting force in history and we're going to keep it that way. (APPLAUSE) And no ally or adversary should ever doubt our strength and our resolve (ph) and we will keep pounding ISIL and taking out their leaders and pushing them back on the ground. And united with a global coalition, we will destroy this barbaric terrorist group. They will be destroyed. (APPLAUSE) In the face of Russian aggression, we're not gonna turn our back to our allies in Europe. We're going to stay united in NATO which is the world's strongest alliance. (APPLAUSE) From the Asia-Pacific, to Africa, to the Americas, the United States and our armed forced will remain the greatest force for freedom and security and peace that the world has ever known. That is your legacy, that is what we have to protect and that is what we have to defend. (APPLAUSE) And let me -- let me say this. No one -- no one has given more for our freedom and our security than our Gold Star families.(APPLAUSE) OBAMA: Michelle and I have spent countless hours with them. We have grieved with them. There was a reason why last week in Philadelphia, I was humbled to be introduced by Sharon Belkofer from Ohio, a Gold Star mom whose son Tom, a lieutenant colonel in the Army gave his life in Afghanistan. I requested Sharon to introduce me, because I understood that our Gold Star families have made a sacrifice that most of us cannot even begin to imagine. (APPLAUSE) They represent the very best of our country. They continue to inspire us every day, every moment. They serve as a powerful reminder of the true strength of America. And we have to do everything we can for those families and honor them, and be humbled by them. DAV, I know that your service is also be defined by another battle. This is a group that understands sacrifice. (APPLAUSE) You have been defined by the battle here at home -- you have been defined by the battle here at home to persevere through wounds and disabilities. I think of a veteran from Iraq who lost her arm, but who said she decided to focus, "Not only on what I had lost, but on what I still have." I see -- I see that same spirit in you. Maybe it was there in the hospital bed fighting your life, you learned what it really means to have faith. Maybe it was during rehab, learning without -- how to live without a leg or both, you learned what it really means to persevere. About a month ago, I went to Walter Reed. I do this periodically, and was in the rehab unit watching some of these folks work out. And I decided to -- you might have seen this, I was doing some push ups with them, and trying to keep up with them. And I was sweating and getting all tired. They took it easy on me. (LAUGHTER) But it gave me a sense of -- just a small sense of what perseverance really means. Maybe it was during the night when the memories came rushing back, and you summoned the courage to reach out, and get help and stay strong. I was proud to help recognize your patriotism and resilience in the heart of our nation's capital, when we dedicated the American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial. (APPLAUSE) So, this organization shows us, shows this nation what it means to be strong. But as strong as you are -- and nobody is stronger than our disabled vets -- I know you didn't make this journey alone. You are here because of love and support of your families, and your caregivers, and your neighbors, and your communities and your fellow veterans. (APPLAUSE) They were the shoulder you leaned on, who carried you when you couldn't walk. Who picked you up when you stumbled. Who celebrated your victories with you, and sometimes, just made you laugh and reminded you how good life can be. And that brings me to what I want to talk about here today. For more than two centuries, this country that we love hasn't just endured; we have thrived, we have overcome challenges that would have broken a lesser nation. And not thanks to any one person or one group of people, but because -- like you learned in the military, we are all one team. We believe in taking care of each other, and in lifting each other up and leaving no one behind. And in meeting in the collective responsibilities that we can only meet together; the security of our nation, the education of our children, dignity for our seniors, equal rights for all our citizens, health care -- which is now a right for everybody -- and the care and wellbeing of our veterans and your families. That is a responsibility for all of us, not just a few. We all have to do our part. And as I've said before, America's commitment to our veterans is not just lines in a budget. And it can't be about politics. It's -- it's not even really about policy; our commitment to our veterans is a sacred covenant. And I don't use those words lightly.(APPLAUSE) OBAMA: It is sacred, because there's no more solemn request than to ask someone to risk their life, to be ready to give their life on our behalf. It's a covenant because both sides have responsibilities. Those who put on the uniform, you took an oath to protect and defend us. While the rest of us, the citizens you kept safe, we pledge to take care of you and your families when you come home. That's a sacred covenant. (APPLAUSE) That's a solemn promise that we make to each other, and it is binding. And upholding it is a moral imperative. And at times our -- our nation has not always upheld this covenant. Our Vietnam vets, they -- they sure know this. (APPLAUSE) You know. When -- when you came home, you deserved better. (APPLAUSE) Veterans who at times have struggled to get care at the V.A., you -- you deserve better, too. If there's ever a breach in the covenant, then leaders in this country have to work hard to regain trust. That's what Bob and so many hard working people at the V.A. are doing. But upholding this covenant has to be the work of all us. It's not just the V.A.'s job; it's everybody's job. Government has to deliver the care, and benefits and support that you have earned. Veteran service organizations have to hold us accountable and be our partners, like the 1.3 million members of the DAV are doing every day. And citizens have to step up too, which is why Michelle and Dr. Jill Biden, through joining forces have rallied the American people to honor and support our military families and our veterans. Now, we've got a lot more work to do. But working together over these past eight years, we've delivered real progress for our veterans, and we can't let up. It's not a reason for complacency, but we should understand that when we really put our -- our sweat and tears, and put our shoulder to the wheel, we can make things better. About 200,000 service members are becoming veterans every single year. And America's going to have to be there for you for a lifetime in five important ways. Number one, we have to keep fighting for the resources you need. Now since I took office, we've made historic increases in veteran's funding; the biggest boost in decades. (APPLAUSE) That's a fact. And I've proposed another increase for next year. (APPLAUSE) So, all together -- all together during my presidency, we will have increased funding for veterans by more than 85 percent. (APPLAUSE) With advanced appropriations, we're protecting veteran's health care from the annual Washington budget battles. But I do have to point this out. Republicans in Congress have proposed cutting my V.A. budget. And when they return in the fall, they should pass the budget our veterans need, and fund it fully. Don't just talk about standing with veterans, don't just talk about me. Do something to support our veterans. That's what you need to do. (APPLAUSE) Number two, we've got to keep fighting to deliver the health care you've been promised. Today, more of our Vietnam vets are getting your disability benefits, because of your exposure to Agent Orange, that's a change that we made. So, too, for our Desert Storm veterans, because the illness is tied to the Gulf War. Those are changes we made. All together, we've made V.A. benefits available to more than two million veterans who didn't have them before. (APPLAUSE) Sometimes -- let's face it, sometimes folks don't know that, but it's a fact. And I have to say thanks to the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare... (APPLAUSE) Veterans -- veterans not covered by the V.A. now have access to quality, affordable health care, and insurance companies can't discriminate against you because of preexisting conditions like post- traumatic stress. And more veterans are gaining access to health insurance.OBAMA: So we need to keep making it easier to access care. That's why we recruited some of the best talent from Silicon Valley and the private sector. In one of their very first innovations, veterans can now finally apply for V.A. health care anytime, anywhere, from any device, including your smartphone, simple, easy, in as little as 20 minutes. Just go to vets.gov. The day (ph) they had to wait in line at the V.A. office or mailing it in, those days are over. We're finally moving into the 21st century when it comes to helping our veterans. It's about time. We're reaching more veterans, including rural veterans with telemedicine. So you can see someone at the V.A. without leaving your home. We now have a designated women's health provider at all V.A. clinics to make sure our women's veterans get the tailored care and the dignity and the respect that you deserve. And for our disabled vets, we have increased funds for prosthetics, eliminating co-pays if you're catastrophically disabled. Made progress on concurrent receipt (ph), so more severely disabled retirees can now receive your military retired pay and your V.A. disability benefits. And we're doing more than ever to make sure your devoted families and caregivers get the skills and support they need to stay strong as well. And here, I want to thank veterans across our country for being part of another mission. Our precision medicine initiative, to revolutionize health care with treatments that are tailored for each patient. As of today, more than 500,000 veterans, maybe some of you, have stepped forward and donated your health and genetic data for research, which brings us halfway to our goal of 1 million veterans that are doing so (ph). And what this does is it gives us a better understanding of genetics, which will allow us to improve treatment for things like traumatic brain injuries and post traumatic stress and diabetes and cancer. And that won't just help veterans. It will help all Americans, and it's just one more example of how our veterans keep serving our country even after they've come home. We need to keep improving mental health care. Now I'll never forget the soldiers I met at Fort Bliss. They were proud of their service, but they were struggling with issues like post traumatic stress. So for veterans with PTS, we made it easier for you to qualify for the V.A. care that you need, no matter when you served. We've increased funding for veterans mental health care by more than 75 percent, billions more dollars. More awareness and outreach, because we have to end any shame or stigma that comes with going and getting help. We put in place more clinicians, more counselors, more peer support, veterans helping veterans, more research, $100 million for new approaches to PTS and TBI. And today, we're delivering more mental health care to more veterans than ever. We are saving lives. But, when too many veterans still aren't getting the care that they need, we all have to be outreach (ph). We all have to do better. And when 20 veterans a day are taking their own lives, that is a national tragedy. We all have to do better. Most of those 20 vets taking their lives each day are not in the V.A., but we know that when vets do get V.A. care, they're more likely to survive, so we need to get more vets connected to the V.A. When you have an urgent need for mental health care, you shouldn't have to wait days, you shouldn't have to wait weeks. You should get those services the very same day. And Congress -- Congress can help by providing the funding and flexibility we need to hire highly qualified mental health professionals. And medical schools can help us recruit and train more psychiatrists. And every American, military and civilian, can help as well by learning those five signs that somebody's hurting.OBAMA: We can reach out and help our veterans stay strong. We're on team, one American family. When any member of our family is suffering, we've got to be there for each other. Now, we also need to keep fixing the problems that came to light: long wait times, veterans denied care, people manipulating the books. Inexcusable. I know Bob gave you an update. I want to repeat, we've hired thousands more doctors, nurses, staff, opened more clinical space. And with the Choice Program we're helping more veterans get care outside of the V.A. It all adds up to millions more appointments, delivering more benefits to more veterans to ever before. That is progress. But even as we improve access more veterans than ever are seeking care. So we're putting more and more resources in but we got more and more demand for care at the same time. And this surge in demand means there are now more veterans waiting for appointments even though we've done a lot more. So I know I'm not satisfied. Bob's still not satisfied. And we will not let up. Bob and his new leadership team are going to keep pushing to transform the V.A. and he will keep holding people accountable. This is somebody who cares deeply about our veterans getting what they deserve and what they have earned. And when whistleblowers expose misconduct they will need to be protected, not punished. We need Congress to make it easier for the V.A. to help veterans get care in their communities. But I have to say, here's one thing I need to be very clear about. Here's one thing we will not do, we cannot outsource and privatize health care for American's veterans. You know there are folks who keep pushing this. They don't always come out and say the word privatize, but you read what they say, that's what they mean. And these radical proposals would begin to dismantle the V.A. health care system that millions of veterans depend on every day. And that would hurt veterans. Study after study shows that in many areas like mental health, the quality of care is often better than in private care. So let's listen to our veterans who are telling us, don't destroy V.A. health care. Fix it and make it work. But don't break our covenant with our veterans. This brings me to the third area where we have to stay focused. We have to keep cutting the disability claims backlog. Now from its peak we've slashed that backlog from almost 90 percent. My chief of staff and I, there was a chunk of time when that backlog was high when every day, no matter what else was going on around the world, he and I, we'd take these walks around the South Lawn, just to keep our exercise, keep our steps up. And every day we talked about how are we going to get that backlog down? And each week we'd look and see what kind of progress we were making. That's how we reduced it by 90 percent. The backlog is now lower than when I came into office even though there are a lot more people who are eligible for claims. And claims decisions are more accurate, the first time. And on both these fronts we're keeping at it. But as we all know, when veterans appeal a decision, you're put into an appeals system that right now is broken. And you shouldn't have to fight for years to get a straight answer. We've proposed major reforms and I want to thank the DAV and all the other veterans groups for raising your voice on this. We've got to keep up the pressure. Congress needs to pass comprehensive reform of the claims appeals process because if we don't fix the appeals process even when we get the backlog down on the original claim, too many folks are waiting on the back end. We've got to fix it. And we can. But we're going to have to fix Congress. And I don't know if you've noticed, that's hard.OBAMA: We've got to keep fighting for the dignity of every veteran. And that includes ending the tragedy, the travesty of veteran's homelessness. Now this is something that within my administration this is all hands on deck across government. Everybody's got to be involved in this. And with -- with Joining Forces, Michelle and Jill have helped galvanize hundreds of mayors in communities across the country. Two states, Virginia and Connecticut, as well as 27 cities and towns across the country have effectively veterans' homelessness. (APPLAUSE) So today, today, I can announce that nationally, we have now reduced the number of homeless veterans by 47 percent, nearly half. (APPLAUSE) We have just about cut veterans' homelessness in half. We've helped bring tens of thousands of veterans off the streets. But we're not -- we're not slowing down. We are going to keep up the momentum. This fall, Michelle will bring our partners from across the country to gather at the White House to share best practices, to figure out what has worked, what hasn't worked, because we will not stop until every veteran who fought for America has a home in America. This is something that we got to get done. (APPLAUSE) And finally, we've got to keep fighting to give our troops, and veterans and your families every opportunity to live the American dream that you helped defend. With our overhaul of the Transition Assistance Program, hundreds of thousands of departing service member and their spouses have received training to plan their next career and find a job, or start a business. We expanded the Post 9/11 G.I. Bill to reservists, and National Guard members and families, including Gold Star spouses and children. And then we expanded it to vocational training and apprenticeships. We've empowered veterans with new tools to find the schools that are right for you, or to get the support you need to succeed on campus, to make sure you don't get ripped off, to cap your student loans, to make sure you and your families get in-state tuition, which is true now in all 50 states. (APPLAUSE) And so far, we have helped more than 1.6 million veterans and their families realize their dream of an education. An investment in you and America that will keep us strong and keep paying off for generations to come. And we're doing more to help you find jobs worthy of your incredible talents, because if you could lead a team, and run logistics, and manage a budget or save a life in a war zone, you sure as heck could do it right back here at home. (APPLAUSE) I called for states to recognize the training and skills of veterans when issuing credentials for civilian jobs licensing. Now all 50 states do it. Before, less than half the states made it easy for military spouses to get credentials and licenses. Today, all 50 states do it. (APPLAUSE) Starting this fall, we will close loopholes to protect our troops and military families from predatory pay-day lenders. (APPLAUSE) So today, all across America, more veterans are at work, on the job, beginning the next chapter of your service to our country. Veterans who are physicians and nurses have been hired by community health centers. Cities and towns are hiring veterans as teachers and police officers, firefighters and first responders, because we made it a priority in the federal government, hiring hundreds of thousands of veterans, including disabled veterans. Nearly one in three federal workers is now a veteran. (APPLAUSE) I challenged America's companies to hire veterans. And then, in case they weren't listening to me, I'd sic Jill and Michelle on them through Joining Forces, and companies now have hired or trained more than 1.2 million veterans and military spouses. So all told, we've cut veterans' unemployment by more than half, down to 4.2 percent, which is already lower than already low national average. And it's way down for post-9/11 veterans too. (APPLAUSE) It's one of the reasons we have been able to help more than 3.6 million veterans buy or refinance a home of their own. So I'm going to keep saying to every company in America, if you want talent, if you want dedication, if you want to get the job done, then hire a vet.(APPLAUSE) OBAMA: Hire a military spouse. They know how to get the job done. They don't fool around. So DAV, we've made a lot of progress. It's not always focused on, because understandably, the news a lot of times focuses on what's still not working. That's OK. That keeps us on our toes, keeps us working. But every once in a while its good to remember the progress we've made, because that tells us when we focus on it, we can do right by our veterans. And -- and as this new generation of veterans joins your ranks, we've got to keep on stepping up our game, giving veterans the resources you need, transforming the V.A., delivering the health care you've earned, reducing the backlog, reforming appeals, standing up for your dignity and helping you share the American dream. And I now we can, because over the past eight years, I've seen the spirit of America, and I've seen time and time and time again the strength of our veterans, the unbreakable will of our disabled vets. You teach us, better than anybody, that we may take a hit sometimes, we may get knocked down, but we get back up. We carry on. (APPLAUSE) And when we take care of each other and uphold that sacred convent, there's nothing we cannot do. Like that soldier I told you before, Army Ranger Veteran Cory Remsburg, nearly killed in Afghanistan, who learned to talk again and walk again, and who recently stood up and walked in the oval office and shook my hand. (APPLAUSE) We all have to keep on rising, like Medal of Honor recipient Staff Sergeant Ty Carter, who struggled with post-dramatic stress and who's now helping others stay strong. Troops, veterans, civilians, we all have to keep on healing. Like the wounded warriors and disabled vets who are out there running, and jumping, and swimming, and biking and climbing. Including Marine Corps veteran Charlie Linville, who just became the first combat amputee to reach the top of Mount Everest. (APPLAUSE) We all have to keep on striving. Like the veterans taking care of each other, including here at the DAV, Army veteran Oscar Olguin, Navy Reserve veteran Charity Edgar (ph), Marine Corps veteran Carmen McGinnis, who says, "Helping veterans gives me a sense of purpose." That's -- that's something we all have to recognize, we all have to keep on serving. Like -- like Air Force Technical Sergeant Jason Miller, who considered taking his own life, but who wrote me a letter. And after I put him in touch with Team Rubicon, went to work rebuilding communities after disasters, found a new purpose in life. Well, we all have to keep building this country we love. And like the ranks of our military and our veterans, whether they are black or white or Latino or Asian or Native American, or they are young or old, whether they are gay or straight, whatever their faith, men, woman, Americans with disabilities, we have to keep on uniting as one team, as one people, as one nation. (APPLAUSE) That's what you have taught us. That's what you are an example of, the disabled veterans of America know what it means to be one team. We draw inspiration from you. I am grateful for everything that you have done for this country, I am grateful for having had the opportunity to work with you. God bless you. (APPLAUSE) Thank you for your service, thank you for your sacrifice, thank you for your patriotism. We honor and appreciate you. God bless our veterans, and God bless the United States of America. (APPLAUSE) Thank you very much. Thank you. (APPLAUSE) END

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, DAV! (Applause.) Thank you so much. Thank you. Please, everybody, have a seat. What an honor to be with you today. (Applause.) Thank you. And thanks to Bobby. I'll never forget the time Bobby came to the Oval Office -- carrying a baseball bat. (Laughter.) Secret Service got a little nervous. (Laughter.) But it was a genuine Louisville Slugger -- a thank-you for going to bat for our veterans. And I want to thank Bobby for your devotion to our veterans, especially your fellow Vietnam vets. Thank you. Give Bobby a big round of applause. (Applause.) AUDIENCE MEMBER: I love you! THE PRESIDENT: I love you back. (Applause.) I do! I want to thank our outstanding leadership team for welcoming me today, including National Commander Moses McIntosh. (Applause.) Senior Vice Commander Dave Riley. (Applause.) National Adjutant Mark Burgess. (Applause.) Executive Director Barry Jesinoski. (Applause.) Your voice in Washington, Garry Augustine. (Applause.) And, don't forget, Pat Kemper and all the spouses and families of the DAV Auxiliary. Thank you. (Applause.) I also want to acknowledge Mayor Kasim Reed and County Chairman John Eaves for welcoming us to the great state of Georgia and the beautiful city of Atlanta. (Applause.) I am pleased to be joined by our tireless Secretary of the VA, Bob McDonald. (Applause.) I know he spoke to you yesterday. He is working hard -- hard -- every single day to transform the VA to serve our veterans better. He still gives out his cellphone number and his email. Not many people know this, but, so far, he's received more than 45,000 calls, emails and texts. (Laughter.) And I don't know what his phone bill is looking like -- (laughter) -- I hope he has a good plan. (Laughter.) But Bob and his team work to deal with each one of those texts or emails or phone calls he receives because every single veteran matters. And he knows that. So, thank you, Bob, for the great work you're doing. (Applause.) So it's good to be back with the Disabled American Veterans. What a journey that we've had together. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Glad to have you! THE PRESIDENT: It's great to be here. We worked together back when I was a senator. You were one of the first veterans' organizations I called when I ran for President. I welcomed you to the White House as a partner. I came to your convention in my first term, and my second, along with Michelle. And so it is fitting that my final major address to our nation's veterans as President is here at the DAV. (Applause.) And as I reflect on these past eight years, some of the most unforgettable experiences that I've had have been moments I've spent with you -- America's veterans and your families. We stood together at Arlington to honor Corporal Frank Buckles, 110 years old -- our last veteran from the First World War -- as he was laid to rest. I ordered our flags to be flown at half-staff because, even after 100 years, we will never stop saluting those who served in our name. (Applause.) We stood together at Normandy to thank an entire generation -- among them, my grandfather, who was in Patton's Army -- a generation that literally saved the world. There was Harry Kulkowitz, who returned to the beaches he helped liberate -- and told he could have anything he wanted, said with the humility of a soldier, a hamburger will do just fine. (Laughter.) I think of Luta McGrath -- this past Veterans Day, just before her 108th birthday, then the oldest known female veteran of World War II, which was a reminder that women have always served to keep America strong and free. (Applause.) We've stood together at the memorial to our Korean War veterans and recalled how a soldier, marching through the snow, had a tiny pair of baby booties hanging from his rifle -- a reminder of his unborn child -- a story that had been lost to history. But we tracked him down. We found him. And we shared the story of Korean War veteran Dick Shank, who made it home to that baby boy, and lived out his life -- at 84 years old, he was still roller skating -- because no war should ever be forgotten and no veteran should ever be overlooked. (Applause.) We've stood together at the Wall and remembered the lessons of Vietnam -- that even when Americans may disagree about a war, we have to stand united in support of our troops. (Applause.) And that for mothers like Sarah Shay, who honored her missing son for more than 40 years, we will never stop working to bring home our prisoners of war and our missing in action. We leave nobody behind. No one. (Applause.) And we've come together to welcome our newest veterans into your ranks -- from Desert Storm, the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq -- our proud 9/11 Generation. This is a time of transition. When I came into office, we had nearly 180,000 American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, that number is less than 15,000. Most of our troops have come home. (Applause.) To all of you who served in Afghanistan, you can take enormous pride in the progress you helped achieve: Driving al Qaeda out of its camps. Toppling the Taliban. Delivering justice to Osama bin Laden. Helping Afghans improve their lives. There are millions of boys and girls in school, and democratic elections and a democratic government. Training Afghan forces to take responsibility for their own security so that we are no longer engaged in a major ground war in Afghanistan. That is your legacy. And today we salute our forces serving there on a more limited mission -- supporting Afghan forces, going after terrorists -- because we must never allow Afghanistan to be used as a safe haven for terrorists to attack our nation again. (Applause.) To all of you who served in Iraq, we saw your heroism in pushing out a dictator whose brutality must be condemned, never praised. In defeating an insurgency. In giving the Iraqi people a chance. And no matter what has happened since, your valor in the deserts, in fierce urban combat, will be honored in the annals of military history. Let me say something else about this generation. As Commander-in-Chief, I'm pretty tired of some folks trash-talking America's military and troops. (Applause.) Our military is somewhat smaller -- after two major ground wars come to a close, that's natural. And we're going to keep doing everything we need to do to improve readiness and modernize our forces. But let's get some facts straight. America's Army is the best-trained, best-equipped land force on the planet. (Applause.) Our Navy is the largest and most lethal in the world. (Applause.) The precision of, and reach of, our Air Force is unmatched. (Applause.) Our Marines are the world's only truly expeditionary force. (Applause.) We have the world's finest Coast Guard. (Applause.) We have the most capable fighting force in history -- and we're going to keep it that way. (Applause.) And no ally or adversary should ever doubt our strength and our resolve. And we will keep pounding ISIL and taking out their leaders, and pushing them back on the ground. And united with a global coalition, we will destroy this barbaric terrorist group. They will be destroyed. (Applause.) In the face of Russian aggression, we're not going to turn our back to our allies in Europe. We're going to stay united in NATO, which is the world's strongest alliance. (Applause.) From the Asia Pacific to Africa to the Americas, the United States and our armed forces will remain the greatest force for freedom and security and peace that the world has ever known. That is your legacy. That is what we have to protect, and that is what we have to defend. (Applause.) And let me say this: No one -- no one -- has given more for our freedom and our security than our Gold Star families. (Applause.) Michelle and I have spent countless hours with them. We have grieved with them. There's a reason why, last week in Philadelphia, I was humbled to be introduced by Sharon Belkofer from Ohio, a Gold Star mom whose son, Tom, a lieutenant colonel in the Army, gave his life in Afghanistan. I requested Sharon to introduce me, because I understood that our Gold Star families have made a sacrifice that most of us cannot even begin to imagine. They represent the very best of our country. (Applause.) They continue to inspire us every day, every moment. They serve as a powerful reminder of the true strength of America. We have to do everything we can for those families, and honor them, and be humbled by them. DAV, I know that your service has also been defined by another battle. This is a group that understands sacrifice. (Applause.) You've been defined by the battle here at home to persevere through wounds and disabilities. I think of a veteran from Iraq who lost her arm but who said she decided to focus "not on what I had lost, but on what I still had." I see that same spirit in you. Maybe it was there in the hospital bed, fighting for your life, you learned what it really means to have faith. Maybe it was during rehab, learning how to live without a leg, or both, you learned what it really means to persevere. About a month ago, I went to Walter Reed -- I do this periodically -- and was in the rehab unit watching some of these folks work out. And I decided -- you might have seen this -- I was doing some pushups with them and -- (laughter) -- trying to keep up with them. And I was sweating and getting all tired. (Laughter.) They took it easy on me. (Laughter.) But it gave me a sense of -- just a small sense of what perseverance really means. Maybe it was during the night when the memories came rushing back -- and you summoned the courage to reach out and get help and stay strong. And I was proud to help recognize your patriotism and resilience in the heart of our nation's capital when we dedicated the American Veterans Disabled For Life Memorial. (Applause.) This organization shows us, shows this nation, what it means to be strong. But as strong as you are -- and nobody is stronger than our disabled vets -- I know you didn't make this journey alone. You're here because of the love and support of your families and your caregivers and your neighbors and your communities and your fellow veterans. (Applause.) They were the shoulder you leaned on, who carried you when you couldn't walk, who picked you up when you stumbled, who celebrated your victories with you, who sometimes just made you laugh and reminded you how good life can be. And that brings me to what I want to talk about here today. For more than two centuries, this country that we love hasn't just endured; we have thrived. We have overcome challenges that would have broken a lesser nation. And not thanks to any one person or one group of people, but because, like you learned in the military, we're all one team. We believe in taking care of each other, and in lifting each other up, and leaving no one behind, and in meeting the collective responsibilities that we can only meet together: The security of our nation. The education for our children. Dignity for our seniors. Equal rights for all of our citizens. Health care -- which is now a right for everybody. And the care and well-being of our veterans and your families. That is a responsibility for all of us, not just a few. We all have to do our part. And as I've said before, America's commitment to our veterans is not just lines in a budget. And it can't be about politics. It's not even really about policy. Our commitment to our veterans is a sacred covenant. And I don't use those words lightly. (Applause.) It is sacred because there's no more solemn request than to ask someone to risk their life, to be ready to give their life on our behalf. It's a covenant because both sides have responsibilities. Those who put on the uniform, you took an oath to protect and defend us. While the rest of us, the citizens you kept safe, we pledged to take care of you and your families when you come home. That's a sacred covenant. That's a solemn promise that we make to each other. And it is binding. And upholding it is a moral imperative. (Applause.) And at times, our nation has not always upheld this covenant. Our Vietnam vets, they sure know this. AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Yes! THE PRESIDENT: When you came home, you deserved better. (Applause.) Veterans who at times have struggled to get care at the VA, you deserve better, too. (Applause.) If there's ever a breach in the covenant, then leaders in this country have to work hard to regain trust. That's what Bob and so many hardworking people at the VA are doing. But upholding this covenant has to be the work of all of us. It's not just the VA's job. It's everybody's job. Government has to deliver the care and benefits and support that you have earned. Veteran service organizations have to hold us accountable and be our partners, like the 1.3 million members of the DAV are doing every day. And citizens have to step up, too -- which is why Michelle and Dr. Jill Biden, through Joining Forces, have rallied the American people to honor and support our military families and our veterans. Now, we've got a lot more work to do. But working together over these past eight years, we've delivered real progress for our veterans. And we can't let up. It's not a reason for complacency, but we should understand that when we really put our sweat and tears and put our shoulder to the wheel, we can make things better. About 200,000 servicemembers are becoming veterans every single year. And America is going to have to be there for you for a lifetime in five important ways. Number one, we have to keep fighting for the resources you need. Now, since I took office, we've made historic increases in veterans funding -- the biggest boost in decades. That's a fact. (Applause.) And I've proposed another increase for next year. (Applause.) So altogether, during my presidency, we will have increased funding for veterans by more than 85 percent. (Applause.) With advance appropriations, we're protecting veterans' health care from the annual Washington budget battles. But I do have to point this out -- Republicans in Congress have proposed cutting my VA budget. And when they return in the fall, they should pass the budget our veterans need -- and fund it, fully. Don't just talk about standing with veterans. Don't just talk about me. (Laughter.) Do something to support our veterans. That's what you need to do. (Applause.) Number two, we've got to keep fighting to deliver the health care you've been promised. Today, more of our Vietnam vets are getting your disability benefits because of your exposure to Agent Orange. That's a change that we made. So, too, for our Desert Storm veterans, because of the illnesses tied to the Gulf War. Those are changes we made. Altogether, we've made VA benefits available to more than 2 million veterans who didn't have them before. (Applause.) Let's face it, sometimes folks don't know that, but it's a fact. And I have to say, thanks to the Affordable Care Act -- Obamacare -- (applause) -- veterans not covered by the VA now have access to quality, affordable health care. And insurance companies can't discriminate against you because of preexisting conditions like post-traumatic stress. (Applause.) And more veterans are gaining access to health insurance. So we need to keep making it easier to access care. That's why we recruited some of the best talent from Silicon Valley and the private sector. And in one of their first innovations, veterans can now finally apply for VA health care anytime, anywhere, from any device, including your smartphone -- simple, easy, in as little as 20 minutes. Just go to Vets.gov. The days of having to wait in line at a VA office, or mailing it in -- those days are over. (Applause.) We're finally moving into the 21st century when it comes to helping our veterans. It's about time. (Applause.) We're reaching more veterans, including rural veterans, with telemedicine -- so you can see someone at the VA without leaving your home. We now have a designated women's health provider at all VA clinics -- (applause) -- to make sure our women's veterans get the tailored care, and the dignity and the respect that you deserve. (Applause.) And for our disabled vets, we have increased funds for prosthetics, eliminated co-pays if you're catastrophically disabled, made progress on concurrent receipt so more severely disabled retirees can now receive your military retired pay and your VA disability benefits. (Applause.) And we're doing more than ever to make sure your devoted families and caregivers get the skills and support they need to stay strong as well. And here, I want to thank veterans across our country for being part of another mission -- our precision medicine initiative to revolutionize health care with treatments that are tailored for each patient. As of today, more than 500,000 veterans -- maybe some of you -- have stepped forward and donated your health and genetic data for research, which brings us halfway to our goal of one million veterans that are doing so. And what this does is it gives us a better understanding of genetics, which will allow us to improve treatments for things like traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress, and diabetes, and cancer. And that won't just help veterans. It will help all Americans. And it's just one more example of how our veterans keep serving our country even after they come home. (Applause.) We need to keep improving mental health care. I'll never forget the soldiers I met at Fort Bliss. They were proud of their service, but they were struggling with issues like post-traumatic stress. So, for veterans with PTS, we made it easier for you to qualify for the VA care that you need -- no matter when you served. We've increased funding for veterans mental health care by more than 75 percent -- billions more dollars. More awareness and outreach -- because we have to end any shame or stigma that comes with going and getting help. (Applause.) We've put in place more clinicians, more counselors, more peer support -- veterans helping veterans. More research -- $100 million for new approaches to PTS and TBI. And today, we're delivering more mental health care to more veterans than ever. We are saving lives. (Applause.) But when too many veterans still aren't getting the care that they need, we all have to be outraged. We all have to do better. And when 20 veterans a day are taking their own lives -- that is a national tragedy. We all have to do better. Most of those 20 vets taking their lives each day are not in the VA. But we know that when vets do get VA care, they're more likely to survive. So we need to get more vets connected to the VA. And when you have an urgent need for mental health care, you shouldn't have to wait days, you shouldn't have to wait weeks -- you should get those services the very same day. (Applause.) And Congress can help by providing the funding and flexibility we need to hire highly qualified mental health professionals. And medical schools can help us recruit and train more psychiatrists. And every American, military and civilian, can help, as well, by learning those Five Signs that somebody is hurting, so we can reach out and help our veterans stay strong. We're one team. One American family. When any member of our family is suffering, we've got to be there for each other. Now, we also need to keep fixing the problems that came to light -- long wait times, veterans denied care, people manipulating the books -- inexcusable. I know Bob gave you an update, but I want to repeat -- we've hired thousands more doctors, nurses, staff; opened more clinical space. And, with the Choice program, we're helping more veterans get care outside of the VA. It all adds up to millions more appointments, delivering more benefits to more veterans than ever before. That is progress. But even as we improve access, more veterans than ever are seeking care. So we're putting more and more resources in, but you've got more and more demand for care at the same time. And this surge in demand means there are now more veterans waiting for appointments, even though we've done a lot more. So I know I'm not satisfied. Bob is still not satisfied. And we will not let up. Bob and his new leadership team are going to keep pushing to transform the VA, and he will keep holding people accountable. (Applause.) This is somebody who cares deeply about our veterans getting what they deserve and what they have earned. (Applause.) And when whistleblowers expose misconduct, they need to be protected, not punished. (Applause.) We need Congress to make it easier for the VA to help veterans get care in your communities. But I have to say -- here's one thing I want to be very clear about -- here's one thing we will not do: We cannot outsource and privatize health care for America's veterans. (Applause.) Now, there are folks who keep pushing this. They don't always come out and say the word "privatize," but you read what they say, that's what they mean. And these radical proposals would begin to dismantle the VA health care system that millions of veterans depend on every day. And that would hurt veterans. Study after study shows that in many areas, like mental health, the quality of care at the VA is often better than in private care. So let's listen to our veterans, who are telling us: Don't destroy VA health care. Fix it and make it work, but don't break our covenant with our veterans. (Applause.) This brings me to the third area where we have to stay focused. We have to keep cutting the disability claims backlog. Now, from its peak, we've slashed that backlog by nearly 90 percent. My Chief of Staff and I -- there was a chunk of time when that backlog was high where, every day, no matter what else was happening around the world, he and I, we'd take these walks around the South Lawn just to keep our exercise, keep our steps up. And every day, we talked about, how are we going to get that backlog down. And each week, we'd look and see what kind of progress we're making. That's how we reduced it by 90 percent. The backlog is now lower than when I came into office, even though there are a lot more people who are eligible for claims. And claims decisions are more accurate the first time. (Applause.) And on both these fronts, we're keeping at it. But as we all know, when veterans appeal a decision, you're put into an appeals system that right now is broken. (Applause.) And you shouldn't have to fight for years to get a straight answer. Now, we've proposed major reforms, and I want to thank the DAV and all the other veterans' groups for raising your voice on this. We've got to keep up the pressure. Congress needs to pass comprehensive reform of the claims appeals process -- (applause) -- because if we don't fix the appeals process, even when we get the backlog down on the original claim, too many folks are waiting on the backend. We've got to fix it. And we can. But we're going to have to push Congress. And I don't know if you've noticed, that's hard. (Laughter.) Fourth, we've got to keep fighting for the dignity of every veteran. And that includes ending the tragedy, the travesty of veterans' homelessness. (Applause.) This is something that, within my administration, we've said this is all hands on deck, across government. Everybody has got to be involved in this. And with Joining Forces, Michelle and Jill have helped galvanize hundreds of mayors and communities across the country. Two states, Virginia and Connecticut, as well as 27 cities and towns across the country have effectively ended veteran homelessness. (Applause.) So, today, I can announce that, nationally, we have now reduced the number of homeless veterans by 47 percent -- nearly half. (Applause.) We have just about cut veterans' homelessness in half. We've helped bring tens of thousands of veterans off the streets. But we're not slowing down. We're going to keep up the momentum. This fall, Michelle will bring our partners from across the country together at the White House to share best practices to figure out what has worked, what hasn't worked. Because we will not stop until every veteran who fought for America has a home in America. This is something we've got to get done. (Applause.) And finally, we've got to keep fighting to give our troops and veterans and your families every opportunity to live the American Dream that you helped defend. With our overhaul of the transition assistance program, hundreds of thousands of departing servicemembers and their spouses have received training to plan their next career, and find a job or start a business. We expanded the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill to reservists and National Guard members and families, including Gold Star spouses and children. And then we expanded it to vocational training and apprenticeships. We've empowered veterans with new tools to find the schools that are right for you, or to get the support you need to succeed on campus; to make sure you don't get ripped off; to cap your student loans; to make sure you and your families get in-state tuition-now, which is true now in all 50 states. (Applause.) And so far, we have helped more than 1.6 million veterans and their families realize their dream of an education, an investment in you and America that will help keep us strong and keep paying off for generations to come. (Applause.) So we're doing more to help you find jobs worthy of your incredible talents. Because if you could lead a team, and run logistics and manage a budget, or save a life in a warzone, you can sure as heck can do it right back here at home. (Applause.) I called for states to recognize the training and skills of veterans when issuing credentials for civilian jobs, licensing. Now all 50 states do it. Before, less than half the states made it easy for military spouses to get credentials and licenses. Today, all 50 states do it. (Applause.) Starting this fall, we'll close loopholes to protect our troops and military families from predatory pay-day lenders. (Applause.) So, today, all across America, more veterans are at work, on the job, beginning the next chapter of your service to our country. Veterans who are physicians and nurses have been hired by community health centers. Cities and towns are hiring veterans as teachers and police officers, firefighters and first responders. Because we made it a priority in the federal government -- hiring hundreds of thousands of veterans, including disabled veterans -- nearly one in three federal workers is now a veteran. I challenged America's companies to hire veterans. And then, in case they weren't listening to me, I sicced Jill and Michelle on them -- (laughter and applause) -- through Joining Forces, and companies now have hired or trained more than 1.2 million veterans and military spouses. (Applause.) So, all told, we've cut veterans unemployment by more than half, down to 4.2 percent, which is actually lower than the already low national average. (Applause.) And it's way down for Post-9/11 veterans, too. (Applause.) It's one of the reasons we've been able to help more than 3.6 million veterans buy or refinance a home of their own. So I'm going to keep saying to every company in America, if you want talent, if you want dedication, if you want to get the job done, then hire a vet! (Applause.) Hire a military spouse! (Applause.) They know how to get the job done. They don't fool around! (Applause.) So, DAV, we've made a lot of progress. It's not always focused on -- because, understandably, the news a lot of the time focuses on what's still not working. That's okay. That keeps us on our toes, keeps us working. But every once in a while, it's good to remember the progress we've made, because that tells us when we focus on it, we can do right by our veterans. And as this new generation of veterans joins your ranks, we've got to keep on stepping up our game, giving veterans the resources you need, transforming the VA, delivering the health care you've earned, reducing the backlog, reforming appeals, standing up for your dignity, and helping you share the American dream. And I know we can -- because over the past eight years, I've seen the spirit of America, and I have seen time and time and time again the strength of our veterans, the unbreakable will of our disabled vets. You teach us better than anybody that we may take a hit sometimes, we may get knocked down, but we get back up. We carry on. (Applause.) And when we take care of each other and uphold that sacred covenant, there is nothing we cannot do. Like that soldier I've told you before -- Army Ranger Veteran Cory Remsburg, nearly killed in Afghanistan, who learned to talk again and walk again, and who recently stood up and walked into the Oval Office and shook my hand. (Applause.) We all have to keep on rising. Like Medal of Honor Recipient Staff Sergeant Ty Carter, who struggled with post-traumatic stress, and who's now helping others stay strong. Troops, veterans, civilians -- we all have to keep on healing. Like the wounded warriors and disabled vets who are out there running and jumping and swimming and biking and climbing, including Marine Corps Veteran Charlie Linville, who just became the first combat amputee to reach the top of Mount Everest. We all have to keep striving. (Applause.) Like the veterans taking care of each other, including here at the DAV -- Army Veteran Oscar Olguin; Navy Reserve Veteran Charity Edgar; Marine Corps Veteran Carmen McGinnis -- who says helping veterans "gives me a sense of purpose." That's something we all have to recognize. We all have to keep on serving. Like Air Force Technical Sergeant Jason Miller, who considered taking his own life, but who wrote me a letter -- and after I put him in touch with Team Rubicon, went to work rebuilding communities after disasters, found a new purpose in life -- well, we all have to keep building this country we love. And like the ranks of our military and our veterans -- whether they are black or white, or Latino or Asian or Native American, or they are young or old, whether they are gay or straight, whatever their faith, men, women, Americans with disabilities -- we have to keep on uniting as one team. As one people. As one nation. (Applause.) That's what you have taught us. That's what you are an example of. The Disabled Veterans of America know what it means to be one team. We draw inspiration from you. I am grateful for everything that you have done for this country. I am grateful for having had the opportunity to work with you. God bless you. Thank you for your service. (Applause.) Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for your patriotism. We honor and appreciate you. God bless our veterans and God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

5589 CORE 3921 JOE BIDEN COLUMBIA SC EVENT NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY PILGRIM CAM 021120 2020 EVA PILGRIM REPORTS FROM PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE JOE BIDEN'S EVENT AFTER THE NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY COLUMBIA, SC-Former Vice President Joe Biden took the floor in South Carolina and made it clear: He thinks this race is anything but over, even with disappointing finishes in the first two voting states. "It is important that Iowa and Nevada have spoken. But look, we need to hear from Nevada and South Carolina and Super Tuesday states and beyond. Look, we're moving into an especially important phase because up till now, we haven't heard from the most committed constituency in the Democratic Party -- the African-American community. And the fast--- and the fastest growing segment of society, the Latino community. I want y'all to think of a number -- ninety nine point nine percent." (212747) "That's the percentage of African-American voters who have not yet had a chance to vote in America. One more number, ninety nine point eight. That's the percent of Latino voters who haven't had a chance to vote. So, when you hear all these pundits and experts,cable TV talkers talk about the race, tell them "it ain't over, man. We're just getting started. Our votes count, too." [cheers] (212818) Biden expressed his excitement to be in South Carolina, telling the crowd that he hoped they love him as much as he loves them. "I've been coming here a long time. When I die, I want to be reborn in Charleston," Biden said (21:26:11) The former Vice President leaned in hard to his message that you have the hear from all communities within the country before any decisions can be made, "Look, we're moving in an especially important phase because up till now, we haven't heard from the most committed constituency in the Democratic Party. The African-American community. And the fast and the fastest growing segment of society, the Latino community. Watch out. Think of a number ninety nine point nine percent. That's the percentage of African-American voters who have not yet had a chance to vote in America. One more. Ninety nine point eight. That's the percent of Latino voters every night. A chance to vote. So when you hear all these pundits and experts and cable TV talkers talked about the race. Tell them it ain't over, man. We're just getting started. Our votes count, too. (21:27:46) Biden once again pressed on the idea that the Democratic Party should not have a nominee that does not win a broad coalition of support-pledging that if he were the nominee, support from African American and Latino communities would not be taken for granted. "You shouldn't be able to win it without black and brown voters. Too often your loyalty, your support, your commitment to this party have been taken for granted. I have never once in my career, since I got involved as a kid, taken it for granted. And I give you my word as a Biden: I never, ever, ever will." (212931) There were several notable focuses in Biden's remarks that we've heard from him in the past, but were not included in his stump speeches in Iowa and New Hampshire-clearly tailoring his message for the Palmetto State. Biden touted his time served alongside Barack Obama in the White House, calling it the greatest honor of his life to serve alongside him, and telling the crowd their families were still close friends, saying he "pays for the plane ticket" when his granddaughters want to go visit their best friends, the Obama girls Biden also focused on criminal justice reform and increasing equality for all Americans-issues we have not often brought up in the two states that have voted. And as Michael Bloomberg is facing increased scrutiny for his comments on his controversial 'stop and frisk' program, Biden said that voters should look to each candidates past to see what they would do while in office, expanding on his own record "Now, if you want to know what any other candidates are gonna do in the future, the tendency is to look at the past. Well, I left the law firm when I was a kid with a great job and a fancy law firm, and to become a public defender -- to fight for the people in the community I used to work in, in the East side because they couldn't afford a lawyer. On the county council, I fought against red lining. In the U.S. Senate, I passed the extension of the Voting Rights Act for two decades. The Violence Against Women Act and, by the way, I had the back of a great president named Barack Obama for eight years." (212956) Biden closed out his remarks on a hopeful message we've heard before-arguing that the next president needs to heal the country, a undertaking he was not underselling "It's not enough just to fight. We got to heal. And the country so desperately needs it. Folks, that's the kind of courage and conviction we need to end the Trump era and move this nation forward to a more perfect union. I know this is going to be the fight of my life, but as the old song goes. Lord, don't move my mountain, give me the ability to climb. I can't do it alone. I need your help to climb that mountain. And together we're going to beat Donald Trump." Biden said (214255) After the event, Biden worked the rope line quickly, trying to make it to an affiliate interview. The former Vice President Shouted several questions from the press about his failure to receive any delegates in New Hampshire this evening. Biden was introduced at the event by Dr. Jill Biden and Rep. Cedric Richmond, who both gave brief remarks. Jill credited the state with helping their family heal after they spent time here following the loss of their son Beau. Dr. Biden said that while Iowa and New Hampshire had their say, it was now South Carolina's turn to speak, calling it a "clean slate' for her husband. COLOR/EDIT: The room in South Carolina was very warm for Biden tonight. The crowd was diverse-both in age and race, and the room was full despite the event only being officially announced less than 12 hours prior, and could be heard audibly agreeing with Biden as he made his points throughout his remarks. As Eva Pilgrim noted-there was a lightness and excitement to the air in Columbia-one that we did not feel throughout Iowa and New Hampshire. 5587 3920 JOE BIDEN COLUMBIA SC NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY REMARKS POOL 021120 2020 HIGHLIGHTS New Hamp 212655 So, I just spoke to our folks up in -- up in New Hampshire, and they did a good job, but I want to tell ya. The people of Nevada are watching, and I want to make it clear, we praise their diversity as a state and I'm gonna be out there seeing them very soon. Tonight, though, I -- we just heard from the first two of the 50 states. Two of 'em. Not all the nation, not half the nation, not a quarter of the nation, not 10% -- 2! 212726 Two! Now, where I come from that's the opening bell, not the closing bell. And the fight to end Donald Trump's presidency is just beginning [cheers] just beginning. Thank you. [crowd chanting "Joe"] 212747 It is important that Iowa and Nevada have spoken. But look, we need to hear from Nevada and South Carolina and Super Tuesday states and beyond. Look, we're moving into an especially important phase because up till now, we haven't heard from the most committed constituency in the Democratic Party -- the African-American community. And the fast--- and the fastest growing segment of society, the Latino community. I want y'all to think of a number -- ninety nine point nine percent. 212818 That's the percentage of African-American voters who have not yet had a chance to vote in America. One more number, ninety nine point eight. That's the percent of Latino voters who haven't had a chance to vote. So, when you hear all these pundits and experts,cable TV talkers talk about the race, tell them "it ain't over, man. We're just getting started. Our votes count, too." [cheers] An Ally to Communities of Color 212931 You shouldn't be able to win it without black and brown voters. Too often your loyalty, your support, your commitment to this party have been taken for granted. I have never once in my career, since I got involved as a kid, taken it for granted. And I give you my word as a Biden: I never, ever, ever will. Now, if you want to know what any other candidates are gonna do in the future, the tendency is to look at the past. 212956 Well, I left the law firm when I was a kid with a great job and a fancy law firm, and to become a public defender -- to fight for the people in the community I used to work in, in the East side because they couldn't afford a lawyer. On the county council, I fought against red lining. In the U.S. Senate, I passed the extension of the Voting Rights Act for two decades. The Violence Against Women Act and, by the way, I had the back of a great president named Barack Obama for eight years. Beating Trump in November 214238 We got to heal this country, and we have to do the same kind of courage and conviction. And by the way, I'm no Nelson Mandela. I'm not making that comparison. But his heart. His heart. All you ministers know what I'm talking about. His heart. 214255 It's not enough just to fight. We got to heal. And the country so desperately needs it. Folks, that's the kind of courage and conviction we need to end the Trump era and move this nation forward to a more perfect union. I know this is going to be the fight of my life, but as the old song goes. Lord, don't move my mountain, give me the ability to climb. 214322 I can't do it alone. I need your help to climb that mountain. And together we're going to beat Donald Trump. FULL TRINT [21:26:02] Great to be with you all tonight. All of you have been here tonight. You know, I hope you I hope you love me as much as I love you guys. [21:26:11] I've been coming here a long time. When I die, I want to be reborn in Charleston, actually. [21:26:18] I like the low country. You know what I mean? [21:26:23] Work. I hope. [21:26:26] Thank you. Please sit down if you have a seat. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [21:26:31] I am. I'm Joe Biden's husband. I work for Cedric Richmond. [21:26:38] And David Mack is taking me to school. [21:26:43] Well, look, I know some of the other senators came over. They came up to see me. They're in session right now. And I thank them for making the effort. There's so many people here for me to say thank you. Thank you, thank you. So I just spoke to our folks up and up in New Hampshire, and they did a good job of I want to tell you, the people of Nevada are watching. [21:27:05] And I want to make it clear we praise their diversity as a state. And I'm going to be out there seeing them very soon. Tonight, though, I we just heard from the first two of 50 states, too. Not all the nation. [21:27:20] Not half the nation, not a quarter of the nation, not 10 percent to two. All right. [21:27:28] Come from that's the opening bell, not the closing bell. [21:27:33] And the fight to end Donald Trump's presidency is just beginning. [21:27:37] Yes, about. Thank you. 212747 It is important that Iowa and Nevada have spoken. But look, we need to hear from Nevada and South Carolina and Super Tuesday states and beyond. Look, we're moving into an especially important phase because up till now, we haven't heard from the most committed constituency in the Democratic Party -- the African-American community. And the fast--- and the fastest growing segment of society, the Latino community. I want y'all to think of a number -- ninety nine point nine percent. 212818 That's the percentage of African-American voters who have not yet had a chance to vote in America. One more number, ninety nine point eight. That's the percent of Latino voters who haven't had a chance to vote. So, when you hear all these pundits and experts,cable TV talkers talk about the race, tell them "it ain't over, man. We're just getting started. Our votes count, too." [cheers] [21:28:47] We're not glad he won't take his election away, if you mean look, I've said many times it can't be the Democratic nominee and you can't win a general election as Democrat unless you have overwhelming support from black and brown voters. It's just really simple. No, it's a natural fact. It's true. It's absolutely true. And folks, you know, all those Democrats who won against incumbents from Jimmy Carter to a guy named Clinton. Their guy name Obama. My good friend. Guess what? [21:29:17] They had overwhelming African-American support. Without it. Nobody's ever won. No, really. And you know, you own my heart. Look, more important, should you not win the Democratic nomination for president? 212931 You shouldn't be able to win it without black and brown voters. Too often your loyalty, your support, your commitment to this party have been taken for granted. I have never once in my career, since I got involved as a kid, taken it for granted. And I give you my word as a Biden: I never, ever, ever will. Now, if you want to know what any other candidates are gonna do in the future, the tendency is to look at the past. 212956 Well, I left the law firm when I was a kid with a great job and a fancy law firm, and to become a public defender -- to fight for the people in the community I used to work in, in the East side because they couldn't afford a lawyer. On the county council, I fought against red lining. In the U.S. Senate, I passed the extension of the Voting Rights Act for two decades. The Violence Against Women Act and, by the way, I had the back of a great president named Barack Obama for eight years. [21:30:26] By the way, we increased access to capital for African-American entrepreneurs. Let's get some straight. Given a chance, they do just as well as anybody else and quite frankly, better. And they build the neighborhoods. They build all communities. [21:30:43] Black and I regular reduce the federal population and speak in HPC use. [21:30:48] I got 70 billion dollars coming HPC use, not a joke. Minority universe is look, we saved the automobile industry, passed Obamacare, we stopped insurance coverage of discriminating against people with preexisting conditions. And on top of all that, we build an economy that Trump is bragging about. This guy squandered his father's fortune, norways squandered economy we gave. [21:31:17] They all think I'm kidding. I'm not serve as a president. [21:31:22] Instead of talking about impeachment, Barack Obama, you should be saying thank you, President Obama. [21:31:31] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [21:31:34] But folks, look, we have so much more to do. I promise you, as your president, you will be partners at shaping the policy to make sure every single American has an opportunity. The thing that I've never liked and I was chairman of Judiciary Committee for years. I don't know what you need best. I listen, you all the leaders in the black community know what you need best. We don't listen enough. We take for granted. You know what you need. You know what your families need. And I've never not listened to you. First, we need to defend and build on Obamacare. Trump wants to get rid of it. [21:32:12] Even some of the folks in my own outfit in the primary, I want to take it away, but I'll never let that happen. I was proud to serve as President Obama's vise president, great years with the honor of my life, and he'd become a close personal friend, the whole family's been. Matter of fact, our granddaughters and his daughters are best buddies. [21:32:36] They went to school together for twelve years in the same small club. Well, actually, 10 years. But they're still hanging out with one another, even though they go to different schools. Where are you? I'm up in Michigan State University, Michigan. What are you doing there? I came up to see me, you know. Anyway, all I know is I get to pay for the plane ticket anyway. But I was never prouder than the day that we passed Obamacare. And here's we're gonna do. We're gonna expand. We're gonna limit. We're gonna get rid of all the executive orders that have curtailed it. [21:33:09] We're gonna increase funding into research for finding cures to. Families are dealing with cancer, diabetes, African-Americans, maternal health disparities. [21:33:21] Look at them in the United States of America today. [21:33:25] Today, there's an incredible disparity. It's it's sinful. It's sinful. [21:33:31] It's an indictment of the entire system. And by the way, you all know education is a great equalizer. We need to treat it that way. Every child has the same capacity when they're born. Every one of them have the same capacity. Every child deserves a great education, no matter what your zip code or your income level. I put my wanted where our mouth is. We're gonna triple Title 1 funding to give our teachers the pay raise they need. Make sure every every three, by the way, we're losing. [21:34:01] We already are. One hundred fifteen thousand teachers short by twenty twenty five you can be a quarter million short. And who's gonna get short? The people that you darn right they are. And look, we're gonna give every teacher a pay raise and to do that's going to continue the criminal justice reform that President Obama and I started. We're gonna end all private practice and. [21:34:24] And no far jail time for addiction. You go into mandatory treatment, build more treatment facilities, that prison system to make sure marijuana convictions there are entire records expunged. [21:34:39] So when asked why a job application? Have you ever been arrested, you be able to say legally? No, I have not. Folks, folks, let's think about this. There's so much. And by the way, all these states that are out there legalizing marijuana and legalizing medical use of it, we should take a big chunk of those profits and put end into prison reform and treatment, treatment, treatment, treatment. [21:35:04] Look, just as important, we have to be a country of second chances, for God's sake. No, think about it. We all talk about second chance. What do we do? [21:35:12] Someone gets out of prison or gets out of a tough spot. We say you're denied all the things that can help you from returning your communities. You're going to even twenty five bucks in a bus ticket. You end up under a bridge. We need to eliminate all those barriers to success. We've got to make sure all the collateral consequences are eliminated. Look, people coming out of prison and people coming back from serving their time. People coming back out to recovery. They should be able to get Pell Grants, as, you know, housing. They should ever get all the things that give me a chance. [21:35:43] And while they're there, we should be teaching them skills. It makes no sense. [21:35:48] It makes no sense to keep it a penal system. Look, we're a great country with great people. We're the greatest workers in the world. But you should be paid like we're the greatest workers. The background I come from not dissimilar, except it was he's in Louisiana, I was in Pennsylvania, in Scranton. I have too many families working their tails off just to make men's meet. Too many people I know. Didn't my dad do you know? Now, here in South Carolina, may I call that longest walk up a short flight of stairs and tell their son or daughters. Honey. So we can't live here anymore. [21:36:26] Daddy, mommy, don't have a job. You're gonna go home all of a grandpa for a while. But I'm gonna I'm gonna make it. We're gonna be able to do it. And I'll come back and I'll make sure when I'm able to get a place, we'll bring all together again. People having trouble keeping the roofs over the heads. When my dad walked up those stairs, he remembers. Twenty four. Forty six North Washington having I'm doing in Scranton. [21:36:45] I was in third grade and he looked at me. He said, I promise you it's gonna be all right. He believed it was. He believed it. And he was right. Because then if you took a shot, you got a chance. You're able to do it today. Think of all the people who can't look at their kids and say it's gonna do we're gonna be able to do it because the deck is stacked the way it is today. I mean, it really genuinely is. We have two thirds we have over 50 percent of all people who are working class and middle class think their children will never achieve the same standing they had. What a God awful conflict, you know? [21:37:19] Yeah. Yeah. [21:37:21] Just makes me mad. [21:37:24] Look, we're going to invest in our families and our communities. We're going to invest in roads and bridges, broadband water systems, school buildings, rural infrastructure. [21:37:33] We're going to invest in Jim Clyburn's 10, 20, 30 plan to get finally to those areas that we're being left behind. [21:37:41] The bulk of what needs to be done, by the way, I make no apology to anybody for it. [21:37:49] It's the nature of everybody, the wealthy, the semi wealthy, the middle class, the work that everybody does better when they do everything works for everybody. Everything. [21:38:01] We've got to make sure black and brown families and businesses have the same sort that can do to accumulate wealth. [21:38:09] Look, folks, you live in a black neighborhood. You had the same exact house. A guy lives across the highway on up in a white neighborhood, same exact house, same condition. Yours is valued at less. You pay more for insurance. [21:38:23] How do you get a chance to accumulate wealth? [21:38:26] Well, I'll tell you what. That's not how you're going to fulfill the dreams. I really mean it. You know, we're not going to invest in six. These tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. The system's already rigged in their favor. That one point nine trillion dollars a chump gave way to the top 2 percent. We're going to invest in families instead. [21:38:50] I really mean it. I've done it. [21:38:52] There is no limit to what we can get done in the next four years. But first, we have to beat Donald Trump. [21:39:03] Folks, folks, I believe, or I said it when those folks came out of those fields carrying those torches and I thought I'd see it. [21:39:13] But those folks came out of those fields in Charlottesville. Close your eyes and what you saw on television. Coming out of those fields, their veins bulging, screeching, hate carrying Nazi banners accompanied by the Ku Klux Klan. They heard this chanting the same anti-Semitic bile that was chanted in the streets of Germany in the thirties. Literally the exact same. Exact same. That's a day. Jillian, I know and quite frankly, my grandchildren knew we had no choice but to run because this president is breeding hate mongers. [21:39:52] I thought when I was waiting in Wilmington, Delaware, for a black man to come 28 miles from Philadelphia to pick me up on a train to take me one hundred and twenty seven miles to Washington, D.C., we'd finally turned a corner. What I learned is I thought I I'd been deeply involved all my life, but I learned hape that never go away. [21:40:14] It just hides. It just hides. [21:40:18] And folks, this president has done nothing but breathe oxygen into that hate and bring them out from under the rocks at his beloved rallies. [21:40:28] He spreads the missing that the message of prejudice and division in the White House. He welcomes the NRA, the gun manufacturers. And while our kids are being gunned down on the streets, in the corners, in our schools. They'll really. I mean, think about how depraved that is right now across this nation. He has 35 states suppressing the vote primarily to keep black folks and brown folks from voting. But keep anybody from voting. [21:40:59] Enough is enough is enough. It has to stop. [21:41:06] Look, folks, I spent my whole life fighting for civil rights, voting rights, social justice, economic justice. And that's what I'll do when I'm your president. This day, 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and entered into discussions about apartheid. I had the great honor of meeting him, the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of psuedo trying to get to see him on Robben Island. [21:41:32] When he came to the United States, when he came to the White House, to the Senate, I was chairman of the committee and he walked in. And most incredible thing I've ever felt my life. He walked across in that private room with a big table we have in the executive room. [21:41:47] And he walked over and I said, Mr. President, you mean I said, thank you. Thank you for trying to come and see me. This the most Christlike guy ever met. He's an incredible man. Imagine what it would have been. [21:42:00] Had anybody else come back. He kept everybody expecting any other leader would have generated bloodshed, would have there would have been chaos. But what did you do? [21:42:13] He's the example that I think we have to look at. [21:42:16] You know, when they asked me, am I going to hold a grudge yet with Trump, what he's trying to do to my only living son, to going after me with lies and all the rest? Well, you know, what I said is it's not about me and my son. It makes me angry. [21:42:32] But presidents presidents can't just fight. They got to heal. 214238 We got to heal this country, and we have to do the same kind of courage and conviction. And by the way, I'm no Nelson Mandela. I'm not making that comparison. But his heart. His heart. All you ministers know what I'm talking about. His heart. 214255 It's not enough just to fight. We got to heal. And the country so desperately needs it. Folks, that's the kind of courage and conviction we need to end the Trump era and move this nation forward to a more perfect union. I know this is going to be the fight of my life, but as the old song goes. Lord, don't move my mountain, give me the ability to climb. 214322 I can't do it alone. I need your help to climb that mountain. And together we're going to beat Donald Trump. so we can chip in and support those of us in this chip in and support our campaign. Text, Joe. [21:43:35] Two, three. You screwed me. I got to get this right, Joe. 2 3 0 3 3 0. [21:43:43] All right. Let's get to work. Thank you. May God bless you all. May God protect our troops. [21:43:49] Let's go do this. Named.

5587 3920 JOE BIDEN COLUMBIA SC NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY REMARKS POOL 021120 2020 P2 COLUMBIA, SC-Former Vice President Joe Biden took the floor in South Carolina and made it clear: He thinks this race is anything but over, even with disappointing finishes in the first two voting states. "It is important that Iowa and Nevada have spoken. But look, we need to hear from Nevada and South Carolina and Super Tuesday states and beyond. Look, we're moving into an especially important phase because up till now, we haven't heard from the most committed constituency in the Democratic Party -- the African-American community. And the fast--- and the fastest growing segment of society, the Latino community. I want y'all to think of a number -- ninety nine point nine percent." (212747) "That's the percentage of African-American voters who have not yet had a chance to vote in America. One more number, ninety nine point eight. That's the percent of Latino voters who haven't had a chance to vote. So, when you hear all these pundits and experts,cable TV talkers talk about the race, tell them "it ain't over, man. We're just getting started. Our votes count, too." [cheers] (212818) Biden expressed his excitement to be in South Carolina, telling the crowd that he hoped they love him as much as he loves them. "I've been coming here a long time. When I die, I want to be reborn in Charleston," Biden said (21:26:11) The former Vice President leaned in hard to his message that you have the hear from all communities within the country before any decisions can be made, "Look, we're moving in an especially important phase because up till now, we haven't heard from the most committed constituency in the Democratic Party. The African-American community. And the fast and the fastest growing segment of society, the Latino community. Watch out. Think of a number ninety nine point nine percent. That's the percentage of African-American voters who have not yet had a chance to vote in America. One more. Ninety nine point eight. That's the percent of Latino voters every night. A chance to vote. So when you hear all these pundits and experts and cable TV talkers talked about the race. Tell them it ain't over, man. We're just getting started. Our votes count, too. (21:27:46) Biden once again pressed on the idea that the Democratic Party should not have a nominee that does not win a broad coalition of support-pledging that if he were the nominee, support from African American and Latino communities would not be taken for granted. "You shouldn't be able to win it without black and brown voters. Too often your loyalty, your support, your commitment to this party have been taken for granted. I have never once in my career, since I got involved as a kid, taken it for granted. And I give you my word as a Biden: I never, ever, ever will." (212931) There were several notable focuses in Biden's remarks that we've heard from him in the past, but were not included in his stump speeches in Iowa and New Hampshire-clearly tailoring his message for the Palmetto State. Biden touted his time served alongside Barack Obama in the White House, calling it the greatest honor of his life to serve alongside him, and telling the crowd their families were still close friends, saying he "pays for the plane ticket" when his granddaughters want to go visit their best friends, the Obama girls Biden also focused on criminal justice reform and increasing equality for all Americans-issues we have not often brought up in the two states that have voted. And as Michael Bloomberg is facing increased scrutiny for his comments on his controversial 'stop and frisk' program, Biden said that voters should look to each candidates past to see what they would do while in office, expanding on his own record "Now, if you want to know what any other candidates are gonna do in the future, the tendency is to look at the past. Well, I left the law firm when I was a kid with a great job and a fancy law firm, and to become a public defender -- to fight for the people in the community I used to work in, in the East side because they couldn't afford a lawyer. On the county council, I fought against red lining. In the U.S. Senate, I passed the extension of the Voting Rights Act for two decades. The Violence Against Women Act and, by the way, I had the back of a great president named Barack Obama for eight years." (212956) Biden closed out his remarks on a hopeful message we've heard before-arguing that the next president needs to heal the country, a undertaking he was not underselling "It's not enough just to fight. We got to heal. And the country so desperately needs it. Folks, that's the kind of courage and conviction we need to end the Trump era and move this nation forward to a more perfect union. I know this is going to be the fight of my life, but as the old song goes. Lord, don't move my mountain, give me the ability to climb. I can't do it alone. I need your help to climb that mountain. And together we're going to beat Donald Trump." Biden said (214255) After the event, Biden worked the rope line quickly, trying to make it to an affiliate interview. The former Vice President Shouted several questions from the press about his failure to receive any delegates in New Hampshire this evening. Biden was introduced at the event by Dr. Jill Biden and Rep. Cedric Richmond, who both gave brief remarks. Jill credited the state with helping their family heal after they spent time here following the loss of their son Beau. Dr. Biden said that while Iowa and New Hampshire had their say, it was now South Carolina's turn to speak, calling it a "clean slate' for her husband. COLOR/EDIT: The room in South Carolina was very warm for Biden tonight. The crowd was diverse-both in age and race, and the room was full despite the event only being officially announced less than 12 hours prior, and could be heard audibly agreeing with Biden as he made his points throughout his remarks. As Eva Pilgrim noted-there was a lightness and excitement to the air in Columbia-one that we did not feel throughout Iowa and New Hampshire. 5587 3920 JOE BIDEN COLUMBIA SC NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY REMARKS POOL 021120 2020 HIGHLIGHTS New Hamp 212655 So, I just spoke to our folks up in -- up in New Hampshire, and they did a good job, but I want to tell ya. The people of Nevada are watching, and I want to make it clear, we praise their diversity as a state and I'm gonna be out there seeing them very soon. Tonight, though, I -- we just heard from the first two of the 50 states. Two of 'em. Not all the nation, not half the nation, not a quarter of the nation, not 10% -- 2! 212726 Two! Now, where I come from that's the opening bell, not the closing bell. And the fight to end Donald Trump's presidency is just beginning [cheers] just beginning. Thank you. [crowd chanting "Joe"] 212747 It is important that Iowa and Nevada have spoken. But look, we need to hear from Nevada and South Carolina and Super Tuesday states and beyond. Look, we're moving into an especially important phase because up till now, we haven't heard from the most committed constituency in the Democratic Party -- the African-American community. And the fast--- and the fastest growing segment of society, the Latino community. I want y'all to think of a number -- ninety nine point nine percent. 212818 That's the percentage of African-American voters who have not yet had a chance to vote in America. One more number, ninety nine point eight. That's the percent of Latino voters who haven't had a chance to vote. So, when you hear all these pundits and experts,cable TV talkers talk about the race, tell them "it ain't over, man. We're just getting started. Our votes count, too." [cheers] An Ally to Communities of Color 212931 You shouldn't be able to win it without black and brown voters. Too often your loyalty, your support, your commitment to this party have been taken for granted. I have never once in my career, since I got involved as a kid, taken it for granted. And I give you my word as a Biden: I never, ever, ever will. Now, if you want to know what any other candidates are gonna do in the future, the tendency is to look at the past. 212956 Well, I left the law firm when I was a kid with a great job and a fancy law firm, and to become a public defender -- to fight for the people in the community I used to work in, in the East side because they couldn't afford a lawyer. On the county council, I fought against red lining. In the U.S. Senate, I passed the extension of the Voting Rights Act for two decades. The Violence Against Women Act and, by the way, I had the back of a great president named Barack Obama for eight years. Beating Trump in November 214238 We got to heal this country, and we have to do the same kind of courage and conviction. And by the way, I'm no Nelson Mandela. I'm not making that comparison. But his heart. His heart. All you ministers know what I'm talking about. His heart. 214255 It's not enough just to fight. We got to heal. And the country so desperately needs it. Folks, that's the kind of courage and conviction we need to end the Trump era and move this nation forward to a more perfect union. I know this is going to be the fight of my life, but as the old song goes. Lord, don't move my mountain, give me the ability to climb. 214322 I can't do it alone. I need your help to climb that mountain. And together we're going to beat Donald Trump. FULL TRINT [21:26:02] Great to be with you all tonight. All of you have been here tonight. You know, I hope you I hope you love me as much as I love you guys. [21:26:11] I've been coming here a long time. When I die, I want to be reborn in Charleston, actually. [21:26:18] I like the low country. You know what I mean? [21:26:23] Work. I hope. [21:26:26] Thank you. Please sit down if you have a seat. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [21:26:31] I am. I'm Joe Biden's husband. I work for Cedric Richmond. [21:26:38] And David Mack is taking me to school. [21:26:43] Well, look, I know some of the other senators came over. They came up to see me. They're in session right now. And I thank them for making the effort. There's so many people here for me to say thank you. Thank you, thank you. So I just spoke to our folks up and up in New Hampshire, and they did a good job of I want to tell you, the people of Nevada are watching. [21:27:05] And I want to make it clear we praise their diversity as a state. And I'm going to be out there seeing them very soon. Tonight, though, I we just heard from the first two of 50 states, too. Not all the nation. [21:27:20] Not half the nation, not a quarter of the nation, not 10 percent to two. All right. [21:27:28] Come from that's the opening bell, not the closing bell. [21:27:33] And the fight to end Donald Trump's presidency is just beginning. [21:27:37] Yes, about. Thank you. 212747 It is important that Iowa and Nevada have spoken. But look, we need to hear from Nevada and South Carolina and Super Tuesday states and beyond. Look, we're moving into an especially important phase because up till now, we haven't heard from the most committed constituency in the Democratic Party -- the African-American community. And the fast--- and the fastest growing segment of society, the Latino community. I want y'all to think of a number -- ninety nine point nine percent. 212818 That's the percentage of African-American voters who have not yet had a chance to vote in America. One more number, ninety nine point eight. That's the percent of Latino voters who haven't had a chance to vote. So, when you hear all these pundits and experts,cable TV talkers talk about the race, tell them "it ain't over, man. We're just getting started. Our votes count, too." [cheers] [21:28:47] We're not glad he won't take his election away, if you mean look, I've said many times it can't be the Democratic nominee and you can't win a general election as Democrat unless you have overwhelming support from black and brown voters. It's just really simple. No, it's a natural fact. It's true. It's absolutely true. And folks, you know, all those Democrats who won against incumbents from Jimmy Carter to a guy named Clinton. Their guy name Obama. My good friend. Guess what? [21:29:17] They had overwhelming African-American support. Without it. Nobody's ever won. No, really. And you know, you own my heart. Look, more important, should you not win the Democratic nomination for president? 212931 You shouldn't be able to win it without black and brown voters. Too often your loyalty, your support, your commitment to this party have been taken for granted. I have never once in my career, since I got involved as a kid, taken it for granted. And I give you my word as a Biden: I never, ever, ever will. Now, if you want to know what any other candidates are gonna do in the future, the tendency is to look at the past. 212956 Well, I left the law firm when I was a kid with a great job and a fancy law firm, and to become a public defender -- to fight for the people in the community I used to work in, in the East side because they couldn't afford a lawyer. On the county council, I fought against red lining. In the U.S. Senate, I passed the extension of the Voting Rights Act for two decades. The Violence Against Women Act and, by the way, I had the back of a great president named Barack Obama for eight years. [21:30:26] By the way, we increased access to capital for African-American entrepreneurs. Let's get some straight. Given a chance, they do just as well as anybody else and quite frankly, better. And they build the neighborhoods. They build all communities. [21:30:43] Black and I regular reduce the federal population and speak in HPC use. [21:30:48] I got 70 billion dollars coming HPC use, not a joke. Minority universe is look, we saved the automobile industry, passed Obamacare, we stopped insurance coverage of discriminating against people with preexisting conditions. And on top of all that, we build an economy that Trump is bragging about. This guy squandered his father's fortune, norways squandered economy we gave. [21:31:17] They all think I'm kidding. I'm not serve as a president. [21:31:22] Instead of talking about impeachment, Barack Obama, you should be saying thank you, President Obama. [21:31:31] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [21:31:34] But folks, look, we have so much more to do. I promise you, as your president, you will be partners at shaping the policy to make sure every single American has an opportunity. The thing that I've never liked and I was chairman of Judiciary Committee for years. I don't know what you need best. I listen, you all the leaders in the black community know what you need best. We don't listen enough. We take for granted. You know what you need. You know what your families need. And I've never not listened to you. First, we need to defend and build on Obamacare. Trump wants to get rid of it. [21:32:12] Even some of the folks in my own outfit in the primary, I want to take it away, but I'll never let that happen. I was proud to serve as President Obama's vise president, great years with the honor of my life, and he'd become a close personal friend, the whole family's been. Matter of fact, our granddaughters and his daughters are best buddies. [21:32:36] They went to school together for twelve years in the same small club. Well, actually, 10 years. But they're still hanging out with one another, even though they go to different schools. Where are you? I'm up in Michigan State University, Michigan. What are you doing there? I came up to see me, you know. Anyway, all I know is I get to pay for the plane ticket anyway. But I was never prouder than the day that we passed Obamacare. And here's we're gonna do. We're gonna expand. We're gonna limit. We're gonna get rid of all the executive orders that have curtailed it. [21:33:09] We're gonna increase funding into research for finding cures to. Families are dealing with cancer, diabetes, African-Americans, maternal health disparities. [21:33:21] Look at them in the United States of America today. [21:33:25] Today, there's an incredible disparity. It's it's sinful. It's sinful. [21:33:31] It's an indictment of the entire system. And by the way, you all know education is a great equalizer. We need to treat it that way. Every child has the same capacity when they're born. Every one of them have the same capacity. Every child deserves a great education, no matter what your zip code or your income level. I put my wanted where our mouth is. We're gonna triple Title 1 funding to give our teachers the pay raise they need. Make sure every every three, by the way, we're losing. [21:34:01] We already are. One hundred fifteen thousand teachers short by twenty twenty five you can be a quarter million short. And who's gonna get short? The people that you darn right they are. And look, we're gonna give every teacher a pay raise and to do that's going to continue the criminal justice reform that President Obama and I started. We're gonna end all private practice and. [21:34:24] And no far jail time for addiction. You go into mandatory treatment, build more treatment facilities, that prison system to make sure marijuana convictions there are entire records expunged. [21:34:39] So when asked why a job application? Have you ever been arrested, you be able to say legally? No, I have not. Folks, folks, let's think about this. There's so much. And by the way, all these states that are out there legalizing marijuana and legalizing medical use of it, we should take a big chunk of those profits and put end into prison reform and treatment, treatment, treatment, treatment. [21:35:04] Look, just as important, we have to be a country of second chances, for God's sake. No, think about it. We all talk about second chance. What do we do? [21:35:12] Someone gets out of prison or gets out of a tough spot. We say you're denied all the things that can help you from returning your communities. You're going to even twenty five bucks in a bus ticket. You end up under a bridge. We need to eliminate all those barriers to success. We've got to make sure all the collateral consequences are eliminated. Look, people coming out of prison and people coming back from serving their time. People coming back out to recovery. They should be able to get Pell Grants, as, you know, housing. They should ever get all the things that give me a chance. [21:35:43] And while they're there, we should be teaching them skills. It makes no sense. [21:35:48] It makes no sense to keep it a penal system. Look, we're a great country with great people. We're the greatest workers in the world. But you should be paid like we're the greatest workers. The background I come from not dissimilar, except it was he's in Louisiana, I was in Pennsylvania, in Scranton. I have too many families working their tails off just to make men's meet. Too many people I know. Didn't my dad do you know? Now, here in South Carolina, may I call that longest walk up a short flight of stairs and tell their son or daughters. Honey. So we can't live here anymore. [21:36:26] Daddy, mommy, don't have a job. You're gonna go home all of a grandpa for a while. But I'm gonna I'm gonna make it. We're gonna be able to do it. And I'll come back and I'll make sure when I'm able to get a place, we'll bring all together again. People having trouble keeping the roofs over the heads. When my dad walked up those stairs, he remembers. Twenty four. Forty six North Washington having I'm doing in Scranton. [21:36:45] I was in third grade and he looked at me. He said, I promise you it's gonna be all right. He believed it was. He believed it. And he was right. Because then if you took a shot, you got a chance. You're able to do it today. Think of all the people who can't look at their kids and say it's gonna do we're gonna be able to do it because the deck is stacked the way it is today. I mean, it really genuinely is. We have two thirds we have over 50 percent of all people who are working class and middle class think their children will never achieve the same standing they had. What a God awful conflict, you know? [21:37:19] Yeah. Yeah. [21:37:21] Just makes me mad. [21:37:24] Look, we're going to invest in our families and our communities. We're going to invest in roads and bridges, broadband water systems, school buildings, rural infrastructure. [21:37:33] We're going to invest in Jim Clyburn's 10, 20, 30 plan to get finally to those areas that we're being left behind. [21:37:41] The bulk of what needs to be done, by the way, I make no apology to anybody for it. [21:37:49] It's the nature of everybody, the wealthy, the semi wealthy, the middle class, the work that everybody does better when they do everything works for everybody. Everything. [21:38:01] We've got to make sure black and brown families and businesses have the same sort that can do to accumulate wealth. [21:38:09] Look, folks, you live in a black neighborhood. You had the same exact house. A guy lives across the highway on up in a white neighborhood, same exact house, same condition. Yours is valued at less. You pay more for insurance. [21:38:23] How do you get a chance to accumulate wealth? [21:38:26] Well, I'll tell you what. That's not how you're going to fulfill the dreams. I really mean it. You know, we're not going to invest in six. These tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. The system's already rigged in their favor. That one point nine trillion dollars a chump gave way to the top 2 percent. We're going to invest in families instead. [21:38:50] I really mean it. I've done it. [21:38:52] There is no limit to what we can get done in the next four years. But first, we have to beat Donald Trump. [21:39:03] Folks, folks, I believe, or I said it when those folks came out of those fields carrying those torches and I thought I'd see it. [21:39:13] But those folks came out of those fields in Charlottesville. Close your eyes and what you saw on television. Coming out of those fields, their veins bulging, screeching, hate carrying Nazi banners accompanied by the Ku Klux Klan. They heard this chanting the same anti-Semitic bile that was chanted in the streets of Germany in the thirties. Literally the exact same. Exact same. That's a day. Jillian, I know and quite frankly, my grandchildren knew we had no choice but to run because this president is breeding hate mongers. [21:39:52] I thought when I was waiting in Wilmington, Delaware, for a black man to come 28 miles from Philadelphia to pick me up on a train to take me one hundred and twenty seven miles to Washington, D.C., we'd finally turned a corner. What I learned is I thought I I'd been deeply involved all my life, but I learned hape that never go away. [21:40:14] It just hides. It just hides. [21:40:18] And folks, this president has done nothing but breathe oxygen into that hate and bring them out from under the rocks at his beloved rallies. [21:40:28] He spreads the missing that the message of prejudice and division in the White House. He welcomes the NRA, the gun manufacturers. And while our kids are being gunned down on the streets, in the corners, in our schools. They'll really. I mean, think about how depraved that is right now across this nation. He has 35 states suppressing the vote primarily to keep black folks and brown folks from voting. But keep anybody from voting. [21:40:59] Enough is enough is enough. It has to stop. [21:41:06] Look, folks, I spent my whole life fighting for civil rights, voting rights, social justice, economic justice. And that's what I'll do when I'm your president. This day, 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and entered into discussions about apartheid. I had the great honor of meeting him, the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of psuedo trying to get to see him on Robben Island. [21:41:32] When he came to the United States, when he came to the White House, to the Senate, I was chairman of the committee and he walked in. And most incredible thing I've ever felt my life. He walked across in that private room with a big table we have in the executive room. [21:41:47] And he walked over and I said, Mr. President, you mean I said, thank you. Thank you for trying to come and see me. This the most Christlike guy ever met. He's an incredible man. Imagine what it would have been. [21:42:00] Had anybody else come back. He kept everybody expecting any other leader would have generated bloodshed, would have there would have been chaos. But what did you do? [21:42:13] He's the example that I think we have to look at. [21:42:16] You know, when they asked me, am I going to hold a grudge yet with Trump, what he's trying to do to my only living son, to going after me with lies and all the rest? Well, you know, what I said is it's not about me and my son. It makes me angry. [21:42:32] But presidents presidents can't just fight. They got to heal. 214238 We got to heal this country, and we have to do the same kind of courage and conviction. And by the way, I'm no Nelson Mandela. I'm not making that comparison. But his heart. His heart. All you ministers know what I'm talking about. His heart. 214255 It's not enough just to fight. We got to heal. And the country so desperately needs it. Folks, that's the kind of courage and conviction we need to end the Trump era and move this nation forward to a more perfect union. I know this is going to be the fight of my life, but as the old song goes. Lord, don't move my mountain, give me the ability to climb. 214322 I can't do it alone. I need your help to climb that mountain. And together we're going to beat Donald Trump. so we can chip in and support those of us in this chip in and support our campaign. Text, Joe. [21:43:35] Two, three. You screwed me. I got to get this right, Joe. 2 3 0 3 3 0. [21:43:43] All right. Let's get to work. Thank you. May God bless you all. May God protect our troops. [21:43:49] Let's go do this. Named.

5587 3920 JOE BIDEN COLUMBIA SC NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY REMARKS POOL 021120 2020 COLUMBIA, SC-Former Vice President Joe Biden took the floor in South Carolina and made it clear: He thinks this race is anything but over, even with disappointing finishes in the first two voting states. "It is important that Iowa and Nevada have spoken. But look, we need to hear from Nevada and South Carolina and Super Tuesday states and beyond. Look, we're moving into an especially important phase because up till now, we haven't heard from the most committed constituency in the Democratic Party -- the African-American community. And the fast--- and the fastest growing segment of society, the Latino community. I want y'all to think of a number -- ninety nine point nine percent." (212747) "That's the percentage of African-American voters who have not yet had a chance to vote in America. One more number, ninety nine point eight. That's the percent of Latino voters who haven't had a chance to vote. So, when you hear all these pundits and experts,cable TV talkers talk about the race, tell them "it ain't over, man. We're just getting started. Our votes count, too." [cheers] (212818) Biden expressed his excitement to be in South Carolina, telling the crowd that he hoped they love him as much as he loves them. "I've been coming here a long time. When I die, I want to be reborn in Charleston," Biden said (21:26:11) The former Vice President leaned in hard to his message that you have the hear from all communities within the country before any decisions can be made, "Look, we're moving in an especially important phase because up till now, we haven't heard from the most committed constituency in the Democratic Party. The African-American community. And the fast and the fastest growing segment of society, the Latino community. Watch out. Think of a number ninety nine point nine percent. That's the percentage of African-American voters who have not yet had a chance to vote in America. One more. Ninety nine point eight. That's the percent of Latino voters every night. A chance to vote. So when you hear all these pundits and experts and cable TV talkers talked about the race. Tell them it ain't over, man. We're just getting started. Our votes count, too. (21:27:46) Biden once again pressed on the idea that the Democratic Party should not have a nominee that does not win a broad coalition of support-pledging that if he were the nominee, support from African American and Latino communities would not be taken for granted. "You shouldn't be able to win it without black and brown voters. Too often your loyalty, your support, your commitment to this party have been taken for granted. I have never once in my career, since I got involved as a kid, taken it for granted. And I give you my word as a Biden: I never, ever, ever will." (212931) There were several notable focuses in Biden's remarks that we've heard from him in the past, but were not included in his stump speeches in Iowa and New Hampshire-clearly tailoring his message for the Palmetto State. Biden touted his time served alongside Barack Obama in the White House, calling it the greatest honor of his life to serve alongside him, and telling the crowd their families were still close friends, saying he "pays for the plane ticket" when his granddaughters want to go visit their best friends, the Obama girls Biden also focused on criminal justice reform and increasing equality for all Americans-issues we have not often brought up in the two states that have voted. And as Michael Bloomberg is facing increased scrutiny for his comments on his controversial 'stop and frisk' program, Biden said that voters should look to each candidates past to see what they would do while in office, expanding on his own record "Now, if you want to know what any other candidates are gonna do in the future, the tendency is to look at the past. Well, I left the law firm when I was a kid with a great job and a fancy law firm, and to become a public defender -- to fight for the people in the community I used to work in, in the East side because they couldn't afford a lawyer. On the county council, I fought against red lining. In the U.S. Senate, I passed the extension of the Voting Rights Act for two decades. The Violence Against Women Act and, by the way, I had the back of a great president named Barack Obama for eight years." (212956) Biden closed out his remarks on a hopeful message we've heard before-arguing that the next president needs to heal the country, a undertaking he was not underselling "It's not enough just to fight. We got to heal. And the country so desperately needs it. Folks, that's the kind of courage and conviction we need to end the Trump era and move this nation forward to a more perfect union. I know this is going to be the fight of my life, but as the old song goes. Lord, don't move my mountain, give me the ability to climb. I can't do it alone. I need your help to climb that mountain. And together we're going to beat Donald Trump." Biden said (214255) After the event, Biden worked the rope line quickly, trying to make it to an affiliate interview. The former Vice President Shouted several questions from the press about his failure to receive any delegates in New Hampshire this evening. Biden was introduced at the event by Dr. Jill Biden and Rep. Cedric Richmond, who both gave brief remarks. Jill credited the state with helping their family heal after they spent time here following the loss of their son Beau. Dr. Biden said that while Iowa and New Hampshire had their say, it was now South Carolina's turn to speak, calling it a "clean slate' for her husband. COLOR/EDIT: The room in South Carolina was very warm for Biden tonight. The crowd was diverse-both in age and race, and the room was full despite the event only being officially announced less than 12 hours prior, and could be heard audibly agreeing with Biden as he made his points throughout his remarks. As Eva Pilgrim noted-there was a lightness and excitement to the air in Columbia-one that we did not feel throughout Iowa and New Hampshire. 5587 3920 JOE BIDEN COLUMBIA SC NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY REMARKS POOL 021120 2020 HIGHLIGHTS New Hamp 212655 So, I just spoke to our folks up in -- up in New Hampshire, and they did a good job, but I want to tell ya. The people of Nevada are watching, and I want to make it clear, we praise their diversity as a state and I'm gonna be out there seeing them very soon. Tonight, though, I -- we just heard from the first two of the 50 states. Two of 'em. Not all the nation, not half the nation, not a quarter of the nation, not 10% -- 2! 212726 Two! Now, where I come from that's the opening bell, not the closing bell. And the fight to end Donald Trump's presidency is just beginning [cheers] just beginning. Thank you. [crowd chanting "Joe"] 212747 It is important that Iowa and Nevada have spoken. But look, we need to hear from Nevada and South Carolina and Super Tuesday states and beyond. Look, we're moving into an especially important phase because up till now, we haven't heard from the most committed constituency in the Democratic Party -- the African-American community. And the fast--- and the fastest growing segment of society, the Latino community. I want y'all to think of a number -- ninety nine point nine percent. 212818 That's the percentage of African-American voters who have not yet had a chance to vote in America. One more number, ninety nine point eight. That's the percent of Latino voters who haven't had a chance to vote. So, when you hear all these pundits and experts,cable TV talkers talk about the race, tell them "it ain't over, man. We're just getting started. Our votes count, too." [cheers] An Ally to Communities of Color 212931 You shouldn't be able to win it without black and brown voters. Too often your loyalty, your support, your commitment to this party have been taken for granted. I have never once in my career, since I got involved as a kid, taken it for granted. And I give you my word as a Biden: I never, ever, ever will. Now, if you want to know what any other candidates are gonna do in the future, the tendency is to look at the past. 212956 Well, I left the law firm when I was a kid with a great job and a fancy law firm, and to become a public defender -- to fight for the people in the community I used to work in, in the East side because they couldn't afford a lawyer. On the county council, I fought against red lining. In the U.S. Senate, I passed the extension of the Voting Rights Act for two decades. The Violence Against Women Act and, by the way, I had the back of a great president named Barack Obama for eight years. Beating Trump in November 214238 We got to heal this country, and we have to do the same kind of courage and conviction. And by the way, I'm no Nelson Mandela. I'm not making that comparison. But his heart. His heart. All you ministers know what I'm talking about. His heart. 214255 It's not enough just to fight. We got to heal. And the country so desperately needs it. Folks, that's the kind of courage and conviction we need to end the Trump era and move this nation forward to a more perfect union. I know this is going to be the fight of my life, but as the old song goes. Lord, don't move my mountain, give me the ability to climb. 214322 I can't do it alone. I need your help to climb that mountain. And together we're going to beat Donald Trump. FULL TRINT [21:26:02] Great to be with you all tonight. All of you have been here tonight. You know, I hope you I hope you love me as much as I love you guys. [21:26:11] I've been coming here a long time. When I die, I want to be reborn in Charleston, actually. [21:26:18] I like the low country. You know what I mean? [21:26:23] Work. I hope. [21:26:26] Thank you. Please sit down if you have a seat. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [21:26:31] I am. I'm Joe Biden's husband. I work for Cedric Richmond. [21:26:38] And David Mack is taking me to school. [21:26:43] Well, look, I know some of the other senators came over. They came up to see me. They're in session right now. And I thank them for making the effort. There's so many people here for me to say thank you. Thank you, thank you. So I just spoke to our folks up and up in New Hampshire, and they did a good job of I want to tell you, the people of Nevada are watching. [21:27:05] And I want to make it clear we praise their diversity as a state. And I'm going to be out there seeing them very soon. Tonight, though, I we just heard from the first two of 50 states, too. Not all the nation. [21:27:20] Not half the nation, not a quarter of the nation, not 10 percent to two. All right. [21:27:28] Come from that's the opening bell, not the closing bell. [21:27:33] And the fight to end Donald Trump's presidency is just beginning. [21:27:37] Yes, about. Thank you. 212747 It is important that Iowa and Nevada have spoken. But look, we need to hear from Nevada and South Carolina and Super Tuesday states and beyond. Look, we're moving into an especially important phase because up till now, we haven't heard from the most committed constituency in the Democratic Party -- the African-American community. And the fast--- and the fastest growing segment of society, the Latino community. I want y'all to think of a number -- ninety nine point nine percent. 212818 That's the percentage of African-American voters who have not yet had a chance to vote in America. One more number, ninety nine point eight. That's the percent of Latino voters who haven't had a chance to vote. So, when you hear all these pundits and experts,cable TV talkers talk about the race, tell them "it ain't over, man. We're just getting started. Our votes count, too." [cheers] [21:28:47] We're not glad he won't take his election away, if you mean look, I've said many times it can't be the Democratic nominee and you can't win a general election as Democrat unless you have overwhelming support from black and brown voters. It's just really simple. No, it's a natural fact. It's true. It's absolutely true. And folks, you know, all those Democrats who won against incumbents from Jimmy Carter to a guy named Clinton. Their guy name Obama. My good friend. Guess what? [21:29:17] They had overwhelming African-American support. Without it. Nobody's ever won. No, really. And you know, you own my heart. Look, more important, should you not win the Democratic nomination for president? 212931 You shouldn't be able to win it without black and brown voters. Too often your loyalty, your support, your commitment to this party have been taken for granted. I have never once in my career, since I got involved as a kid, taken it for granted. And I give you my word as a Biden: I never, ever, ever will. Now, if you want to know what any other candidates are gonna do in the future, the tendency is to look at the past. 212956 Well, I left the law firm when I was a kid with a great job and a fancy law firm, and to become a public defender -- to fight for the people in the community I used to work in, in the East side because they couldn't afford a lawyer. On the county council, I fought against red lining. In the U.S. Senate, I passed the extension of the Voting Rights Act for two decades. The Violence Against Women Act and, by the way, I had the back of a great president named Barack Obama for eight years. [21:30:26] By the way, we increased access to capital for African-American entrepreneurs. Let's get some straight. Given a chance, they do just as well as anybody else and quite frankly, better. And they build the neighborhoods. They build all communities. [21:30:43] Black and I regular reduce the federal population and speak in HPC use. [21:30:48] I got 70 billion dollars coming HPC use, not a joke. Minority universe is look, we saved the automobile industry, passed Obamacare, we stopped insurance coverage of discriminating against people with preexisting conditions. And on top of all that, we build an economy that Trump is bragging about. This guy squandered his father's fortune, norways squandered economy we gave. [21:31:17] They all think I'm kidding. I'm not serve as a president. [21:31:22] Instead of talking about impeachment, Barack Obama, you should be saying thank you, President Obama. [21:31:31] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [21:31:34] But folks, look, we have so much more to do. I promise you, as your president, you will be partners at shaping the policy to make sure every single American has an opportunity. The thing that I've never liked and I was chairman of Judiciary Committee for years. I don't know what you need best. I listen, you all the leaders in the black community know what you need best. We don't listen enough. We take for granted. You know what you need. You know what your families need. And I've never not listened to you. First, we need to defend and build on Obamacare. Trump wants to get rid of it. [21:32:12] Even some of the folks in my own outfit in the primary, I want to take it away, but I'll never let that happen. I was proud to serve as President Obama's vise president, great years with the honor of my life, and he'd become a close personal friend, the whole family's been. Matter of fact, our granddaughters and his daughters are best buddies. [21:32:36] They went to school together for twelve years in the same small club. Well, actually, 10 years. But they're still hanging out with one another, even though they go to different schools. Where are you? I'm up in Michigan State University, Michigan. What are you doing there? I came up to see me, you know. Anyway, all I know is I get to pay for the plane ticket anyway. But I was never prouder than the day that we passed Obamacare. And here's we're gonna do. We're gonna expand. We're gonna limit. We're gonna get rid of all the executive orders that have curtailed it. [21:33:09] We're gonna increase funding into research for finding cures to. Families are dealing with cancer, diabetes, African-Americans, maternal health disparities. [21:33:21] Look at them in the United States of America today. [21:33:25] Today, there's an incredible disparity. It's it's sinful. It's sinful. [21:33:31] It's an indictment of the entire system. And by the way, you all know education is a great equalizer. We need to treat it that way. Every child has the same capacity when they're born. Every one of them have the same capacity. Every child deserves a great education, no matter what your zip code or your income level. I put my wanted where our mouth is. We're gonna triple Title 1 funding to give our teachers the pay raise they need. Make sure every every three, by the way, we're losing. [21:34:01] We already are. One hundred fifteen thousand teachers short by twenty twenty five you can be a quarter million short. And who's gonna get short? The people that you darn right they are. And look, we're gonna give every teacher a pay raise and to do that's going to continue the criminal justice reform that President Obama and I started. We're gonna end all private practice and. [21:34:24] And no far jail time for addiction. You go into mandatory treatment, build more treatment facilities, that prison system to make sure marijuana convictions there are entire records expunged. [21:34:39] So when asked why a job application? Have you ever been arrested, you be able to say legally? No, I have not. Folks, folks, let's think about this. There's so much. And by the way, all these states that are out there legalizing marijuana and legalizing medical use of it, we should take a big chunk of those profits and put end into prison reform and treatment, treatment, treatment, treatment. [21:35:04] Look, just as important, we have to be a country of second chances, for God's sake. No, think about it. We all talk about second chance. What do we do? [21:35:12] Someone gets out of prison or gets out of a tough spot. We say you're denied all the things that can help you from returning your communities. You're going to even twenty five bucks in a bus ticket. You end up under a bridge. We need to eliminate all those barriers to success. We've got to make sure all the collateral consequences are eliminated. Look, people coming out of prison and people coming back from serving their time. People coming back out to recovery. They should be able to get Pell Grants, as, you know, housing. They should ever get all the things that give me a chance. [21:35:43] And while they're there, we should be teaching them skills. It makes no sense. [21:35:48] It makes no sense to keep it a penal system. Look, we're a great country with great people. We're the greatest workers in the world. But you should be paid like we're the greatest workers. The background I come from not dissimilar, except it was he's in Louisiana, I was in Pennsylvania, in Scranton. I have too many families working their tails off just to make men's meet. Too many people I know. Didn't my dad do you know? Now, here in South Carolina, may I call that longest walk up a short flight of stairs and tell their son or daughters. Honey. So we can't live here anymore. [21:36:26] Daddy, mommy, don't have a job. You're gonna go home all of a grandpa for a while. But I'm gonna I'm gonna make it. We're gonna be able to do it. And I'll come back and I'll make sure when I'm able to get a place, we'll bring all together again. People having trouble keeping the roofs over the heads. When my dad walked up those stairs, he remembers. Twenty four. Forty six North Washington having I'm doing in Scranton. [21:36:45] I was in third grade and he looked at me. He said, I promise you it's gonna be all right. He believed it was. He believed it. And he was right. Because then if you took a shot, you got a chance. You're able to do it today. Think of all the people who can't look at their kids and say it's gonna do we're gonna be able to do it because the deck is stacked the way it is today. I mean, it really genuinely is. We have two thirds we have over 50 percent of all people who are working class and middle class think their children will never achieve the same standing they had. What a God awful conflict, you know? [21:37:19] Yeah. Yeah. [21:37:21] Just makes me mad. [21:37:24] Look, we're going to invest in our families and our communities. We're going to invest in roads and bridges, broadband water systems, school buildings, rural infrastructure. [21:37:33] We're going to invest in Jim Clyburn's 10, 20, 30 plan to get finally to those areas that we're being left behind. [21:37:41] The bulk of what needs to be done, by the way, I make no apology to anybody for it. [21:37:49] It's the nature of everybody, the wealthy, the semi wealthy, the middle class, the work that everybody does better when they do everything works for everybody. Everything. [21:38:01] We've got to make sure black and brown families and businesses have the same sort that can do to accumulate wealth. [21:38:09] Look, folks, you live in a black neighborhood. You had the same exact house. A guy lives across the highway on up in a white neighborhood, same exact house, same condition. Yours is valued at less. You pay more for insurance. [21:38:23] How do you get a chance to accumulate wealth? [21:38:26] Well, I'll tell you what. That's not how you're going to fulfill the dreams. I really mean it. You know, we're not going to invest in six. These tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. The system's already rigged in their favor. That one point nine trillion dollars a chump gave way to the top 2 percent. We're going to invest in families instead. [21:38:50] I really mean it. I've done it. [21:38:52] There is no limit to what we can get done in the next four years. But first, we have to beat Donald Trump. [21:39:03] Folks, folks, I believe, or I said it when those folks came out of those fields carrying those torches and I thought I'd see it. [21:39:13] But those folks came out of those fields in Charlottesville. Close your eyes and what you saw on television. Coming out of those fields, their veins bulging, screeching, hate carrying Nazi banners accompanied by the Ku Klux Klan. They heard this chanting the same anti-Semitic bile that was chanted in the streets of Germany in the thirties. Literally the exact same. Exact same. That's a day. Jillian, I know and quite frankly, my grandchildren knew we had no choice but to run because this president is breeding hate mongers. [21:39:52] I thought when I was waiting in Wilmington, Delaware, for a black man to come 28 miles from Philadelphia to pick me up on a train to take me one hundred and twenty seven miles to Washington, D.C., we'd finally turned a corner. What I learned is I thought I I'd been deeply involved all my life, but I learned hape that never go away. [21:40:14] It just hides. It just hides. [21:40:18] And folks, this president has done nothing but breathe oxygen into that hate and bring them out from under the rocks at his beloved rallies. [21:40:28] He spreads the missing that the message of prejudice and division in the White House. He welcomes the NRA, the gun manufacturers. And while our kids are being gunned down on the streets, in the corners, in our schools. They'll really. I mean, think about how depraved that is right now across this nation. He has 35 states suppressing the vote primarily to keep black folks and brown folks from voting. But keep anybody from voting. [21:40:59] Enough is enough is enough. It has to stop. [21:41:06] Look, folks, I spent my whole life fighting for civil rights, voting rights, social justice, economic justice. And that's what I'll do when I'm your president. This day, 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and entered into discussions about apartheid. I had the great honor of meeting him, the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of psuedo trying to get to see him on Robben Island. [21:41:32] When he came to the United States, when he came to the White House, to the Senate, I was chairman of the committee and he walked in. And most incredible thing I've ever felt my life. He walked across in that private room with a big table we have in the executive room. [21:41:47] And he walked over and I said, Mr. President, you mean I said, thank you. Thank you for trying to come and see me. This the most Christlike guy ever met. He's an incredible man. Imagine what it would have been. [21:42:00] Had anybody else come back. He kept everybody expecting any other leader would have generated bloodshed, would have there would have been chaos. But what did you do? [21:42:13] He's the example that I think we have to look at. [21:42:16] You know, when they asked me, am I going to hold a grudge yet with Trump, what he's trying to do to my only living son, to going after me with lies and all the rest? Well, you know, what I said is it's not about me and my son. It makes me angry. [21:42:32] But presidents presidents can't just fight. They got to heal. 214238 We got to heal this country, and we have to do the same kind of courage and conviction. And by the way, I'm no Nelson Mandela. I'm not making that comparison. But his heart. His heart. All you ministers know what I'm talking about. His heart. 214255 It's not enough just to fight. We got to heal. And the country so desperately needs it. Folks, that's the kind of courage and conviction we need to end the Trump era and move this nation forward to a more perfect union. I know this is going to be the fight of my life, but as the old song goes. Lord, don't move my mountain, give me the ability to climb. 214322 I can't do it alone. I need your help to climb that mountain. And together we're going to beat Donald Trump. so we can chip in and support those of us in this chip in and support our campaign. Text, Joe. [21:43:35] Two, three. You screwed me. I got to get this right, Joe. 2 3 0 3 3 0. [21:43:43] All right. Let's get to work. Thank you. May God bless you all. May God protect our troops. [21:43:49] Let's go do this. Named.

1730 WH COVID BRFG HEAD ON FS23 73 CBS POOL PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP AND MEMBERS OF THE CORONAVIRS TASK FORCE DAILY BRIEFING WASH 3 PRESIDENT TRUMP WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE BRIEFING 200419 PRESIDENT TRUMP 182800 TRUMP>> Thank you very much. I'd like to begin by saying that we're continuing to negotiate with the Democrats to get our great workers and small businesses all over the country taken care of. I think we're getting close to a deal -- could happen. Could happen. A lot of good work has been going on and we could have an answer tomorrow. And we are going to see what exactly does take place. 182829 We are also looking at helping our hospitals and our rural hospitals who have been hurt very badly. The rural hospitals for a long time have not been treated properly. We are looking to help them and beyond. So we're looking at hospitals also as part of the package. And we'll see how that all comes out. But, a lot of good things are happening. Some very good negotiations. I just got off the phone with the secretary of the treasury. And we have some very good negotiations going on right now. 182857 And I think you could have a nice answer tomorrow. But we'll see. America continues to make steady progress in our war against the virus. As of today we've tested 4.18 million Americans. That's a record anywhere in the world. The United States has now conducted more total tests than all of the following nations combined: France, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, India, Austria, Australia, Sweden and Canada. 182933 And our testing is expanding very rapidly by millions and millions of people. So we have done more testing than all of these countries combined. France, United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, India, Austria, and Australia, Sweden and Canada. That's something, right? 182954 We are doing a great job where we are, this team is, an incredible team, and that includes the army corps of engineers, our military people, our admirals, our generals. One of our great admirals here who has done an incredible job. You haven't slept too much in the last two months either. Look at him. That's -- somebody said to me, president, you look tired. I said I should be tired. We should all be tired. But we have to win, right? 183025 Tomorrow the president -- the vice president will lead a call with our nation's governors from FEMA headquarters, Mike, to review what more they can do and do together to develop locally tailored testing strategies. Working very hard with governors now on testing. We're going to help them out. Before the call we'll send them a full list of all of the large laboratory machines in the states. They have a lot of machinery in the states that some aren't aware of, but they're there. They're really high quality machines by the way. 183057 The potential capacity of those machines, if they are fully utilized. A couple of them didn't know they could be utilized in a different manner. They are only up to 10% and they can go 90% more. Many governors are still relying on their state laboratories rather than their the full and much larger capacity that is available to them. As an example, commercial laboratories such as quest and labcorp. These are massive laboratories. They can handle a lot more than they are being sent. 183128 A few days ago it was at 30 percent. They were only at 30% capacity. Now, i don't know, probably the same, but they have a lot of capacity. In addition academic laboratories, big research labs. There is tremendous capacity out there. And some of them want the fast -- you know, the instant Abbott machine which just came about due to the research during this little short period of time and it's very quick. But these labs can do it quickly and they are massive. They can handle much more. Much more than the machine, the small machine can handle. 183204 We continue to procure millions of swabs. Test collectors, I have something here. Just happen to have it. It's a swab. It looks innocent. Not very complicated. Anybody like to see what it looks like? Should I open it? Does everybody --? REPORTERS>> Open it up, yes please TRUMP>> Open it up. I will. I will. This is what it's about. Right? Does it remind you of something? It reminds you of this, right? 183236 One is a swab, one is a q-tip. It's actually different. It's very sophisticated, actually. But it's a little bit like -- so this is the swab. And we've ordered a lot of them. They have a lot of them. Some of them, some of the states they were shipped to states and the states don't know where they are. 183259 And -- But that's it. Why don't we give this to Karen. Perhaps she'll take an extra test. Right? But this is a big deal. And we are working on it and we are working with the companies, and I think in the end we are going to have, we're gonna have-- we're gonna have a tremendous success. Nobody is close to us. No country is close to us. In fact -- and I appreciate it very much. The "Wall street journal" wrote a fantastic piece, a highly respected gentleman, Christopher Demuth and this piece was just in the "Wall Street journal" weekend edition. 183342 And "Trump rewrites the book on emergencies." That's what's happened, too. And we just read one paragraph. "He's given pride of place to federalism and private enterprise. Lauding the patriotism and proficiency of our fantastic governors and mayors." Meaning I do call them fantastic when it's appropriate. "And our incredible business leaders and genius companies." I guess I probably use those terms, too, when they are doing a good job. When they're not doing a good job I don't use those terms. 183415 ------- Heroic doctors and nurses and orderlies and our tremendous truckers. By shouting out man of them by name and documenting their deeds on a daily basis, he has vivified the American way in action. Once it was aroused. It is hard to get aroused. When asked why he mass not issue offed ordinary,for nationwide home and business lock downs when emphasized the intensity of E epidemic varies widely and is best met by state and local judgments. And added that such steps would conflict with the constitution. But importantly web's a very respected gentleman. This was a very nice feeling. Not for me, necessarily. But for all the people that have worked with us. They have worked so hard. And we developed tests that are so fantastic. We have come up with things that nobody ever heard of, and we did it during this pandemic. We did it under pressure. It's called reaction under pressure. It's amazing our people have done that includes all of our military people of and CDC. Just about everybody you can imagine, including Tony and Deborah and they worked long hours. There is nobody getting a lot of sleep. 183553 We are close to finalizing -- I want to thank the writer, Christopher for this article. And it's a great article. That was, frankly -- at least of what I read -- it was a great article, we appreciate it. We are close to finalizing a second partnership through which a U.S. Manufacturer would convert its existing plant to produce over 10 million additional swabs per month. 183615 And we should be ready to announce this in a very short period of time. We also are going to be using and we're preparing to use the defense production act to increase swab production in one U.S. facility by 20 million additional swabs per month. We've had a little difficulty with one so we're gonna call and -- as we have in the past, as you know-- we are calling in the defense production act and we'll be getting swabs very easily. Swabs are easy. 183647 Ventilators are hard. Ventilators are a big deal and we are now the king of ventilators. We have so many ventilators. You know, I said nobody that needed a ventilator has been turned down. It's pretty amazing. Nobody. 183704 We are working with the world class team at oak ridge national laboratory to use its injection molding capacity to potentially produce over 10 million collection tubes per week. That's tremendous numbers. In the meantime the supply chain and logistics task force continues to surge testing and needed supplies all throughout America. 183726 Mike's team and the task force, they just met, they have been meeting virtually every day, and it's a great team, right, it's a great team. They have been doing a great job, Mike. You've been doing a great job. Many governors are doing this incredible work and they are working with us very closely on testing and working in their states. And again, it should be a local thing because it's point, it's all these points within a state. But we are helping them a lot. And we want to help them a lot. 183757 We want to help them more than a lot actually. If you think about it with what we've done. Think of it. We have done more than all those countries combined. We are encouraging them to share their successful strategies with other governors. Some of the governors are doing a better job than others. The robust capacity that we've brought online will empower governors to deploy sophisticated strategies so they can safely reopen their states. Some people believe in testing very strongly and other people believe in it less strongly. But still it's a very good thing to have. 183821 I think we can say that. Some people believe in it like they can't exist without testing and other people don't believe in it nearly as much. They can see how they are doing and they feel how they are doing. They have been pretty vocal about that. I think you know pretty much who I am talking about. But, I believe if they want it we should give it to them and get it for them and work with them. 183855 You must remember that the governors wanted to have total control over the opening of their states. But now they want to have us, the federal government, do the testing. And again testing is local. You can't have it both ways. Testing is a local thing. And It's very important. It's great. But it's a local thing. And we are going to get it done to a level in a very short period of time because all of these swabs are coming in, all the necessary materials. A lot of them, as I said, are already there, but a lot of people don't know that yet. 183933 We'll be doing testing at a level -- already we are doing testing at a level nobody has done before -- but we'll be doing testing at a level that the biggest tester in the world would be very happy. Very soon. And it is. It's much like ventilators. You don't hear the word mentioned and that's much tougher -- much tougher when you have to build these machines. We built thousands of machines. We'll more than help the governors and we'll make sure that everything goes well just like it did with ventilators. 184006 Just frankly like it did with facemasks on a much easier subject, facemasks. Again, everything is easier than a ventilator. Ventilators are tough. But now, I spoke yesterday with the president of Mexico, and with various other countries. We're gonna be helping them with ventilators. We have tremendous numbers of ventilators. In fact I hear I understand that governor Cuomo is going to be sending up to Massachusetts some of the excess ventilators that we were able to get, and that's great. I think that's a great thing. 184036 The number of new hospital admissions is also significantly down. When you look at these numbers it's a good thing to see, other than the fact we also know how people have been just ravaged by this curse. By this horrible scourge. Plague. Call it. It's got lots of different names. In many of the hot spots including a 50 percent decline over a nine day period in New York City. That's a fantastic decline. 184107 It's a beautiful thing to see after going through the opposite. We continue to see improvement with declining trajectory of cases in Seattle, Detroit, New Orleans, Indianapolis, and Houston metro areas. More evidence that our aggressive strategy is working and I thank the American people for their selfless devotion. The American people have done a hell of a job. 184132 We're saving countless lives though. Again I'll say it because I always wanted to say well, can you leave it open? Nobody heard of anything like this. Not since 1917, more than 100 years ago has anything like this happened. In those days they had no real communications so you couldn't say go inside.Don't -- you know, people just died. Almost 100 million people it's reported. It's tough. 184200 So, you know, the American people, what they have done is, is incredible. And they've learned a lot, you know, you see people picketing a little bit. And they want to get out, they want to get out and get back with their lives. And that's good. But they have learned a lot. They've learned about distancing, even now, at least until this thing totally goes away. They learned about their -- washing their hands and all of the different things that we have been talking about ad nauseum for so long. 184226 And they get it. They got it. And some places, the governors are ready to go, and other places they can't go yet. And they won't go. They want to -- they have to have it safe. I want it to be safe, too. It has to be safe. And again, I have to say this, I can't emphasize it strongly enough. I'm probably going to show you charts of some of the countries that are really having trouble. And one in particular is having a massive problem where they said let's go, we're just going to keep going. Well, their -- the lines that we are famous for now, some are flat and some are up. 184303 This is like a rocket ship. This country is -- and they didn't. They decided let's go and let's wing it. That's -- you know, they thought it was okay. But it's a problem, it's a big problem. And there's another couple -- there is one in particular that everybody thinks did it but the people are staying in. Okay, you know -- the head of a country doesn't have to say stay in. These people are smart people, they know what's going on. They see what's going on. 184331 So, they don't have to say -- they can say they are not doing that. But the people are staying inside. There are not a lot of people outside sitting at cafes. Despite what the mode of a country is. But if you look at Europe, most countries have done this. A couple tried not to. 184346 Italy tried not to and they held it. And Spain tried not to, they went that way. France tried not to. I mean, nobody wants to do this. It's a brutal step. We are going to close down your country. Who ever heard of a thing like this? But we would have had millions of people die if we didn't do this. Millions of people. And I believe that, Mike. You know -- in looking at things we've been looking at over the last couple of days, I think -- and really over the last couple of weeks. 184416 From the time we did it, shortly thereafter, I said we made the right decision on closing down. We made the right decision on borders, banning people coming in from China, banning ultimately people coming in front Europe. But we would have had millions of deaths. Instead of -- it looks like we'll be at about a 60,000 mark which is 40,000 less than the lowest number thought of. So this isn't a case where people would have said we would have had that number. It's similar to a flu. It's not the same thing as a flu at all because If we wouldn't have done anything, you would have had -- so a flu would have 35. It goes from 27 to 35 to 40, 50 sometimes. WASH 3 PRESIDENT TRUMP WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE BRIEFING 200419 P2 184500 So it's a long period of time. Much different. It's even a much different death, to be honest. It's a much different death. This is violent. CMS is finalizing new guidelines for doctors and patients to resume elective surgeries. It's a big thing. A lot of hospitals were closed and they couldn't do any elective surgeries, they'll be able to start doing that. Procedures and medical care that needs to be done in person as long as the rate of infections remains low in a community. 184532 We want patients to be able to go to their doctors, get clinically tested, and have work done, surgeries, receive treatment for chronic conditions and resume preventative care. So we'll be allowing that to happen very soon. We had no capacity in the hospitals with what happened with the, with the plague. We had no capacity to do it. If your doctor believes you need a treatment in person you can get a treatment now. You can and should get a treatment now. 184604 We are asking that healthcare facilities have plans in place to keep patients safe during their visits. Some places like New York, New Jersey where they really got hit hard it's gonna be a little bit tougher. They've done a great job. But they really were a center, I mean, they were a center. I was watching that, it was incredible. But now they are leveling off and I think they will be coming down very soon. 184627 Administrator Seema Verma will be telling you a little bit more of it. Mike's going to say a few words. Seema will then speak, tell you a little bit more about that. My administration continues to execute our massive military operation to supply our hospitals with equipment they need, and beds if necessary. But it looks like we are totally covered on beds. We have plenty of beds. It's highly unlikely, that would be bad news if we needed more beds. But it looks like it's going just the opposite direction. 184700 I want to thank governor Cuomo,a relationship there for this whole thing. We are building hospitals. It was very good. We built a little bit more than we needed and that's good, as opposed to building a little bit less. That's not good. But he's worked very well with us. The governor of Louisiana has been great on the bed -- on that whole situation with the beds. Frankly the governor of Michigan was very good with us on beds. You know, it's a very complex subject. 184735 You need buildings or you have to do tents or you have to do a lot of different things, a lot of different ways. But the army corps of engineers were fantastic. They were fantastic. Florida likewise, Governor Desantis. And I could name probably six other locations. I'll tell you one, California was fantastic. He was really good. 184759 He was really good. And I appreciate the fact that he said what he wanted to say and he wasn't letting the press force him into saying something he didn't want to say so I appreciate it very much. Governor of California. He really, he worked very hard. We worked together. He worked very hard. The federal government is currently procuring more than 100,000 ventilators through new production or purchases with thousands already delivered. 184828 We've delivered thousands of brand new ventilators all throughout the country. New York would be, I guess, the biggest user. And they are now taking some of their excess ventilators which is great and they are sending them up to Massachusetts. I think it's 400. And that's a great thing. Our total supply of ventilators continues to exceed by a lot, total expected demand. 184856 Governor Cuomo said today that no one who needed a ventilator was denied a ventilator. That's a beautiful statement and I appreciate it. And all governors are in that same position. We do have a clip that I thought would be appropriate to put up today. It will take two minutes, and I think you will find it interesting. But we appreciate it. And let's see if we can do that, you'll turn out the lights and we'll see if we can do that. Thank you. 184923 [CUOMO ON VIDEO]>> ...federal government working with states as a just said was a phenomenal accomplishment. TRUMP>> No sound? [CUOMO ON VIDEO]>> We bent the curve. We flattened -- TRUMP>> I thought it was a nice clip, he's a good looking guy. [CUOMO ON VIDEO]>> -- the curve. People did it. But government facilitates people's actions, right? We had to double the hospital capacity in New York state. That's what all the experts said. The president brought in the army corps of engineers. They built 2500 beds at javits that Michael and Northwell were operating. That was a phenomenal accomplishment. 185003 Close to 1,000 people have gone through javits. Luckily we didn't need the 2,500 beds. But all the projections said we did need it. And more, by the way. So these were just extraordinary efforts and acts of mobilization. And the federal government stepped up and was a great partner. And I'm the first one to say it. We needed help and they were there. State and local governments were fantastic. The hospital system was fantastic. 185034 New Yorkers were fantastic. And that is an undeniable fact. Just look at what they said was going to happen. CDC, Coronavirus task force, Cornell, McKinsey, all of them. And they had a line up here, and the actual line is down here. What do you owe the variance to? Heroic efforts on behalf of people as facilitated by government -- federal and state. 185110 TRUMP>> I think we had something else. Are they finished with that? They left out the good part. Great job, folks. Q>> What was the good part? TRUMP>> They did a better job on ventilators. Andrew had something else to say that was really nice. But we won't go through that. But it was really -- I mean It was really a good statement. You want to put the rest of it up or do you not have it? I just think it's so good because it's bipartisan. 185139 You know, this is not about Democrats and Republicans. This is about a thing that hit our country, the likes of which has never happened to us before. Wars, those wars -- civil war, sure. The first World War. The second World War. They were not fought in this country. This is being fought in this country but it's being fought in 184 countries all over the world. It's terrible. But I want to thank Andrew, governor Cuomo for the statement. 185211 He actually, If you go a little bit further it was -- it was far beyond even that. You remember? Huh? >> We're going to try to work on getting the first part -- TRUMP>> Well, that's okay. Whatever. But it's -- he said some really good things. And that's -- it makes people feel good. It's actually the "Wall Street journal," Christopher was saying I want to make people feel good too. I want to make -- when they are doing a good job I want to make people feel good. I want the admiral to feel good. He's worked so hard. Mike has worked so hard. It was very nice. It was on this morning. It was all -- it was Andrew this morning. 185252 It's a little longer clip than that. With but you will see it was really a very nice thing that he said. And people really appreciate that because they've done a great job.The federal government has done a great job with all of it. This is easy. The swabs are -- that's easy. We have them coming by the tens of millions. We have them coming at a level, you will have so many swabs you won't know what to do with them. That's easy. So they will all be there. A lot of them are there already. 185323 They are learning about their testing capacity that they didn't know about that we have in the various labs. Including academic, they have to remember. You have a lot of big colleges that have labs that are totally ready to help. But I want to thank the dynamic ventilator reserve because what they have done is incredible. It's a capital DVR by the way an innovative public private partnership. That's what we created. 185352 We're gaining access to up to 65,000 additional ventilators in hospitals across the nation that can be redeployed to very quickly to areas with the greatest need when they are not in use. And we right now have almost 10,000 in our reserve. We have been able to give away thousands like we helped Andrew and Phil in New Jersey, he's doing a great job. Andrew will tell you that too. They have a very good relationship working together, working with us. 185422 But we have -- now we are back up to almost 10,000 and this is after giving away tens of thousands of ventilators. We're gonna fill up the reserves of states. Were gonna work with them so in case this happens again. But we're also going to help other countries. I was telling you, the president of Mexico, we're gonna be sending a pretty large quantity to Mexico. They very much need them. And to other countries where they need them. I have had about six calls with leaders of other countries and they need them. They're hard to -- they're hard to get done. We did. 185457 Our companies stepped up and did an incredible job. Some of them were automobile companies. They will take an assembly line and they'll say, guess what, we are making ventilators now for a while. But because of the historic steps we have taken I remain confident that every American who needs any of this equipment, any of the things we are talking about will either have it now, already has it, or will shortly have it through the project air bridge. 185524 We've completed 64 flights carrying over 600 million pieces of personal protective equipment such as gloves, gowns and other medical gear. With 50 more flights scheduled in the very near future. The team doing that is an incredible team of military people and young geniuses. Some are older geniuses but mostly younger geniuses I think I can say. Some that had made vast amounts of money in silicon valley. These are very smart people. The job they have done is incredible. I said where did you come from, well they say oh my company,sir.. 185600 Oh really, how much did you get? I think he said $700 million. I said that's good. do you want to work for the government? No I want to help our country, sir. It's tremendous brain power. It's a beautiful thing to see. Young, incredible people that love this country. And they work with the military. Admiral, you would say they are pretty smart right? They were in the upper scales of I.Q. They were the upper. They were the top scale, i'll tell you and they're great people. But FEMA is working to commit another $384 million to producer another 64 million gowns for health care. 185637 These are the highest quality where -- they are very safe when you put them on. They're safe. Very important the quality of the gown is very important. It's -- oeople in different places, different countries, they're wearing gowns with cuts in them and these are very safe. I want to thank America's textile manufacturers for their partnership in this remarkable undertaking.Two U.S. companies, Haynes and standard textile are contracted to produce 5 million gowns by the end of the month and that's really moving. 185712 Two great companies. Honeywell recently began ma manufacturing n95 mas in Rhode Island WHE they converted a factory I less than five weeks instead of the 9 months it was normally expected to take. 5 weeks instead of 9 months. It's amazing the spirit of this country. We said do it fast. And this was a mainonversion, too. It's a different world. Honeywell is hiring 1,000 American workers to produce 20 million masks a month. Thanks to the defense production acte'll be receiving 40 million masks the next few weeks. I want to thank 3M because they stepped you have. We had a dispute at the beginning, but that got worked out quickly andhey have been doing a great job. 3M. I want to thank their great CEO. We had a little skirmish buff it [6:58:28 PM] worked out well. And they are doing a lot of work. This production in addition to the 55 million n95 masks my administration already distributed. We ordered 500 million masks. You would think what are you going to do with them? They get used rapidly. In addition to that. We sterilize masks. A great company in Ohio. Lot of the masks can be sterilized up to 20 times I always wondered why aren't they -- why aren't they sterilizing the masks. Some of them you have can't because they are a different material. So they are sterilizing up to 20 [6:59:29 PM] times a certain type of mask. To these numbers, to put them into perspective American healthcare providers use an estimated 25 million n95 masks in a typical year. That means we have procured 20 times more. President trump discussing the nation's progress. this fox News channel for continuing coverage. Jon: Continuing our coverage on the Fox News channel, the president is updating at the white house on the coronavirus task force. The president is still at the podium. We expect to hear from other members of the task force as well. President trump: We should make product in the United States. The supply chains sounds wonderful. But if one country has a problem, the whole chain is ruined. I ran partially on that and I ran strongly against China. Then we made a great trade deal. They will buy $250 billion. They are supposed to. They have given $16 billion to [7:01:03 PM] our farmers and ranchers who were targeted. I ran on China and other countries who were ripping off our country. China fully understood that. They are big strong smart people. I wasn't friendly a it wasn't a friendly situati. And we ended up making an incredible deal with China for tens of billions of dollars of product. $40 billion to $50 billion to farmers. The most they spent was10 to $16 billion. Then the virus came along and I'm not happy. I let them know I'm not happy we had a bad relationship with China, then we had a good relationship because when made a great deal. But we are not happy. This is not a good thing that happened. It came out of China. [7:02:04 PM] We a not in a position where we are going to say much yet. But the deal itself isre great. The deal is going to put many, many people to work in our country. But all of that has to be taken into account when you look at the people dying in our country and all over the world. All over the world people are dying. I had a g7 call and their economics are shattered, Japan, Germany, France, the different countries. Italy. Look what happened to Italy. Look what happened to Spain. Look what happened T to Spain? How incredible. It's just been shattered. And so many other countries are shattered. So nobody ever thought this could have happened like this. It's very, very sad. But if we learned something it's [7:03:07 PM] about supply chains. I saw it yesterday when the industry gets back they have a problem because they have a supply chain going to a different country. Why do you need a supply chain. Make your parts here. Make one part from this country and one part from that country. If one country has a problem you have no car or of what it is you are making. So we learned a good lesson. I think a lot of smart people knew that before. But we distributed many hundreds of millions of masks. This pandemic underscored the importance of bringing our supply chain back into the United States. What if you are in a war and you have a supply chain where move your suppls are given to you by other countries? Who are the people who thought [7:04:07 PM] of this? These are globalists. It doesn't work. It doesn't work in B time, rough times or dangerous times. We'll continue to fight the virus. We are talking to China. We spoke to him a long time ago about going in. We want to go in. We want to see what's going on. We weren't exactly invited. I can tell you that. If you look at some of the investigations that are going on in terms of world health ganization, and I'll take it a step further. World trade. We did years ago. Many years ago. The world trade organization from the day China came in, that's when China bloomed. They were main lining it, then they were up like a rocket rocket ship because they took advantage of he little [7:05:08 PM] ridiculous clause in the world trade documents. China was a developing nation. They make the cars, they make everything. And they are a developing nation. So we have had -- I might have gotten elected to a certain extent because of China and other countries. The United States is getting ripped off in trade. Japan is paying $40 billion and buying a lot. The u.s.-mexico was a great deal. I would also put the world trade organization in that same group. I was very tough on these countries. With cna we made the dealnd became friendly. But then this happened. This is ttamount, this is something that's really incredible. I want to read something I just saw today on television. I was look and I just said, [7:06:09 PM] that's an interesting statement. We talk about the Democrats and it was a statement made by Bret Baier, on February 19 there was a democratic debate in Las Vegas. That W February 19. That's way after I closed entrance from China into our country. So Bret goes on February 19 there was a democratic debate in Las Vegas. Three word said during the debate. Virus, coronavirus * or covid-19. Those three word never came up. I just thought it was Ver interesting. You hear these people some of the people, the Democrats say it was never a part of their dialogue. Now theyring it up. But they didn't bring it up. But I brought it up. I brought it up a long time before I made the trade deal. I was not easy to deal with. [7:07:11 PM] They understandt.hat. We still have 25% on $250 billion they have to pay us. It's a lot of the money. We have had a lot of the beneficiaries including our farmers and ranchers. We launched an unprecedented effort to develop new treatments in therapies to battle the plague. Therapies to me are the most exciting. The vaccines are somportant. But the therapies a immediate. We have some things that are looking good. We call so individual treatment acceleration program. And we have government agencies looking, too. N.I.H. They are slashing red tape, speed and development. [7:08:12 PM] It's unrivaled. The fda and Dr. Stephen Hahn, a highly respected man from a great institution left that job to come here. The job he's doing is incredible. We are working with Scott, his predecessor. The speed of development for anti-viral and immune therapies is at a level thob even thought was possible. We are gngting very good results. If we could find the therapies that would solve the problem. If somebody has a probleme can get it taken care of so it's not so devastating. With that I will have vice president pence to come up. It's Sunday evening. And this man has thought stopped. He's working -- we all are in all fairness. But he's been working with his task force round the clock for [7:09:12 PM] months, and I want to thank Mike. Thank you, Mike. VICE PRESIDENT PENCE PENCE>> Let me echo your words about the dedicated men and women on the coronavirus task force. The team you assembled in January, Seema Verma, Dr. She Hahn of the fda. It's been inspiring to have the privilege to wk with. The coronavirus task force met today. 190943 It was reported to us at this moment more than 746,000 Americans have tested positive for the coronavirus. And fortunately more than 68,000 Americans have fully recovered. But sadly more than 41,000 Americans have lost their lives to the coronavirus. We always want to express our deepest sympathies -- to the families in their loss as well as to all the families who have loved ones that are struggling with this disease. 191017---------------- Today we have seen encouraging news again about our progress as a nation. President trump reflected on those momentarily. But the coronavirus white house task force today learned that our large metro areas continue to stabilize and see progress. The New York metro area including New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Long Island all appear to be past their peak. The Detroit metro area appears to be past its peak and it's stable. The norms me though area is the most stable of all. Areas where we had a main metropolitan outbreak. The Denver metro area is stable. We are dealing in Colorado with [7:11:14 PM] a meat packing plant. California and Washington remain low and steady. Areas we continue to watch carefully on the task force is the Chicago metro area, boss to be metro and Philadelphia metropolitan area. The progress that we are making is a tribute to the American people. It's a tribute to state and local leaders in all these areas, and the partnership our president has formed. But we just want to even crown he American as we see this -- we just want T to encourage he American to heed your state and local authorities. No one wants T reopen America more THA president Donald Trump. But we'll continue to work with govesors of he state with the president's guidelines for opening up America again. And we'll work in a way that we [7:12:15 PM] can consolidate the progress we mve made and help move our states toward reopening our country. We also received a report today and the coronavirus task force at this point. 5,528 military personnel have been deployed across hospital difficult significances and -- National Guard are on doubtly. We have 9,055 ventilators on hand. We added to that supply because of the production our president and the task force at FEMA. We'll be adding to the strategic national stockpile. 64 air bridge flights cometed and 50 more on the horizon bring in mall equipment [7:13:15 PM] from around the country and around the world and deployi it to critical areas. 191310 Finally, tomorrow as the president announced, we'll be hosting a conference call with all of the nation's governors, all the states and territories from the headquarters at FEMA. And we'll be working with the governors to insure them that we are helping them to review and evaluate the president's guidelines for opening up America again. The criteria that we believe is appropriate and necessary before states can move into any phase one change in the mitigation strategies, 191348 But also at the president's direction tomorrow, we'll be providing all the nation's governors and all of their health officials with detail about the testing infrastructure that exists all around the country. We'll be specifically providing governors and state health officials with information about all of the lab capability that exists in their state. And also we'll be updating them on our efforts to identify the kind of supplies the president just held up in our efforts to make sure that those supplies are at all of those laboratories as the need should arise. 191423 Remember that a month ago we had done 80,000 coronavirus tests in America. This weekend we cleared more than 4 million. And we're currently testing more than a million Americans a week. We fully expect to actually have tested more than 5 million Americans before the end of this month. But at the president's urging, we're going to continue to scale that testing and work then with governors to make sure that they can manage and implement and deploy that testing in the manner that will most support their efforts to move their states forward. 191457 Remember that the testing that is contemplated in the guidelines for opening up America again for phase one are testing people that have symptoms that may be coronavirus and then also having the testing resources to deploy to vulnerable communities, nursing homes and or other vulnerable communities that we have identified as needing additional, what is called monitoring or surveillance testing. 191528 We believe we have the testing today around the country that would allow any state in America to move into phase one if they've met the other criteria. 14 days of consistent declines and strong hospital capacity so that their system would not be overwhelmed in the event of a flare-up. But we're gonna be working with governors tomorrow on the subject of testing and supplies. And as the president said again this evening, we are here to help. 181554 We've forged a partnership with governors around the country and tomorrow we'll be building on that partnership to hopefully arrive at the day that we can make sure governors around the nation have the best advice and the best resources to put America back to work. Thank you, Mr. President. 191613 TRUMP>> Seema here? Seema, you have done such a great job, please come up and say a couple of words. Thank you. SEEMA VERMA 191620 VERMA>> Thank you Mr vice President, Mr President. So just a few weeks ago, we stood here and asked the American healthcare system to delay elective surgeries and procedures. And the reason why we did this is we wanted to make sure that the health care system could deal deal with any surges. We wanted to preserve equipment and make sure that they had the appropriate workforce to handle any surge. 191644 And our healthcare system did a fantastic job. They very quickly stood up telehealth services and under the president's leadership, we started paying for these services under the medicare program. But the reality is, not everything can be addressed by telehealth. There may be a woman that needs surgery for breast cancer. Somebody who has cataracts in their eyes that need to be able to see better. And sometimes the doctor just needs to be able to listen to their patient's heart. 191711 We've heard across the country that doctor's offices have closed and many healthcare systems are furloughing their staff, nurses and doctors. Under the president's leadership we've put out over $90 billion in accelerated payments under the medicare program, provided $30 billion of grants with more dollars on the way. But thanks to the American people we are in a much different place. You heard from the vice president that there are many places around the country where they are seeing a decline in cases and hospitals are reporting that they have unused capacity. 191748 And so as part of our opening up America, we are issuing guidelines today about how we can reopen the healthcare system. So these are recommendations around phase one. Now, every state and local official has to assess the situation on the ground. They need to make sure that they can still address surges. They need to make sure that they have adequate supplies and a plan for conserving supplies. 191815 They need to be able to screen patients and healthcare workers for covid virus. And they need to make sure that patients feel safe when they come in to seek healthcare services by assuring that they have the appropriate cleaning in place and that they observe social distancing inside the healthcare facilities. 191832 And this isn't going to be like a light switch. It's more like a sun rise where it's going to be a gradual process. And healthcare officials across the country and healthcare systems need to decide what services should be made available. And ultimately, doctors and patients need to make decisions about their healthcare services. We want to make sure that systems are reopening so that they can stay open and doing that in a very measured way. 191901 And so I want to thank all the healthcare workers on the front line who have done a fantastic job in providing care and comfort, serving as a liaison between family members. They've done a fantastic job and we owe a debt of gratitude to them. And to all those providers that did adhere to our guidelines. They did the right thing and it has made an extraordinary difference. I also want to take a couple of seconds here to talk about our nursing homes. Our hearts and minds are with the patients and the families of those living in nursing homes. This is an extraordinarily difficult situation. 191936 People living in nursing homes are of the most vulnerable patients, they're elderly, many of them have underlying health conditions. And this has been a very hard situation. And I really appreciate the strong efforts of governors and local communities that have shown great leadership in supporting nursing homes across the country, particularly governor Baker, governor Hogan, that have had special efforts around supporting nursing homes. FEMA is also working on a plan to make sure that nursing homes have the supplies that they need. 192007 And just last week we increased the reimbursement in the medicare program for high through-put tests. And we are also paying for labs to go out to nursing homes to collect samples. And that's really going to support efforts on nursing homes in order to isolate patients. Today we are also announcing under the president's leadership an effort around nursing home transparency. It's important that patients and their families have the information that they need, and they need to understand what's going in the nursing home. 192040 And so today we are announcing that we are requiring nursing homes to report to patients and their families if there are cases of covid virus inside the nursing home. We are also requiring nursing homes to report directly to the CDC when they have cases of covid virus. And this is very important, as you've heard Dr Birx talk about as we reopen the United States our surveillance effort around the covid virus will also begin in nursing homes. 192109 And so by having this reporting system, this will support CDC's efforts to have surveillance around the country and to support efforts around contact tracing so that we can mitigate the spread of the virus in those communities that show the spread starting in the nursing homes. So again, I want to thank all of the local officials that have done an amazing job of supporting the nursing homes and would urge all state and local leaders to follow their lead and do everything we can to keep nursing homes residents safe. Thank you. QUESTIONS 192139 TRUMP>> Thank you very much. And Dr. Hahn is here. You need -- he will tell you maybe a little bit later if you want this. But I can tell you that, very simply, the level at which they are approving things, tests and being on top of it, the people that are doing the testing for therapies and for vaccines has never -- they have never seen anything like this. So I want to thank you very much. And stick around. Maybe they will have some questions. Please, go ahead. 192213 Q>> Mr. President, thank you very much. If there were groups people planning to protest tomorrow against the government shutdown. What would be your advice? TRUMP>> Against the shutdown? Q>> The shutdown lifting. [INAUD] TRUMP>> People feel that way. You are allowed to protest. I mean they feel that way. I watched a protest and they were all 6 feet apart. It was a very orderly group of people. , but you know, some --- some have gone too far, some governors have gone too far. Some of the things that have happened are maybe not so appropriate. 192246 And I think In the end it's not gonna matter because we are starting to open up our states and I think they're gonna open up very well. We're gonna be watching it. We're gonna watch it very closely. We are working with them on testing. We're working with them on whatever they need. I don't think they need ventilators anymore. I believe the term the governor used was phenomenal. 192305 You've done a phenomenal job. That was a term -- that was the only sentence they left out which is okay. But I appreciate that that's what governor Cuomo said. But we have. They have done a phenomenal -- these people have done a phenomenal job. As far as protesters, I see protesters, you know, i see for all sorts of things. I am with everybody. I'm with everybody. Please, In the back? Go ahead. 192330 Q>> Thank you, Mr. President. Yesterday you pointed out that Iran was likely not truthful in the reporting of the virus. Meanwhile senator Dianne Feinstein and other Democrats are looking for $5 billion in aid to Iran. Are you considering giving aid to Iran? 192451 TRUMP>> If Iran needed aid on this, I would be willing to do something. If they want it, if they ask for it. I would be certainly willing -- they were hit very hard. Obviously those numbers weren't correct numbers that they reported. But if they needed help, if they needed aid or ventilators, we have thousands of ventilators currently on hand. 192412 ----------- And ventilators under construction that are under construction. That's a mosquito. I don't like mosquitoes. But if they --ia yes, we would [7:24:33 PM] be willing to help. What necessity should do is B be smart and make a deal. It's only because you look at what happened, John Kerry I guess doesn't want them to make a deal. They probably figure they can wait and maybe it will be Biden and they will own America. Andhey know with me it doesn't work that way. If Joe Biden got in they would own America. Between them, China, Japan, Mexico, Cana, they would own America. You wouldn't have a country left if he got in. Go ahead, please. Q>> The first question, you mentioned the governors, you said Y yesterday some governors have gone too far. Which governors are you referring to? TRUMP>> I don't want to mention them specifically. But obviously one we can mention. But much beyond this is Virginia with what theav have done on guns. He is playing with your second [7:25:35 PM] amendment. We can't allow that to happen. That is indirectly related to this. You know what happened with guns. People are buying guns because of this surge of plague. What he did was totally inappropriate. Other than that I am not going to mention governors. I have a list. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Q>> Steve M mnuchin said this is ready to go. TRUMP>> Every time you say it's ready to go. Then we have a good negotiating position. We'll see what happens. We want to put our -- Weant to take care of our workers and small businesses. They are the engine of this country. When we open we want the small businesses ready to go. We don't want those businesses abandoned because they couldn't afford their employees. [7:26:35 PM] I want to take care of those employees. I can just tell you we are negotiating with the Democrats. They negotiate the this we can't do that we don't think are from the best interests of the people of this country. We are very close to a deal. I can't tell you whether we'll get the deal or not. Who would say that. Do you want me to say we are going to have a deal before we have a deal? We have a good chance of getting a deal. A lot of good cushions were had today. We have a good chance of getting the deal. We want to take care of our work were and small companies. Go ahead, please. Q>> I have a question for you and also for Dr. Hahn, if I may. In your remarks that you made just a few moments ago in regards to reopening the U.S. Economy you said I want it to be safe. That's the sentiment obviously. Tens of millions of Americans. It seems at odds with the tweet [7:27:36 PM] that you had Friday about liberating those three particular states, Virginia, Minnesota, and Michigan because none of those states have met the requirements that the vice president and others on the task force talked about in terms of re reopening the economy. Do you see those two -- TRUMP>> If you take Michigan. There were things in the Michigan I don't think WER necessarily appropriate. Everyone knows that. I think the governor of Michigan probably knows that. I will bet she wishes she didn't put some of them in. You can't buy paint or seeds. Where did this stuff come from? We have to be safe. We don't want to cse anything. We won't be closing. But we'll be doing it beautifully, systematically. We are working well with the governors. A couple of them no matter what you do you will never satisfy. A couple of them you have could find a cure tomorrow and they wouldn't be satisfied. [7:28:36 PM] Wise guys. Bull more the most part we have a great relations with the governors. I have been on numerous calls with governors. During those calls without exception they were friendly. Th goes back even a month from today. I think we'll do a terrific job. I think the governors will do a terrific job and we are starting to open our country. I just spoke wh Greg Abbott today from Texas. He's a fantastic governor. He will be opening up parts of Texas. And you will be opening up parts of other countries in the other states. By the way, other countries are at a point where they are opening. Germany is starting to open you have a little section. There are a lot of great things happening. And we are going to start to open our country. And we are going to do it like as I S, it's lik a beautiful puzzle. The state might even be a portion of state. There are very big states. [7:29:36 PM] And you can have portions of states. You have a county which is perfect and another county that'sor sort of still far away, even if it's within the same state. And it's not doing so well. But they may open up. We'll do it very, very carefully. And I think it's going to be very successful. When you say safe, I want it to be very safe. Let him just do this. Go ahead, please. Q>> The question I don't know the answer to, I was wondering if you could provide the answer to. There is an epidemiologist at the university of Alabama in Birmingham who is a covid-19 survivor. His question is this, why would the virus suddenly be different and people's us September builts being different on may 1 or June 1 or July 1. It's all related to reopening [7:30:37 PM] the economy. Can you explain tore give an answer to that particular question? HAHN>> I don't think we have evidence that one would be more susceptible or less. What we can say she mitigation efforts helped with respect to this. And that what we have seen is the number of cases have GE down. If we follow the getting criteria for the opening, we are able to institute phase one and appropriate measures in place to reduce any chance of flare-up of the cases. Q>> -- Rebounding, if you open too soon without the mitigation efforts still in place -- HAHN>> Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx talked about this at the podium. The key is the surveillance put in place by the CDC. That will be a great help in terms of trying to reduce that risk. 193126 TRUMP>> And I think they have the rest of that clip. I just thought it was a very good clip. I think it's a tribute to new York. I think it is a tribute to the federal government and I thought it was nice. So I think they have that now. They can try it. Go ahead. 193142 [CUOMO ON VIDEO]>> Have we saved everyone? No. But have we lost anyone because we didn't have a bed or we didn't have a ventilator or we didn't have healthcare staff? No. The people we lost are the people we couldn't save. Not for lack of trying, and not for lack of doing everything everything that we could do as a society, not only as a government and as a healthcare system. 193221 Q>> Since you shared with us something else that you saw on TV today, I have a question about something you said on Thursday which is you were angry because information about the virus should have been told to us earlier and a lot sooner. People knew it was happening and people did not want to talk about it. Many Americans are saying the exact same thing about you. That you should have warned them the virus was spreading like wildfire through the month of february instead of holding rallies with thousands of people. Why did you wait so long. TRUMP>> Who are you with? Who are you with? Q>> And why did you not have social distancing until March 16? TRUMP>> Who do you work with? Q>> I'm Weijia Jiang with CBS news. 193304 TRUMP>> So, if you look at what I did in terms of cutting off or banning China from coming in -- Q>> Chinese nationals -- But by the way, not Americans who were also coming from china. TRUMP>> Nice and easy. Nice and easy. Just relax. We cut it off. People were amazed. These gentlemen. Everybody was amazed that I did it.. We had 21 people in a room. Everybody was against it but me. Dr. Fauci said had I not done that perhaps tens of thousands and maybe much more than that,, people would have died. 193336 I was very early. Very, very early. And we just saw -- you saw Brett Baier making a statement. They had a debate well into February and not even mentioned. It wasn't even mentioned, the Democrats. We were very early Q>> You're the president. TRUMP>> Oh, i'm the president. I am the president and you know what I just did? Q>> Why didn't you warn more people that it was spreading more quickly? And by the way, when you issued the ban the virus was already here. TRUMP>> Okay, and you know how many people when I issued the ban? How many cases of the virus were in the United States when I issued the ban. Do you know the number? Q>> There was -- TRUMP>> No, no, no. How many cases. Remember, I said one person. How many cases were here when I issued the ban. Tell me. Q>> But did you know it was going to spread into a pandemic TRUMP>> No, no, no. You have to do your research. How many -- 193415 Q>> I did my research. On the 23rd of March you said you knew this was going to be a pandemic. TRUMP>> Can I tell you what. I did know it. I did know it. All I have to do is look, All -- anybody knew it. Are you ready? How many cases were in the United States when I did my ban? How many people had died in the United States -- Q>> So do you acknowledge you didn't think this was going it was going to spread? TRUMP>> Keep your voice down, please, keep your voice down. Q>> Did you not think it was going to spread? 183437 TRUMP>> How many cases were in the united states? I did a ban where I'm closing up the entire country. How many people died? Q>> And that's a fair point -- TRUMP>> How many people died in the United States and yet I closed up the country. And I believe there were no deaths, zero deaths at the time I closed up the country. Nobody was there. And you should say thank you very much for good judgment. Go ahead, please. Q>> You just mentioned Germany. Germany allowing more parts to open. Does this give you have confidence some European countries are on the verge of recovering? TRUMP>> I hope so. I spoke with Angela. They are going to start a process of opening like we are. I spoke with numerous governors. They are doing it also. Areas that -- number of one they [7:35:39 PM] have done a good job. Germany starting the process also. I'm very happy about that. Some places in Europe can't start the process for a while. Q>> The mayor of Las Vegas thinks it's total insanity for business to be shut down in Nevada as the vegovernor has ordered. Who is right? TRUMP>> They shut one of my hotels down too. I'm not involved in that. I could be if I wanted to. I chose not to be. I could be if I wanted to. But I chose not. They closed a very big hotel I have in Nevada down in Las Vegas. It's a severe step he took. I'm so Kay with it. You could call that one either way. I know the hair is very -- the mayor is very upset with it. Some of the developers have very upset. Others said we have got to get rid of it. I can see both sides of it. [7:36:42 PM] Q>> I read recently about an sba rule that said the paycheck protection can't go to small casinos. TRUMP>> They are looking into it. They are going to make a ruling I understand nt week. Q>> They M ae a ruling and changed it to casinos who make a third of their income. TRUMP>> They are continuing to look at that. It's a big topic because a lot of people are involved. Q>> Governor Cuomo has praised a lot of what the government has done. TRUMP>> He didn't say a lot. He didn't say you did a good job on ventilators and nothing else. So report and rat are Y. You are one of the most inaccurate reporters. Q>> Republican governors say what they need is a national strategy [7:37:42 PM] when it comes to testing. Because they are competing against one another. Debt * they said the same thing with ventilators - TRUMP>> They said the same thing with ventilators. Q>> What about the reagents. TRUMP>> We're in great shape -- It's so easy to get. Reagents and swabs are so easy to get. When you have to build a very expensive piece of machinery controlled by computers, that's afeifferent thing. We'll have everything -- everything will be in good shape very soon. 193814 Q>> The latest stimulus package, will that have funding for states and local governments? Mr -- TRUMP>> Well, I don't want to comment on it but we will be saving that for another time. Q>> But will you be willing to assist --- 193826 TRUMP>>And by the way, some states and local governments need it. I'm the first one to admit that. We're going to be saving that for another, little bit of a later date. It will probably be our next negotiation. But if they do, I'm in favor of it. I will say. And I told the Republicans today -- I had a, I think a great talk with Republican senators today, and -- all of them. I think, just about all of them. And conference call. And we are going to be -- that will be a very big topic over the next couple of weeks. It's very important. 193858 Q>> What is the administration doing to make sure that hotel chains and hedge funds --- TRUMP>> Well, that's another one, yeah. That's another one. You have hotels that are big, massive buildings that are underlevered. But if you have no income at all coming out, no income at all, these hotels are -- they go from underlevered, to they have to be closed down. It's a terrible thing. I don't know that they are working on that specific problem, but it's a problem they should be talking about. I mean, you have people that own a hotel, where the go from having a very successful hotel, you know, with many employees, thousands of people to all of a sudden closing it down. 193936 I read where my wonderful place in Florida, in Miami, Doral. They had to let a lot of the employees go because it's essentially closed. You can't use it. You're not allowed -- you can't have the restaurants, you can't have -- so you know, you have to close it down. That's an example of many, many hotels are closing down throughout the country and hopefully they're gonna be able to open up relatively quickly. Q>> but the funds were specifically for small businesses --

1730WH COVID BRFG CUTS FS24 74 CBS POOL PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP AND MEMBERS OF THE CORONAVIRS TASK FORCE DAILY BRIEFING WASH 3 PRESIDENT TRUMP WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE BRIEFING 200419 PRESIDENT TRUMP 182800 TRUMP>> Thank you very much. I'd like to begin by saying that we're continuing to negotiate with the Democrats to get our great workers and small businesses all over the country taken care of. I think we're getting close to a deal -- could happen. Could happen. A lot of good work has been going on and we could have an answer tomorrow. And we are going to see what exactly does take place. 182829 We are also looking at helping our hospitals and our rural hospitals who have been hurt very badly. The rural hospitals for a long time have not been treated properly. We are looking to help them and beyond. So we're looking at hospitals also as part of the package. And we'll see how that all comes out. But, a lot of good things are happening. Some very good negotiations. I just got off the phone with the secretary of the treasury. And we have some very good negotiations going on right now. 182857 And I think you could have a nice answer tomorrow. But we'll see. America continues to make steady progress in our war against the virus. As of today we've tested 4.18 million Americans. That's a record anywhere in the world. The United States has now conducted more total tests than all of the following nations combined: France, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, India, Austria, Australia, Sweden and Canada. 182933 And our testing is expanding very rapidly by millions and millions of people. So we have done more testing than all of these countries combined. France, United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, India, Austria, and Australia, Sweden and Canada. That's something, right? 182954 We are doing a great job where we are, this team is, an incredible team, and that includes the army corps of engineers, our military people, our admirals, our generals. One of our great admirals here who has done an incredible job. You haven't slept too much in the last two months either. Look at him. That's -- somebody said to me, president, you look tired. I said I should be tired. We should all be tired. But we have to win, right? 183025 Tomorrow the president -- the vice president will lead a call with our nation's governors from FEMA headquarters, Mike, to review what more they can do and do together to develop locally tailored testing strategies. Working very hard with governors now on testing. We're going to help them out. Before the call we'll send them a full list of all of the large laboratory machines in the states. They have a lot of machinery in the states that some aren't aware of, but they're there. They're really high quality machines by the way. 183057 The potential capacity of those machines, if they are fully utilized. A couple of them didn't know they could be utilized in a different manner. They are only up to 10% and they can go 90% more. Many governors are still relying on their state laboratories rather than their the full and much larger capacity that is available to them. As an example, commercial laboratories such as quest and labcorp. These are massive laboratories. They can handle a lot more than they are being sent. 183128 A few days ago it was at 30 percent. They were only at 30% capacity. Now, i don't know, probably the same, but they have a lot of capacity. In addition academic laboratories, big research labs. There is tremendous capacity out there. And some of them want the fast -- you know, the instant Abbott machine which just came about due to the research during this little short period of time and it's very quick. But these labs can do it quickly and they are massive. They can handle much more. Much more than the machine, the small machine can handle. 183204 We continue to procure millions of swabs. Test collectors, I have something here. Just happen to have it. It's a swab. It looks innocent. Not very complicated. Anybody like to see what it looks like? Should I open it? Does everybody --? REPORTERS>> Open it up, yes please TRUMP>> Open it up. I will. I will. This is what it's about. Right? Does it remind you of something? It reminds you of this, right? 183236 One is a swab, one is a q-tip. It's actually different. It's very sophisticated, actually. But it's a little bit like -- so this is the swab. And we've ordered a lot of them. They have a lot of them. Some of them, some of the states they were shipped to states and the states don't know where they are. 183259 And -- But that's it. Why don't we give this to Karen. Perhaps she'll take an extra test. Right? But this is a big deal. And we are working on it and we are working with the companies, and I think in the end we are going to have, we're gonna have-- we're gonna have a tremendous success. Nobody is close to us. No country is close to us. In fact -- and I appreciate it very much. The "Wall street journal" wrote a fantastic piece, a highly respected gentleman, Christopher Demuth and this piece was just in the "Wall Street journal" weekend edition. 183342 And "Trump rewrites the book on emergencies." That's what's happened, too. And we just read one paragraph. "He's given pride of place to federalism and private enterprise. Lauding the patriotism and proficiency of our fantastic governors and mayors." Meaning I do call them fantastic when it's appropriate. "And our incredible business leaders and genius companies." I guess I probably use those terms, too, when they are doing a good job. When they're not doing a good job I don't use those terms. 183415 ------- Heroic doctors and nurses and orderlies and our tremendous truckers. By shouting out man of them by name and documenting their deeds on a daily basis, he has vivified the American way in action. Once it was aroused. It is hard to get aroused. When asked why he mass not issue offed ordinary,for nationwide home and business lock downs when emphasized the intensity of E epidemic varies widely and is best met by state and local judgments. And added that such steps would conflict with the constitution. But importantly web's a very respected gentleman. This was a very nice feeling. Not for me, necessarily. But for all the people that have worked with us. They have worked so hard. And we developed tests that are so fantastic. We have come up with things that nobody ever heard of, and we did it during this pandemic. We did it under pressure. It's called reaction under pressure. It's amazing our people have done that includes all of our military people of and CDC. Just about everybody you can imagine, including Tony and Deborah and they worked long hours. There is nobody getting a lot of sleep. 183553 We are close to finalizing -- I want to thank the writer, Christopher for this article. And it's a great article. That was, frankly -- at least of what I read -- it was a great article, we appreciate it. We are close to finalizing a second partnership through which a U.S. Manufacturer would convert its existing plant to produce over 10 million additional swabs per month. 183615 And we should be ready to announce this in a very short period of time. We also are going to be using and we're preparing to use the defense production act to increase swab production in one U.S. facility by 20 million additional swabs per month. We've had a little difficulty with one so we're gonna call and -- as we have in the past, as you know-- we are calling in the defense production act and we'll be getting swabs very easily. Swabs are easy. 183647 Ventilators are hard. Ventilators are a big deal and we are now the king of ventilators. We have so many ventilators. You know, I said nobody that needed a ventilator has been turned down. It's pretty amazing. Nobody. 183704 We are working with the world class team at oak ridge national laboratory to use its injection molding capacity to potentially produce over 10 million collection tubes per week. That's tremendous numbers. In the meantime the supply chain and logistics task force continues to surge testing and needed supplies all throughout America. 183726 Mike's team and the task force, they just met, they have been meeting virtually every day, and it's a great team, right, it's a great team. They have been doing a great job, Mike. You've been doing a great job. Many governors are doing this incredible work and they are working with us very closely on testing and working in their states. And again, it should be a local thing because it's point, it's all these points within a state. But we are helping them a lot. And we want to help them a lot. 183757 We want to help them more than a lot actually. If you think about it with what we've done. Think of it. We have done more than all those countries combined. We are encouraging them to share their successful strategies with other governors. Some of the governors are doing a better job than others. The robust capacity that we've brought online will empower governors to deploy sophisticated strategies so they can safely reopen their states. Some people believe in testing very strongly and other people believe in it less strongly. But still it's a very good thing to have. 183821 I think we can say that. Some people believe in it like they can't exist without testing and other people don't believe in it nearly as much. They can see how they are doing and they feel how they are doing. They have been pretty vocal about that. I think you know pretty much who I am talking about. But, I believe if they want it we should give it to them and get it for them and work with them. 183855 You must remember that the governors wanted to have total control over the opening of their states. But now they want to have us, the federal government, do the testing. And again testing is local. You can't have it both ways. Testing is a local thing. And It's very important. It's great. But it's a local thing. And we are going to get it done to a level in a very short period of time because all of these swabs are coming in, all the necessary materials. A lot of them, as I said, are already there, but a lot of people don't know that yet. 183933 We'll be doing testing at a level -- already we are doing testing at a level nobody has done before -- but we'll be doing testing at a level that the biggest tester in the world would be very happy. Very soon. And it is. It's much like ventilators. You don't hear the word mentioned and that's much tougher -- much tougher when you have to build these machines. We built thousands of machines. We'll more than help the governors and we'll make sure that everything goes well just like it did with ventilators. 184006 Just frankly like it did with facemasks on a much easier subject, facemasks. Again, everything is easier than a ventilator. Ventilators are tough. But now, I spoke yesterday with the president of Mexico, and with various other countries. We're gonna be helping them with ventilators. We have tremendous numbers of ventilators. In fact I hear I understand that governor Cuomo is going to be sending up to Massachusetts some of the excess ventilators that we were able to get, and that's great. I think that's a great thing. 184036 The number of new hospital admissions is also significantly down. When you look at these numbers it's a good thing to see, other than the fact we also know how people have been just ravaged by this curse. By this horrible scourge. Plague. Call it. It's got lots of different names. In many of the hot spots including a 50 percent decline over a nine day period in New York City. That's a fantastic decline. 184107 It's a beautiful thing to see after going through the opposite. We continue to see improvement with declining trajectory of cases in Seattle, Detroit, New Orleans, Indianapolis, and Houston metro areas. More evidence that our aggressive strategy is working and I thank the American people for their selfless devotion. The American people have done a hell of a job. 184132 We're saving countless lives though. Again I'll say it because I always wanted to say well, can you leave it open? Nobody heard of anything like this. Not since 1917, more than 100 years ago has anything like this happened. In those days they had no real communications so you couldn't say go inside.Don't -- you know, people just died. Almost 100 million people it's reported. It's tough. 184200 So, you know, the American people, what they have done is, is incredible. And they've learned a lot, you know, you see people picketing a little bit. And they want to get out, they want to get out and get back with their lives. And that's good. But they have learned a lot. They've learned about distancing, even now, at least until this thing totally goes away. They learned about their -- washing their hands and all of the different things that we have been talking about ad nauseum for so long. 184226 And they get it. They got it. And some places, the governors are ready to go, and other places they can't go yet. And they won't go. They want to -- they have to have it safe. I want it to be safe, too. It has to be safe. And again, I have to say this, I can't emphasize it strongly enough. I'm probably going to show you charts of some of the countries that are really having trouble. And one in particular is having a massive problem where they said let's go, we're just going to keep going. Well, their -- the lines that we are famous for now, some are flat and some are up. 184303 This is like a rocket ship. This country is -- and they didn't. They decided let's go and let's wing it. That's -- you know, they thought it was okay. But it's a problem, it's a big problem. And there's another couple -- there is one in particular that everybody thinks did it but the people are staying in. Okay, you know -- the head of a country doesn't have to say stay in. These people are smart people, they know what's going on. They see what's going on. 184331 So, they don't have to say -- they can say they are not doing that. But the people are staying inside. There are not a lot of people outside sitting at cafes. Despite what the mode of a country is. But if you look at Europe, most countries have done this. A couple tried not to. 184346 Italy tried not to and they held it. And Spain tried not to, they went that way. France tried not to. I mean, nobody wants to do this. It's a brutal step. We are going to close down your country. Who ever heard of a thing like this? But we would have had millions of people die if we didn't do this. Millions of people. And I believe that, Mike. You know -- in looking at things we've been looking at over the last couple of days, I think -- and really over the last couple of weeks. 184416 From the time we did it, shortly thereafter, I said we made the right decision on closing down. We made the right decision on borders, banning people coming in from China, banning ultimately people coming in front Europe. But we would have had millions of deaths. Instead of -- it looks like we'll be at about a 60,000 mark which is 40,000 less than the lowest number thought of. So this isn't a case where people would have said we would have had that number. It's similar to a flu. It's not the same thing as a flu at all because If we wouldn't have done anything, you would have had -- so a flu would have 35. It goes from 27 to 35 to 40, 50 sometimes. WASH 3 PRESIDENT TRUMP WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE BRIEFING 200419 P2 184500 So it's a long period of time. Much different. It's even a much different death, to be honest. It's a much different death. This is violent. CMS is finalizing new guidelines for doctors and patients to resume elective surgeries. It's a big thing. A lot of hospitals were closed and they couldn't do any elective surgeries, they'll be able to start doing that. Procedures and medical care that needs to be done in person as long as the rate of infections remains low in a community. 184532 We want patients to be able to go to their doctors, get clinically tested, and have work done, surgeries, receive treatment for chronic conditions and resume preventative care. So we'll be allowing that to happen very soon. We had no capacity in the hospitals with what happened with the, with the plague. We had no capacity to do it. If your doctor believes you need a treatment in person you can get a treatment now. You can and should get a treatment now. 184604 We are asking that healthcare facilities have plans in place to keep patients safe during their visits. Some places like New York, New Jersey where they really got hit hard it's gonna be a little bit tougher. They've done a great job. But they really were a center, I mean, they were a center. I was watching that, it was incredible. But now they are leveling off and I think they will be coming down very soon. 184627 Administrator Seema Verma will be telling you a little bit more of it. Mike's going to say a few words. Seema will then speak, tell you a little bit more about that. My administration continues to execute our massive military operation to supply our hospitals with equipment they need, and beds if necessary. But it looks like we are totally covered on beds. We have plenty of beds. It's highly unlikely, that would be bad news if we needed more beds. But it looks like it's going just the opposite direction. 184700 I want to thank governor Cuomo,a relationship there for this whole thing. We are building hospitals. It was very good. We built a little bit more than we needed and that's good, as opposed to building a little bit less. That's not good. But he's worked very well with us. The governor of Louisiana has been great on the bed -- on that whole situation with the beds. Frankly the governor of Michigan was very good with us on beds. You know, it's a very complex subject. 184735 You need buildings or you have to do tents or you have to do a lot of different things, a lot of different ways. But the army corps of engineers were fantastic. They were fantastic. Florida likewise, Governor Desantis. And I could name probably six other locations. I'll tell you one, California was fantastic. He was really good. 184759 He was really good. And I appreciate the fact that he said what he wanted to say and he wasn't letting the press force him into saying something he didn't want to say so I appreciate it very much. Governor of California. He really, he worked very hard. We worked together. He worked very hard. The federal government is currently procuring more than 100,000 ventilators through new production or purchases with thousands already delivered. 184828 We've delivered thousands of brand new ventilators all throughout the country. New York would be, I guess, the biggest user. And they are now taking some of their excess ventilators which is great and they are sending them up to Massachusetts. I think it's 400. And that's a great thing. Our total supply of ventilators continues to exceed by a lot, total expected demand. 184856 Governor Cuomo said today that no one who needed a ventilator was denied a ventilator. That's a beautiful statement and I appreciate it. And all governors are in that same position. We do have a clip that I thought would be appropriate to put up today. It will take two minutes, and I think you will find it interesting. But we appreciate it. And let's see if we can do that, you'll turn out the lights and we'll see if we can do that. Thank you. 184923 [CUOMO ON VIDEO]>> ...federal government working with states as a just said was a phenomenal accomplishment. TRUMP>> No sound? [CUOMO ON VIDEO]>> We bent the curve. We flattened -- TRUMP>> I thought it was a nice clip, he's a good looking guy. [CUOMO ON VIDEO]>> -- the curve. People did it. But government facilitates people's actions, right? We had to double the hospital capacity in New York state. That's what all the experts said. The president brought in the army corps of engineers. They built 2500 beds at javits that Michael and Northwell were operating. That was a phenomenal accomplishment. 185003 Close to 1,000 people have gone through javits. Luckily we didn't need the 2,500 beds. But all the projections said we did need it. And more, by the way. So these were just extraordinary efforts and acts of mobilization. And the federal government stepped up and was a great partner. And I'm the first one to say it. We needed help and they were there. State and local governments were fantastic. The hospital system was fantastic. 185034 New Yorkers were fantastic. And that is an undeniable fact. Just look at what they said was going to happen. CDC, Coronavirus task force, Cornell, McKinsey, all of them. And they had a line up here, and the actual line is down here. What do you owe the variance to? Heroic efforts on behalf of people as facilitated by government -- federal and state. 185110 TRUMP>> I think we had something else. Are they finished with that? They left out the good part. Great job, folks. Q>> What was the good part? TRUMP>> They did a better job on ventilators. Andrew had something else to say that was really nice. But we won't go through that. But it was really -- I mean It was really a good statement. You want to put the rest of it up or do you not have it? I just think it's so good because it's bipartisan. 185139 You know, this is not about Democrats and Republicans. This is about a thing that hit our country, the likes of which has never happened to us before. Wars, those wars -- civil war, sure. The first World War. The second World War. They were not fought in this country. This is being fought in this country but it's being fought in 184 countries all over the world. It's terrible. But I want to thank Andrew, governor Cuomo for the statement. 185211 He actually, If you go a little bit further it was -- it was far beyond even that. You remember? Huh? >> We're going to try to work on getting the first part -- TRUMP>> Well, that's okay. Whatever. But it's -- he said some really good things. And that's -- it makes people feel good. It's actually the "Wall Street journal," Christopher was saying I want to make people feel good too. I want to make -- when they are doing a good job I want to make people feel good. I want the admiral to feel good. He's worked so hard. Mike has worked so hard. It was very nice. It was on this morning. It was all -- it was Andrew this morning. 185252 It's a little longer clip than that. With but you will see it was really a very nice thing that he said. And people really appreciate that because they've done a great job.The federal government has done a great job with all of it. This is easy. The swabs are -- that's easy. We have them coming by the tens of millions. We have them coming at a level, you will have so many swabs you won't know what to do with them. That's easy. So they will all be there. A lot of them are there already. 185323 They are learning about their testing capacity that they didn't know about that we have in the various labs. Including academic, they have to remember. You have a lot of big colleges that have labs that are totally ready to help. But I want to thank the dynamic ventilator reserve because what they have done is incredible. It's a capital DVR by the way an innovative public private partnership. That's what we created. 185352 We're gaining access to up to 65,000 additional ventilators in hospitals across the nation that can be redeployed to very quickly to areas with the greatest need when they are not in use. And we right now have almost 10,000 in our reserve. We have been able to give away thousands like we helped Andrew and Phil in New Jersey, he's doing a great job. Andrew will tell you that too. They have a very good relationship working together, working with us. 185422 But we have -- now we are back up to almost 10,000 and this is after giving away tens of thousands of ventilators. We're gonna fill up the reserves of states. Were gonna work with them so in case this happens again. But we're also going to help other countries. I was telling you, the president of Mexico, we're gonna be sending a pretty large quantity to Mexico. They very much need them. And to other countries where they need them. I have had about six calls with leaders of other countries and they need them. They're hard to -- they're hard to get done. We did. 185457 Our companies stepped up and did an incredible job. Some of them were automobile companies. They will take an assembly line and they'll say, guess what, we are making ventilators now for a while. But because of the historic steps we have taken I remain confident that every American who needs any of this equipment, any of the things we are talking about will either have it now, already has it, or will shortly have it through the project air bridge. 185524 We've completed 64 flights carrying over 600 million pieces of personal protective equipment such as gloves, gowns and other medical gear. With 50 more flights scheduled in the very near future. The team doing that is an incredible team of military people and young geniuses. Some are older geniuses but mostly younger geniuses I think I can say. Some that had made vast amounts of money in silicon valley. These are very smart people. The job they have done is incredible. I said where did you come from, well they say oh my company,sir.. 185600 Oh really, how much did you get? I think he said $700 million. I said that's good. do you want to work for the government? No I want to help our country, sir. It's tremendous brain power. It's a beautiful thing to see. Young, incredible people that love this country. And they work with the military. Admiral, you would say they are pretty smart right? They were in the upper scales of I.Q. They were the upper. They were the top scale, i'll tell you and they're great people. But FEMA is working to commit another $384 million to producer another 64 million gowns for health care. 185637 These are the highest quality where -- they are very safe when you put them on. They're safe. Very important the quality of the gown is very important. It's -- oeople in different places, different countries, they're wearing gowns with cuts in them and these are very safe. I want to thank America's textile manufacturers for their partnership in this remarkable undertaking.Two U.S. companies, Haynes and standard textile are contracted to produce 5 million gowns by the end of the month and that's really moving. 185712 Two great companies. Honeywell recently began ma manufacturing n95 mas in Rhode Island WHE they converted a factory I less than five weeks instead of the 9 months it was normally expected to take. 5 weeks instead of 9 months. It's amazing the spirit of this country. We said do it fast. And this was a mainonversion, too. It's a different world. Honeywell is hiring 1,000 American workers to produce 20 million masks a month. Thanks to the defense production acte'll be receiving 40 million masks the next few weeks. I want to thank 3M because they stepped you have. We had a dispute at the beginning, but that got worked out quickly andhey have been doing a great job. 3M. I want to thank their great CEO. We had a little skirmish buff it [6:58:28 PM] worked out well. And they are doing a lot of work. This production in addition to the 55 million n95 masks my administration already distributed. We ordered 500 million masks. You would think what are you going to do with them? They get used rapidly. In addition to that. We sterilize masks. A great company in Ohio. Lot of the masks can be sterilized up to 20 times I always wondered why aren't they -- why aren't they sterilizing the masks. Some of them you have can't because they are a different material. So they are sterilizing up to 20 [6:59:29 PM] times a certain type of mask. To these numbers, to put them into perspective American healthcare providers use an estimated 25 million n95 masks in a typical year. That means we have procured 20 times more. President trump discussing the nation's progress. this fox News channel for continuing coverage. Jon: Continuing our coverage on the Fox News channel, the president is updating at the white house on the coronavirus task force. The president is still at the podium. We expect to hear from other members of the task force as well. President trump: We should make product in the United States. The supply chains sounds wonderful. But if one country has a problem, the whole chain is ruined. I ran partially on that and I ran strongly against China. Then we made a great trade deal. They will buy $250 billion. They are supposed to. They have given $16 billion to [7:01:03 PM] our farmers and ranchers who were targeted. I ran on China and other countries who were ripping off our country. China fully understood that. They are big strong smart people. I wasn't friendly a it wasn't a friendly situati. And we ended up making an incredible deal with China for tens of billions of dollars of product. $40 billion to $50 billion to farmers. The most they spent was10 to $16 billion. Then the virus came along and I'm not happy. I let them know I'm not happy we had a bad relationship with China, then we had a good relationship because when made a great deal. But we are not happy. This is not a good thing that happened. It came out of China. [7:02:04 PM] We a not in a position where we are going to say much yet. But the deal itself isre great. The deal is going to put many, many people to work in our country. But all of that has to be taken into account when you look at the people dying in our country and all over the world. All over the world people are dying. I had a g7 call and their economics are shattered, Japan, Germany, France, the different countries. Italy. Look what happened to Italy. Look what happened to Spain. Look what happened T to Spain? How incredible. It's just been shattered. And so many other countries are shattered. So nobody ever thought this could have happened like this. It's very, very sad. But if we learned something it's [7:03:07 PM] about supply chains. I saw it yesterday when the industry gets back they have a problem because they have a supply chain going to a different country. Why do you need a supply chain. Make your parts here. Make one part from this country and one part from that country. If one country has a problem you have no car or of what it is you are making. So we learned a good lesson. I think a lot of smart people knew that before. But we distributed many hundreds of millions of masks. This pandemic underscored the importance of bringing our supply chain back into the United States. What if you are in a war and you have a supply chain where move your suppls are given to you by other countries? Who are the people who thought [7:04:07 PM] of this? These are globalists. It doesn't work. It doesn't work in B time, rough times or dangerous times. We'll continue to fight the virus. We are talking to China. We spoke to him a long time ago about going in. We want to go in. We want to see what's going on. We weren't exactly invited. I can tell you that. If you look at some of the investigations that are going on in terms of world health ganization, and I'll take it a step further. World trade. We did years ago. Many years ago. The world trade organization from the day China came in, that's when China bloomed. They were main lining it, then they were up like a rocket rocket ship because they took advantage of he little [7:05:08 PM] ridiculous clause in the world trade documents. China was a developing nation. They make the cars, they make everything. And they are a developing nation. So we have had -- I might have gotten elected to a certain extent because of China and other countries. The United States is getting ripped off in trade. Japan is paying $40 billion and buying a lot. The u.s.-mexico was a great deal. I would also put the world trade organization in that same group. I was very tough on these countries. With cna we made the dealnd became friendly. But then this happened. This is ttamount, this is something that's really incredible. I want to read something I just saw today on television. I was look and I just said, [7:06:09 PM] that's an interesting statement. We talk about the Democrats and it was a statement made by Bret Baier, on February 19 there was a democratic debate in Las Vegas. That W February 19. That's way after I closed entrance from China into our country. So Bret goes on February 19 there was a democratic debate in Las Vegas. Three word said during the debate. Virus, coronavirus * or covid-19. Those three word never came up. I just thought it was Ver interesting. You hear these people some of the people, the Democrats say it was never a part of their dialogue. Now theyring it up. But they didn't bring it up. But I brought it up. I brought it up a long time before I made the trade deal. I was not easy to deal with. [7:07:11 PM] They understandt.hat. We still have 25% on $250 billion they have to pay us. It's a lot of the money. We have had a lot of the beneficiaries including our farmers and ranchers. We launched an unprecedented effort to develop new treatments in therapies to battle the plague. Therapies to me are the most exciting. The vaccines are somportant. But the therapies a immediate. We have some things that are looking good. We call so individual treatment acceleration program. And we have government agencies looking, too. N.I.H. They are slashing red tape, speed and development. [7:08:12 PM] It's unrivaled. The fda and Dr. Stephen Hahn, a highly respected man from a great institution left that job to come here. The job he's doing is incredible. We are working with Scott, his predecessor. The speed of development for anti-viral and immune therapies is at a level thob even thought was possible. We are gngting very good results. If we could find the therapies that would solve the problem. If somebody has a probleme can get it taken care of so it's not so devastating. With that I will have vice president pence to come up. It's Sunday evening. And this man has thought stopped. He's working -- we all are in all fairness. But he's been working with his task force round the clock for [7:09:12 PM] months, and I want to thank Mike. Thank you, Mike. VICE PRESIDENT PENCE PENCE>> Let me echo your words about the dedicated men and women on the coronavirus task force. The team you assembled in January, Seema Verma, Dr. She Hahn of the fda. It's been inspiring to have the privilege to wk with. The coronavirus task force met today. 190943 It was reported to us at this moment more than 746,000 Americans have tested positive for the coronavirus. And fortunately more than 68,000 Americans have fully recovered. But sadly more than 41,000 Americans have lost their lives to the coronavirus. We always want to express our deepest sympathies -- to the families in their loss as well as to all the families who have loved ones that are struggling with this disease. 191017---------------- Today we have seen encouraging news again about our progress as a nation. President trump reflected on those momentarily. But the coronavirus white house task force today learned that our large metro areas continue to stabilize and see progress. The New York metro area including New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Long Island all appear to be past their peak. The Detroit metro area appears to be past its peak and it's stable. The norms me though area is the most stable of all. Areas where we had a main metropolitan outbreak. The Denver metro area is stable. We are dealing in Colorado with [7:11:14 PM] a meat packing plant. California and Washington remain low and steady. Areas we continue to watch carefully on the task force is the Chicago metro area, boss to be metro and Philadelphia metropolitan area. The progress that we are making is a tribute to the American people. It's a tribute to state and local leaders in all these areas, and the partnership our president has formed. But we just want to even crown he American as we see this -- we just want T to encourage he American to heed your state and local authorities. No one wants T reopen America more THA president Donald Trump. But we'll continue to work with govesors of he state with the president's guidelines for opening up America again. And we'll work in a way that we [7:12:15 PM] can consolidate the progress we mve made and help move our states toward reopening our country. We also received a report today and the coronavirus task force at this point. 5,528 military personnel have been deployed across hospital difficult significances and -- National Guard are on doubtly. We have 9,055 ventilators on hand. We added to that supply because of the production our president and the task force at FEMA. We'll be adding to the strategic national stockpile. 64 air bridge flights cometed and 50 more on the horizon bring in mall equipment [7:13:15 PM] from around the country and around the world and deployi it to critical areas. 191310 Finally, tomorrow as the president announced, we'll be hosting a conference call with all of the nation's governors, all the states and territories from the headquarters at FEMA. And we'll be working with the governors to insure them that we are helping them to review and evaluate the president's guidelines for opening up America again. The criteria that we believe is appropriate and necessary before states can move into any phase one change in the mitigation strategies, 191348 But also at the president's direction tomorrow, we'll be providing all the nation's governors and all of their health officials with detail about the testing infrastructure that exists all around the country. We'll be specifically providing governors and state health officials with information about all of the lab capability that exists in their state. And also we'll be updating them on our efforts to identify the kind of supplies the president just held up in our efforts to make sure that those supplies are at all of those laboratories as the need should arise. 191423 Remember that a month ago we had done 80,000 coronavirus tests in America. This weekend we cleared more than 4 million. And we're currently testing more than a million Americans a week. We fully expect to actually have tested more than 5 million Americans before the end of this month. But at the president's urging, we're going to continue to scale that testing and work then with governors to make sure that they can manage and implement and deploy that testing in the manner that will most support their efforts to move their states forward. 191457 Remember that the testing that is contemplated in the guidelines for opening up America again for phase one are testing people that have symptoms that may be coronavirus and then also having the testing resources to deploy to vulnerable communities, nursing homes and or other vulnerable communities that we have identified as needing additional, what is called monitoring or surveillance testing. 191528 We believe we have the testing today around the country that would allow any state in America to move into phase one if they've met the other criteria. 14 days of consistent declines and strong hospital capacity so that their system would not be overwhelmed in the event of a flare-up. But we're gonna be working with governors tomorrow on the subject of testing and supplies. And as the president said again this evening, we are here to help. 181554 We've forged a partnership with governors around the country and tomorrow we'll be building on that partnership to hopefully arrive at the day that we can make sure governors around the nation have the best advice and the best resources to put America back to work. Thank you, Mr. President. 191613 TRUMP>> Seema here? Seema, you have done such a great job, please come up and say a couple of words. Thank you. SEEMA VERMA 191620 VERMA>> Thank you Mr vice President, Mr President. So just a few weeks ago, we stood here and asked the American healthcare system to delay elective surgeries and procedures. And the reason why we did this is we wanted to make sure that the health care system could deal deal with any surges. We wanted to preserve equipment and make sure that they had the appropriate workforce to handle any surge. 191644 And our healthcare system did a fantastic job. They very quickly stood up telehealth services and under the president's leadership, we started paying for these services under the medicare program. But the reality is, not everything can be addressed by telehealth. There may be a woman that needs surgery for breast cancer. Somebody who has cataracts in their eyes that need to be able to see better. And sometimes the doctor just needs to be able to listen to their patient's heart. 191711 We've heard across the country that doctor's offices have closed and many healthcare systems are furloughing their staff, nurses and doctors. Under the president's leadership we've put out over $90 billion in accelerated payments under the medicare program, provided $30 billion of grants with more dollars on the way. But thanks to the American people we are in a much different place. You heard from the vice president that there are many places around the country where they are seeing a decline in cases and hospitals are reporting that they have unused capacity. 191748 And so as part of our opening up America, we are issuing guidelines today about how we can reopen the healthcare system. So these are recommendations around phase one. Now, every state and local official has to assess the situation on the ground. They need to make sure that they can still address surges. They need to make sure that they have adequate supplies and a plan for conserving supplies. 191815 They need to be able to screen patients and healthcare workers for covid virus. And they need to make sure that patients feel safe when they come in to seek healthcare services by assuring that they have the appropriate cleaning in place and that they observe social distancing inside the healthcare facilities. 191832 And this isn't going to be like a light switch. It's more like a sun rise where it's going to be a gradual process. And healthcare officials across the country and healthcare systems need to decide what services should be made available. And ultimately, doctors and patients need to make decisions about their healthcare services. We want to make sure that systems are reopening so that they can stay open and doing that in a very measured way. 191901 And so I want to thank all the healthcare workers on the front line who have done a fantastic job in providing care and comfort, serving as a liaison between family members. They've done a fantastic job and we owe a debt of gratitude to them. And to all those providers that did adhere to our guidelines. They did the right thing and it has made an extraordinary difference. I also want to take a couple of seconds here to talk about our nursing homes. Our hearts and minds are with the patients and the families of those living in nursing homes. This is an extraordinarily difficult situation. 191936 People living in nursing homes are of the most vulnerable patients, they're elderly, many of them have underlying health conditions. And this has been a very hard situation. And I really appreciate the strong efforts of governors and local communities that have shown great leadership in supporting nursing homes across the country, particularly governor Baker, governor Hogan, that have had special efforts around supporting nursing homes. FEMA is also working on a plan to make sure that nursing homes have the supplies that they need. 192007 And just last week we increased the reimbursement in the medicare program for high through-put tests. And we are also paying for labs to go out to nursing homes to collect samples. And that's really going to support efforts on nursing homes in order to isolate patients. Today we are also announcing under the president's leadership an effort around nursing home transparency. It's important that patients and their families have the information that they need, and they need to understand what's going in the nursing home. 192040 And so today we are announcing that we are requiring nursing homes to report to patients and their families if there are cases of covid virus inside the nursing home. We are also requiring nursing homes to report directly to the CDC when they have cases of covid virus. And this is very important, as you've heard Dr Birx talk about as we reopen the United States our surveillance effort around the covid virus will also begin in nursing homes. 192109 And so by having this reporting system, this will support CDC's efforts to have surveillance around the country and to support efforts around contact tracing so that we can mitigate the spread of the virus in those communities that show the spread starting in the nursing homes. So again, I want to thank all of the local officials that have done an amazing job of supporting the nursing homes and would urge all state and local leaders to follow their lead and do everything we can to keep nursing homes residents safe. Thank you. QUESTIONS 192139 TRUMP>> Thank you very much. And Dr. Hahn is here. You need -- he will tell you maybe a little bit later if you want this. But I can tell you that, very simply, the level at which they are approving things, tests and being on top of it, the people that are doing the testing for therapies and for vaccines has never -- they have never seen anything like this. So I want to thank you very much. And stick around. Maybe they will have some questions. Please, go ahead. 192213 Q>> Mr. President, thank you very much. If there were groups people planning to protest tomorrow against the government shutdown. What would be your advice? TRUMP>> Against the shutdown? Q>> The shutdown lifting. [INAUD] TRUMP>> People feel that way. You are allowed to protest. I mean they feel that way. I watched a protest and they were all 6 feet apart. It was a very orderly group of people. , but you know, some --- some have gone too far, some governors have gone too far. Some of the things that have happened are maybe not so appropriate. 192246 And I think In the end it's not gonna matter because we are starting to open up our states and I think they're gonna open up very well. We're gonna be watching it. We're gonna watch it very closely. We are working with them on testing. We're working with them on whatever they need. I don't think they need ventilators anymore. I believe the term the governor used was phenomenal. 192305 You've done a phenomenal job. That was a term -- that was the only sentence they left out which is okay. But I appreciate that that's what governor Cuomo said. But we have. They have done a phenomenal -- these people have done a phenomenal job. As far as protesters, I see protesters, you know, i see for all sorts of things. I am with everybody. I'm with everybody. Please, In the back? Go ahead. 192330 Q>> Thank you, Mr. President. Yesterday you pointed out that Iran was likely not truthful in the reporting of the virus. Meanwhile senator Dianne Feinstein and other Democrats are looking for $5 billion in aid to Iran. Are you considering giving aid to Iran? 192451 TRUMP>> If Iran needed aid on this, I would be willing to do something. If they want it, if they ask for it. I would be certainly willing -- they were hit very hard. Obviously those numbers weren't correct numbers that they reported. But if they needed help, if they needed aid or ventilators, we have thousands of ventilators currently on hand. 192412 ----------- And ventilators under construction that are under construction. That's a mosquito. I don't like mosquitoes. But if they --ia yes, we would [7:24:33 PM] be willing to help. What necessity should do is B be smart and make a deal. It's only because you look at what happened, John Kerry I guess doesn't want them to make a deal. They probably figure they can wait and maybe it will be Biden and they will own America. Andhey know with me it doesn't work that way. If Joe Biden got in they would own America. Between them, China, Japan, Mexico, Cana, they would own America. You wouldn't have a country left if he got in. Go ahead, please. Q>> The first question, you mentioned the governors, you said Y yesterday some governors have gone too far. Which governors are you referring to? TRUMP>> I don't want to mention them specifically. But obviously one we can mention. But much beyond this is Virginia with what theav have done on guns. He is playing with your second [7:25:35 PM] amendment. We can't allow that to happen. That is indirectly related to this. You know what happened with guns. People are buying guns because of this surge of plague. What he did was totally inappropriate. Other than that I am not going to mention governors. I have a list. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Q>> Steve M mnuchin said this is ready to go. TRUMP>> Every time you say it's ready to go. Then we have a good negotiating position. We'll see what happens. We want to put our -- Weant to take care of our workers and small businesses. They are the engine of this country. When we open we want the small businesses ready to go. We don't want those businesses abandoned because they couldn't afford their employees. [7:26:35 PM] I want to take care of those employees. I can just tell you we are negotiating with the Democrats. They negotiate the this we can't do that we don't think are from the best interests of the people of this country. We are very close to a deal. I can't tell you whether we'll get the deal or not. Who would say that. Do you want me to say we are going to have a deal before we have a deal? We have a good chance of getting a deal. A lot of good cushions were had today. We have a good chance of getting the deal. We want to take care of our work were and small companies. Go ahead, please. Q>> I have a question for you and also for Dr. Hahn, if I may. In your remarks that you made just a few moments ago in regards to reopening the U.S. Economy you said I want it to be safe. That's the sentiment obviously. Tens of millions of Americans. It seems at odds with the tweet [7:27:36 PM] that you had Friday about liberating those three particular states, Virginia, Minnesota, and Michigan because none of those states have met the requirements that the vice president and others on the task force talked about in terms of re reopening the economy. Do you see those two -- TRUMP>> If you take Michigan. There were things in the Michigan I don't think WER necessarily appropriate. Everyone knows that. I think the governor of Michigan probably knows that. I will bet she wishes she didn't put some of them in. You can't buy paint or seeds. Where did this stuff come from? We have to be safe. We don't want to cse anything. We won't be closing. But we'll be doing it beautifully, systematically. We are working well with the governors. A couple of them no matter what you do you will never satisfy. A couple of them you have could find a cure tomorrow and they wouldn't be satisfied. [7:28:36 PM] Wise guys. Bull more the most part we have a great relations with the governors. I have been on numerous calls with governors. During those calls without exception they were friendly. Th goes back even a month from today. I think we'll do a terrific job. I think the governors will do a terrific job and we are starting to open our country. I just spoke wh Greg Abbott today from Texas. He's a fantastic governor. He will be opening up parts of Texas. And you will be opening up parts of other countries in the other states. By the way, other countries are at a point where they are opening. Germany is starting to open you have a little section. There are a lot of great things happening. And we are going to start to open our country. And we are going to do it like as I S, it's lik a beautiful puzzle. The state might even be a portion of state. There are very big states. [7:29:36 PM] And you can have portions of states. You have a county which is perfect and another county that'sor sort of still far away, even if it's within the same state. And it's not doing so well. But they may open up. We'll do it very, very carefully. And I think it's going to be very successful. When you say safe, I want it to be very safe. Let him just do this. Go ahead, please. Q>> The question I don't know the answer to, I was wondering if you could provide the answer to. There is an epidemiologist at the university of Alabama in Birmingham who is a covid-19 survivor. His question is this, why would the virus suddenly be different and people's us September builts being different on may 1 or June 1 or July 1. It's all related to reopening [7:30:37 PM] the economy. Can you explain tore give an answer to that particular question? HAHN>> I don't think we have evidence that one would be more susceptible or less. What we can say she mitigation efforts helped with respect to this. And that what we have seen is the number of cases have GE down. If we follow the getting criteria for the opening, we are able to institute phase one and appropriate measures in place to reduce any chance of flare-up of the cases. Q>> -- Rebounding, if you open too soon without the mitigation efforts still in place -- HAHN>> Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx talked about this at the podium. The key is the surveillance put in place by the CDC. That will be a great help in terms of trying to reduce that risk. 193126 TRUMP>> And I think they have the rest of that clip. I just thought it was a very good clip. I think it's a tribute to new York. I think it is a tribute to the federal government and I thought it was nice. So I think they have that now. They can try it. Go ahead. 193142 [CUOMO ON VIDEO]>> Have we saved everyone? No. But have we lost anyone because we didn't have a bed or we didn't have a ventilator or we didn't have healthcare staff? No. The people we lost are the people we couldn't save. Not for lack of trying, and not for lack of doing everything everything that we could do as a society, not only as a government and as a healthcare system. 193221 Q>> Since you shared with us something else that you saw on TV today, I have a question about something you said on Thursday which is you were angry because information about the virus should have been told to us earlier and a lot sooner. People knew it was happening and people did not want to talk about it. Many Americans are saying the exact same thing about you. That you should have warned them the virus was spreading like wildfire through the month of february instead of holding rallies with thousands of people. Why did you wait so long. TRUMP>> Who are you with? Who are you with? Q>> And why did you not have social distancing until March 16? TRUMP>> Who do you work with? Q>> I'm Weijia Jiang with CBS news. 193304 TRUMP>> So, if you look at what I did in terms of cutting off or banning China from coming in -- Q>> Chinese nationals -- But by the way, not Americans who were also coming from china. TRUMP>> Nice and easy. Nice and easy. Just relax. We cut it off. People were amazed. These gentlemen. Everybody was amazed that I did it.. We had 21 people in a room. Everybody was against it but me. Dr. Fauci said had I not done that perhaps tens of thousands and maybe much more than that,, people would have died. 193336 I was very early. Very, very early. And we just saw -- you saw Brett Baier making a statement. They had a debate well into February and not even mentioned. It wasn't even mentioned, the Democrats. We were very early Q>> You're the president. TRUMP>> Oh, i'm the president. I am the president and you know what I just did? Q>> Why didn't you warn more people that it was spreading more quickly? And by the way, when you issued the ban the virus was already here. TRUMP>> Okay, and you know how many people when I issued the ban? How many cases of the virus were in the United States when I issued the ban. Do you know the number? Q>> There was -- TRUMP>> No, no, no. How many cases. Remember, I said one person. How many cases were here when I issued the ban. Tell me. Q>> But did you know it was going to spread into a pandemic TRUMP>> No, no, no. You have to do your research. How many -- 193415 Q>> I did my research. On the 23rd of March you said you knew this was going to be a pandemic. TRUMP>> Can I tell you what. I did know it. I did know it. All I have to do is look, All -- anybody knew it. Are you ready? How many cases were in the United States when I did my ban? How many people had died in the United States -- Q>> So do you acknowledge you didn't think this was going it was going to spread? TRUMP>> Keep your voice down, please, keep your voice down. Q>> Did you not think it was going to spread? 183437 TRUMP>> How many cases were in the united states? I did a ban where I'm closing up the entire country. How many people died? Q>> And that's a fair point -- TRUMP>> How many people died in the United States and yet I closed up the country. And I believe there were no deaths, zero deaths at the time I closed up the country. Nobody was there. And you should say thank you very much for good judgment. Go ahead, please. Q>> You just mentioned Germany. Germany allowing more parts to open. Does this give you have confidence some European countries are on the verge of recovering? TRUMP>> I hope so. I spoke with Angela. They are going to start a process of opening like we are. I spoke with numerous governors. They are doing it also. Areas that -- number of one they [7:35:39 PM] have done a good job. Germany starting the process also. I'm very happy about that. Some places in Europe can't start the process for a while. Q>> The mayor of Las Vegas thinks it's total insanity for business to be shut down in Nevada as the vegovernor has ordered. Who is right? TRUMP>> They shut one of my hotels down too. I'm not involved in that. I could be if I wanted to. I chose not to be. I could be if I wanted to. But I chose not. They closed a very big hotel I have in Nevada down in Las Vegas. It's a severe step he took. I'm so Kay with it. You could call that one either way. I know the hair is very -- the mayor is very upset with it. Some of the developers have very upset. Others said we have got to get rid of it. I can see both sides of it. [7:36:42 PM] Q>> I read recently about an sba rule that said the paycheck protection can't go to small casinos. TRUMP>> They are looking into it. They are going to make a ruling I understand nt week. Q>> They M ae a ruling and changed it to casinos who make a third of their income. TRUMP>> They are continuing to look at that. It's a big topic because a lot of people are involved. Q>> Governor Cuomo has praised a lot of what the government has done. TRUMP>> He didn't say a lot. He didn't say you did a good job on ventilators and nothing else. So report and rat are Y. You are one of the most inaccurate reporters. Q>> Republican governors say what they need is a national strategy [7:37:42 PM] when it comes to testing. Because they are competing against one another. Debt * they said the same thing with ventilators - TRUMP>> They said the same thing with ventilators. Q>> What about the reagents. TRUMP>> We're in great shape -- It's so easy to get. Reagents and swabs are so easy to get. When you have to build a very expensive piece of machinery controlled by computers, that's afeifferent thing. We'll have everything -- everything will be in good shape very soon. 193814 Q>> The latest stimulus package, will that have funding for states and local governments? Mr -- TRUMP>> Well, I don't want to comment on it but we will be saving that for another time. Q>> But will you be willing to assist --- 193826 TRUMP>>And by the way, some states and local governments need it. I'm the first one to admit that. We're going to be saving that for another, little bit of a later date. It will probably be our next negotiation. But if they do, I'm in favor of it. I will say. And I told the Republicans today -- I had a, I think a great talk with Republican senators today, and -- all of them. I think, just about all of them. And conference call. And we are going to be -- that will be a very big topic over the next couple of weeks. It's very important. 193858 Q>> What is the administration doing to make sure that hotel chains and hedge funds --- TRUMP>> Well, that's another one, yeah. That's another one. You have hotels that are big, massive buildings that are underlevered. But if you have no income at all coming out, no income at all, these hotels are -- they go from underlevered, to they have to be closed down. It's a terrible thing. I don't know that they are working on that specific problem, but it's a problem they should be talking about. I mean, you have people that own a hotel, where the go from having a very successful hotel, you know, with many employees, thousands of people to all of a sudden closing it down. 193936 I read where my wonderful place in Florida, in Miami, Doral. They had to let a lot of the employees go because it's essentially closed. You can't use it. You're not allowed -- you can't have the restaurants, you can't have -- so you know, you have to close it down. That's an example of many, many hotels are closing down throughout the country and hopefully they're gonna be able to open up relatively quickly. Q>> but the funds were specifically for small businesses --

THE REGULAR WHITE HOUSE BRIEFING WITH JOSH EARNEST - STIX DC SLUG: 1245 WH BRIEF STIX RS37 73 AR: 16x9 DISC#: 832 JOSH EARNEST: Afternoon, everybody. 13:08:25 Q: Good afternoon. MR. EARNEST: Happy Monday. Let me do a quick announcement and then we'll get to -- get to questions. We discussed at some length on Friday the president's meeting with the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership Steering Committee. So I thought I would bring a little information about it, just to let you know exactly what it is. (Laughter.) Q: Yeah. MR. EARNEST: I learned a little bit myself as I looked into this. (Laughter.) The president's Advanced Manufacturing Partnership Steering Committee is part of a council of 19 leading CEOs, labor leaders and university presidents that was assembled by the president, with the recognition that the -- that industry, academia and government must work together to revitalize our manufacturing sector. The president's view is that the manufacturing sector here in this country is central to the foundation of our economy, and the United States manufacturing sector is as competitive as it has been in decades, as measured both by investment and new jobs. Since February of 2010 the United States manufacturing industry has added more than 700,000 jobs, which is the fastest pace of job growth in the manufacturing sector since the 1990s. And in the context of today's meeting there were three new substantial -- three new executive actions that represent substantial investment by the federal government into research and technology that could boost the advanced manufacturing sector moving forward. And I think this reflects the president's ongoing commitment to ensure that creating good middle-class jobs is critical to the success of our economy because it reflects the president's view that our economy is strong and dynamic when the middle class is strong and dynamic, and the strength of our middle class is predicated on good middle-class jobs being available to American workers. So this is a core component of that. And I know that we put out a fact sheet about some of these announcements this morning, so I would commend that fact sheet to you in your spare time to do a little reading if you're interested. 13:10:29 So with that, Mr. Cunnan (sp), you want to get us started? Q: Thank you Josh. I'll leave it to the fact sheet to answer all our questions on manufacturing. MR. EARNEST: OK. Q: So I'll go directly to Ebola. We've had over the past couple of days a number of states, leading with New York and New Jersey, taking steps to quarantine returning travelers from the affected Ebola region, but more significantly, today, the Pentagon is applying those same kind of quarantine measures to troops, including General Darryl Williams, who has been -- who's returned from the region to Italy. Does the White House support the Pentagon move? And does the fact that these various states and now the Pentagon are taking these steps suggest that the White House -- that the administration has been -- steps that it has taken have been inadequate so far, given that these other entities are taking these more aggressive positions? 13:11:32 MR. EARNEST: Well, there's a lot there, Jim, that I want to respond to, so let me try to unpack those things one at a time. The first is the Department of Defense has not issued a policy related to their workers that have spent time in West Africa. I know that there was this decision that was made by one commanding officer in the Department of Defense, but it does not reflect a department-wide policy that I understand is still under development. So I'd refer you to the Department of Defense for additional details on where that policy process stands and what consequences that could have for their personnel. 13:12:02 The second thing is the announcement from New York and New Jersey that was followed by announcements from a couple of other states was specifically related to health care workers, not just returning -- not just people who were returning from the region. And that distinction is important because it continues to be the view of this administration that stopping this Ebola outbreak in its tracks in West Africa is critically important to our national security and to the safety and health of American citizens. 13:12:43 As we've said many, many times, the likelihood of a widespread outbreak in this country of Ebola is exceedingly low. But the only way that we can entirely eliminate that risk is to stop this Ebola outbreak in its tracks in West Africa. And in order to succeed in stopping this outbreak in West Africa, we're going to need doctors and nurses traveling to West Africa to treat Ebola patients. 13:13:11 Sadly, tragically even, this Ebola outbreak in West Africa has occurred in countries that have little to no modern medical infrastructure. And that is the reason that we have seen this Ebola outbreak spiral so quickly, in a way that has claimed so many lives So we want to make sure that whatever policies are put in place in this country to protect the American public do not serve as a disincentive to doctors and nurses from this country volunteering to travel to West Africa to treat Ebola patients. 13:13:47 The first is, that as a -- you know, it reflects -- a commitment from a doctor or nurse to travel to West Africa reflects a generosity of spirit and a concern for common humanity that is worthy of praise. It also reflects the commitment to the ideal that stopping the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is the only way we can entirely eliminate the risk to the American people from the Ebola virus. And what you will -- and I guess this is the last thing I want to say about this, Jim, is you will hear from the CDC later today some additional information about guidelines that they believe should be in place to -- as it relates to protocols for returning health care workers, or health care workers who are returning from West Africa. So we'll have additional guidelines from CDC. They'll make that announcement later on this afternoon, but ultimately it's the responsibility -- in fact the authority is vested with state and local officials to make decisions about how best to protect their citizens. Q: Doesn't that kind of create a patchwork of policies that then confuse the public, might even encourage people to game the system, like about what they encountered when they've been in West Africa when you don't have an overarching federal policy that rules? MR. EARNEST: Well, I mean, we were talking about this a little bit earlier, Jim, anticipating your question. I mean, some of this is -- in some ways you can sort of take this up with James Madison, right? We have a federal system in this country in which states are -- Q: He's not here. 13:15:38 MR. EARNEST: -- you know, states are given significant authority for governing their constituents. That is certainly true when it comes to public safety and public health. At the same time, I think that you have seen a strong working relationship between states across the country and the federal government. What we believe is important -- and I think this is a view that is shared by governors and local officials across the country, is that these kinds of policies should be driven by science and the best scientific advice that is available. We have experts at the Centers for Disease Control and at HHS that have been dealing with Ebola outbreaks for decades now. And there is a body of medical science and research that should guide the implementation of these policies. And we're going to work closely with states and localities to do exactly that. 13:16:15 I think the best and most recent piece of evidence that I can point to illustrate this ongoing coordination is this morning's announcement that Kaci Hickox, the nurse who has recently returned from West Africa, will be discharged from the hospital in New Jersey and will be traveling via private transportation to her home in Maine. Q: Let's take the case of the Pentagon. You talked about how the administration has been aware and has acted on the Ebola outbreak since March. And then, shouldn't these -- shouldn't the policy have been in place when you decided to send troops to West Africa? Shouldn't how you were going to treat those returning troops have been a matter of protocol then rather than what appears to be being made up on the fly as we go? 13:17:05 MR. EARNEST: Well, Jim, the commitment of Department of Defense resources was something that the president announced, I believe, just last month. And this is -- this is an ongoing effort by the Department of Defense to use their logistical expertise in West Africa to assist those, essentially, first responders who are actually treating Ebola patients. We have been clear that the role of American military personnel in West Africa will not be to render medical assistance to the people of West Africa. Instead, it will be -- the logistical expertise of the American military will be deployed to assist those doctors and nurses and other public health experts from around the world who are responding to this urgent situation. That was a commitment that was made by the president just about a month or so ago, and that is-- we are already seeing important work that's being done in West Africa by our American military personnel. And, you know, as needed, they will continue to put in place policies that they believe best protect the members of the military and the members of the public back here in the United States as well. OK. Roberta? Q: So is the White House concerned that the decision made by one commanding officer, in this case of Lieutenant - (inaudible) -- is sending a mixed message to people about the need for these type of policies? 13:18:24 MR. EARNEST: No. We believe that the - I mean, it's clear - and if it wasn't clear before, it is now that I've helped make it clear - that the Department of Defense policy has not been settled and implemented yet. And they will ultimately - that will be a decision that's driven by a variety of operational factors. What we are - what this administration is working to do is to coordinate with state and local officials across the country to put in place the policies that scientific experts tell us are in the best interest of the American people. And that's what we believe should guide the policy decisions that are made in this country. Q: I'm confused, though, because, I mean, we've known about this outbreak for some time. We're going to hear, as you said, from the CDC later today guidelines for protocol for returning medical workers, which we knew they were there. Why haven't - and the Pentagon, too, in the case of these people who are being housed for sort of semi-quarantine in Italy. Why weren't these kinds of decisions made earlier? 13:19:31 MR. EARNEST: Roberta, I think what this reflects is a commitment by this administration to regularly review the guidelines that are in place to make sure that they - that they reflect what's necessary to protect the American people. And we should not lose sight of the fact that whatever guidelines and policies are put in place should not unduly burden those health care workers that in fact are operating in West Africa in very difficult situations. They are putting themselves at risk to try to meet the needs of other people. That is a pretty remarkable show of charity. It also is an effort that is clearly in the best interests of the American people because we know that the only way to entirely eliminate the risks from the Ebola virus to the American people is to stop this outbreak in West Africa. And there are American citizens who are using their own medical expertise in pursuit of that goal. These individuals are heroes, and their commitment to their common man and to their country is one that should be respected. 13:20:33 And we believe that we can both show them the respect that they have earned while also ensuring that we have protocols in place to protect the American people. Q: Just one quick one on NHTSA, the Transportation Department is reviewing how NHTSA's handled a series of problems like faulty airbags and defective ignition switches. Did the White House ask Secretary Foxx to conduct this investigation and is the White House satisfied with NHTSA's performance? 13:21:05 MR. EARNEST: Well Roberta, I can tell you that NHTSA has been aggressive in responding to the situation related to defective airbags, and they have sought to move forward aggressively to protect the American people once they had data to indicate that action was needed. There have been some issues that have cropped up around the announcement of the safety advisory last week, and the Department of Transportation review that has commenced is the right step to make sure that everyone is focused on learning from this situation and strengthening the response. Q: Did the White House ask for that review? 13:21:42 MR. EARNEST: This is something that is being led by the Department of Transportation, so if you have questions about their review, I'd refer you to them. OK, Jim? Q: Josh, the CDC guidelines that are coming out later on this afternoon, will the states be compelled to follow those guidelines, or could they still chart their own course when it comes to quarantine? 13:21:59 MR. EARNEST: Yeah, that's a good question. State and local officials have broad authority to impose quarantine policies in their own states and localities, so the role for the CDC is to marshal scientific evidence. As I mentioned, the Centers for Disease Control has extensive experience in dealing with Ebola outbreaks. There is a body of medical science that's been devoted to understanding how exactly the Ebola virus is transmitted. That science tells us that the likelihood of a widespread Ebola outbreak in the United States is exceedingly low, that the risk to the average American citizen is exceedingly low. I think even Dr. Fauci yesterday described it as "vanishingly low." Q: There's the potential for different states to have different protocols. 13:22:44 MR. EARNEST: Well, there are -- there is the potential for governors and mayors in specific jurisdictions to exercise the authority that they have to impose quarantine policies. What the Obama administration -- Q: (Off mic) -- different states with different guidelines -- 13:24:13 MR. EARNEST: Well, as I mentioned to Jim, I guess you can take that up with James Madison. The fact of the matter though, Jim, is that we have a strong working relationship from the administration to -- a strong working relationship between the Obama administration and states and cities all across the country. And again, I think the best evidence of that is something that was announced just today, which is that by working with CDC, the state of New Jersey has determined that it's appropriate to release her from the hospital where she has been in New Jersey so that she can travel home to Maine. I think that reflects ongoing discussions between the Centers for Disease Control and public officials in New Jersey. And again, I think that reflects a decision that was made by New Jersey officials, that was driven by the kinds of scientific expertise that resides at the Centers for Disease Control. Q: Speaking of Kaci Hickox, what did the White House make, or what did the president make, if he had an opinion on it, of seeing her in that tent in that hospital where she was required to be for some time? And does the White House believe that her rights were violated in any way? MR. EARNEST: Well, Jim, I have not spoken to the president about this. So I'm unaware of what his personal reaction is. I think that the reaction that many people across the country had -- and I think it was shared by at least some people here in the White House -- is that the service of somebody like Kaci Hickox is something that we should honor and respect. Again, she traveled to a West African country that is dealing with the outbreak of a contagious, deadly disease. She didn't travel over there because she was getting a big paycheck. Presumably she's not going to be inducted into the Nurses Hall of Fame for it. She did it out of concern for her common man. And she saw an opportunity to serve people that are clearly not as fortunate as we are to have a modern medical infrastructure. And ultimately, because of her hard work, we are going to stop this disease in its tracks in West Africa. And that is the only way that we can eliminate the risk that this disease poses to the American people. 13:25:19 So her service and commitment to this cause is something that should be honored and respected. And I don't think we do that by making her live in a tent for two or three days. Q: So you -- the White House disagrees with that confinement -- her being confined in that tent? MR. EARNEST: Well, again, Jim, I guess I've tried to answer this a couple of ways. The fact is, it is -- the state and local authorities have the authority to make these kinds of decisions about how to implement quarantine policies. In ways -- Q: So if states want to put people in tents, they can -- they can do that? 13:26:05 MR. EARNEST: Well, subject to the laws of these individual states. What we hope, and what we think has been true in the vast majority of circumstances, is that these kinds of policy decisions should be driven by science. And there is a body of scientific workdecisions should be driven by science, and there is a body of scientific work out there that helps us understand exactly what kind of risk we face. Again, as Dr. Fauci said yesterday on some -- it might have even been on your network -- where he indicated that the risk that was facing the average American is vanishingly low, and the only way that we can drive that risk to zero is to stop this outbreak of in its tracks in West Africa, and the only way that we're going to be able to stop this outbreak is if there are brave individuals, like Kaci Hickox, who are willing to put themselves at greater risk to try to stop this outbreak, because it's in the best interest of the American people. So again, her service and commitment is something that we should celebrate. Q: And folks are wondering where is Ron Klain in all of this. He's supposed to be the Ebola response coordinator. It seems that you have a need for some coordinating here. 13:26:54 MR. EARNEST: Jim, I'd -- I'll say a couple things about that. The first is, again, the state of New Jersey made a decision, in consultation with the CDC, earlier today to release Miss Hickox from the hospital where she had been staying, so that she could travel home to Maine. That was a policy decision that was made by New Jersey officials exercising the authority that they have, in consultation with scientific experts at the CDC. That is evidence that the ongoing coordination between the Obama administration and state and local officials continues -- continues successfully, in this case. Q: And did the White House get a heads-up from New York and New Jersey before they -- MR. EARNEST: A heads-up on what? Q: On those quarantine policies that were announced. Did -- was the White House or the Obama administration notified before New York and New Jersey went forward with these quarantine policies? MR. EARNEST: Well, Jim, I can tell you that the White House and administration officials at the CDC and HHS and DHS and other relevant agencies have been in close coordination with state and local officials in these states for some time now, for weeks, months, even. And I'm not going to be in a position to detail or draw a timeline for all of those conversations, but those intensive conversations continue as state and local official exercise the authority that they have under their own state law to protect their citizens. Again, what the science tells is that a really important step for us to take in terms of protecting the American people is to stop this outbreak in West Africa. Q: And I apologize -- I'm taking too much of my time here, but -- and everybody else's time -- but it seems like you sort of danced away from an answer to that question. Was it a surprise to this administration when New York and New Jersey came out with their policies on these quarantines? Is that a yes or a no in terms of whether or not the administration was told in advance? MR. EARNEST: What I'm telling you, Jim, is that I'm not going to be in a position to detail all of the phone calls, but administration officials at a variety of agencies, including HHS, CDC and the White House, have been in regular touch with state and local officials in New York and New Jersey -- elsewhere, as they deal with this Ebola situation, OK? Stephen? Q: What do you suppose did drive the decision to impose these mandatory quarantines? If the federal guidelines or protocols that will be announced later today will be driven by science, what drove the decision last week in New York and New Jersey? MR. EARNEST: Well, I understand that Governor Cuomo and Governor Christie have conducted a number of sessions just like this one, where they've been answering a variety of questions about the policies that they put in place, so I'd encourage you to ask them. It's their authority that they are exercising, and they're the ones that were making the decisions. Q: Do you suppose it was driven by something other than science? Was it driven by fear or irrational -- MR. EARNEST: Again, you'd have to ask them. Q: The federal government also has the power -- the CDC and the president have the power to issue mandatory quarantines to restrict people from traveling over state borders or imposing other kinds of public health rules and regulations. Will the announcements that the CDC will be announcing today -- will they be mandatory guidelines, or will they be merely advisory? MR. EARNEST: Yeah. We'll wait till those announcements are made, and you can ask them OK? Vicara (sp). Q: Thanks. A while ago, you mentioned some of the aid workers that are going overseas to West Africa, and no one's going to argue with you about their courage and dedication in doing so. But could this be overcome -- could it be contained in West Africa without Americans going there? MR. EARNEST: That's a good question. There's probably somebody that has some more public health expertise than I do to better assess that question. Q: Well, I mean, how vital is the -- can you quantify how vital their -- 13:30:31 MR. EARNEST: Look, I think some of this goes back to some of the discussions that we've had over the course of the summer about the indispensable role that the United States of America plays in the world, that we have the kinds of resources and infrastructure and expertise and values that guide us to play a leading role in difficult situations like this one. 13:30:38 Those are the kinds of values and the commitment that guided the president to make a commitment of Department of Defense resources to deal with the situation in West Africa. And I suspect it's those -- it's those kinds of values that are driving medical workers in this country to place themselves at some risk, to volunteer their time, and travel to West Africa to serve those who are less fortunate. And again, I think that is a commitment and a reflection of the kinds of values that should -- that's worthy of our respect. Q: And absent a Halloween séance to take it up with James Madison, you're saying there's nothing the -- (laughter) -- federal government could do to compel states at this point to not -- 13:31:18 MR. EARNEST: I'm not rendering a legal analysis. I'm just observing what I think is -- what is a basic fact, right, which is that states have the -- Q: Well, you have powers, though. The White House understands what power it has in this situation. MR. EARNEST: Yes. Q: And what is that power? 13:31:38 MR. EARNEST: Well, again, I'm -- I would encourage you to consult a legal expert here. The role that this government is paying is one that we have played for some time in terms of this response, which is making sure that we are marshaling the best scientific evidence and expertise that is available and working closely with state and local officials to put in place policies that protect the American people. That is at the -- that is essentially the bottom line when it comes to this policymaking process: protecting the American people. We need to understand, as we're putting place those policies, that the only way that we can entirely eliminate the risk from the Ebola virus to the American people is to stop this outbreak at the source. And it's why, as we're putting in place these policies, we should be mindful of not placing undue burdens -- or in some cases, even outright disrespecting health care workers who are making a commitment to go and serve those who are less fortunate in West Africa to try to stop this outbreak at the source. Q: (Off mic) -- very quickly, did you over the weekend -- did the White House speak directly with Governors Cuomo or Christie to get them to reverse this decision? MR. EARNEST: Again, I think this is similar to Mr. Acosta's question, but -- Q: I'm not asking about the whole totality of the conversation, I'm asking about did this one particular conversation take place? 13:32:38 MR. EARNEST: And again, I'm not going to detail individual conversations, but suffice it to say, individuals at the White House, CDC, HHS and other relevant agencies have been in touch with officials in New York and New Jersey, and we have been for some time. OK, Ed? Q: Josh, putting aside the governors for a second, where is the White House itself in terms of policymaking, in terms of a 21-day federal quarantine? Because we were told, I think by Dr. Fauci on the record on Friday, that it was at least being considered by the White House. Is that still being considered or is that off the table? A federal quarantine. Again, putting aside the governors, is that possible or is that off the table? 13:33:21 MR. EARNEST: Well, what the president has indicated will guide him in all of these policy decisions is protecting the American people, and the president continues to be open-minded about suggestions that people may have about the best way to protect the American people. Those sorts of decisions are going to continue to be driven by science and by a priority that reflects the need to make sure that we're not placing an undue burden on those health care workers that have volunteered their time to go and try to stop this outbreak at the source. Q: (Off mic) -- you've said several times are being driven by the science and that you seem to suggest that the science believes a 21-day quarantine might not make sense, why would the president still be considering it if he's driven by the science? Is it still evolving or -- 13:33:56 MR. EARNEST: Well again, I think this is -- no, I don't think it's evolving, I think it -- what is evolving is the situation on the ground in West Africa. That's something that we're closely monitoring and, you know, we've made a significant commitment of resources to try to stop the spread of this terrible disease. I think this is analogous to the question that was asked of the president recently about a travel ban; that it is the view of this administration that a travel ban is not in the best interests of the American people at this point. If circumstances change, you know, we'll consider it because it's not something that he's philosophically opposed to. I think an answer about a quarantine would be along the same lines, which is to say it's something that we do not believe is necessary right now but it's not something we're philosophically opposed to and something that we'll keep an open mind about moving forward. Q: Back to the Pentagon. Before, you said there was one commanding officer in the Army who is undergoing quarantine, but we're told it's broader than that in terms of the recommendation that late last week the Joint Chiefs recommended formally to Defense Secretary Hagel that all U.S. troops, not just this one commanding officer, who are in the hot zone should, when they come back, have a 21-day quarantine. And I think you were asked that by Jim, but I didn't hear an answer. Does the White House agree with the Joint Chiefs? MR. EARNEST: Ultimately it would be the responsibility for the secretary of defense to put in place this policy. And so, because that policy decision has not been rendered, I'm not going to get ahead of it from here. Q: So the White House is not going to be involved - I mean, we've been through this with Keystone and other decisions. The State Department's handling that. I get that the Pentagon is ultimately going to announce it. But you're saying the White House is not involved in talking to Secretary Hagel? 13:35:28 MR. EARNEST: No, I think what I said was that the secretary of defense will announce this decision. He ultimately will be the one that will drive this process as he's making decisions about the policies that should be put in place to protect his troops. Q: So my question is whether - MR. EARNEST: I wouldn't rule out any coordination with the White House on it, though. Q: Sure. OK. So then my question is, what is - (inaudible) - what is the president's view about whether returning troops should be in a 21-day quarantine? MR. EARNEST: Again, we will let the Department of Defense make an announcement about what they think is the best manner moving forward. Q: How could the commander in chief send U.S. troops basically into the hot zone without a policy on, when they come home, whether or not they're in quarantine? How could that have not been decided before? MR. EARNEST: Because what we're seeing here, Ed, is we are seeing this administration put in place the policies that we believe are necessary to protect the American people and to protect the American troops. And we're going to let science drive that process, and as soon as we have a policy to announce on this we'll let you know. 13:14:21 Q: But if you watched "60 Minutes" last night you heard the nurses who first treated Mr. Duncan saying that despite all the talk from the CDC about how procedures were in place, protocols were in place, that they were not followed in the initial hours, and these nurses were dealing with a horrific situation. I'm trying to understand. We heard, you know, from the beginning that troops were going on and they were going to help. And you mentioned before heroes, and they're doing heroic work. But how could those heroes not have a plan in place before and during that heroic work? I don't understand. Like, it seems like we're still waiting -- we're still studying this. We're still trying to figure out, these troops are in the hot zone now. 13:36:58 MR. EARNEST: Well, let's be clear about one aspect of this. There are a couple of things about what are troops are doing in West Africa. The vast majority of them are actually not in countries where -- that are affected by Ebola. There is an air bridge that's being constructed in Senegal, which is a neighboring country, to try to assist the logistical effort to get supplies and resources and personnel into the affected areas where they can do their important work. (Cross talk.) Q: -- building health facilities. MR. EARNEST: Some of them are in these counties where they are building health facilities. None of the -- no Department of Defense personnel is responsible for actually medically treating patients. So it's important for people to understand -- and again, Dr. Fauci talked about this a little bit yesterday too, that it's important for us to assess risk in a detailed way. And, you know, clearly the risk associated with being in a neighboring country is different than the risk that's associated with being responsible for directly treating patients. Q: OK, thank you. MR. EARNEST: OK? Major. Q: In other words, you don't know the risk yet and you're waiting to try to -- 13:38:14 MR. EARNEST: No, I think we do know the risk. What we know is that there is a different amount of risk associated with being in an neighboring country and spending several weeks at a time in the bush treating patients with Ebola firsthand. Q: There's lower risk, is what you would theorize. MR. EARNEST: I'm not a medical expert, but I think common sense does indicate that being in a neighboring country would indicate that you have lower risk than those who are treating Ebola patients firsthand. Q: So it sounds as if at least, based on what the White House knows so far, its recommendation in coordination with the Pentagon would be not to go down this road of a 21-day quarantine. MR. EARNEST: Well, I'm not going to get into what sort of advice is being shared between the White House and the secretary of defense. But again, we do want this process to be driven by science, and science would mandate close examination of the risk that's associated with all of these different activities. Q: Do you -- Jim asked this before, and I -- so I'll give you another chance. Do you believe that there were legitimate legal issues at stake in Kaci Hickox's circumstance and that that was something the administration, in coordination with the governors, want to avoid, litigious -- I mean, an outbreak of litigation over someone being quarantined: Do you believe they have rights that are being violated in the here and now? MR. EARNEST: What's the question? Q: Well, do you believe that -- is that something the administration is trying to prevent as it coordinates with governors, what to do with people returning from the hot zone? Because she got a lawyer. She's going to file a lawsuit saying, look, you can't keep me here. This is -- this is a violation of some basic rights. MR. EARNEST: Right -- Q: And I just -- I'm asking, is that something in the entire process that you're dealing with -- this story has many components -- you're trying to minimize? 13:39:40 MR. EARNEST: Well, I don't think that she -- I think she was expressing her concern about a state-implemented policy. So I'm not sure that she or her lawyer was considering action against the federal government. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Q: No, I'm not suggesting that they were either. MR. EARNEST: OK. Q: But is -- all of this is being absorbed by a public that's trying to understand what's actually going on, what's their risk, what are the procedures, how should the elected leaders in their states proceed. And I'm just wondering -- as you talk to the governors and try to work through all these things, Ron, I -- Ron or someone else here might say, look, we don't want lawsuits cropping up all over the country about people who are in a tent at an airport because their rights are being violated when we're trying to talk about public health and other aspects of this contagion? MR. EARNEST: Well, you know, our top priority here has the protection of the American public, and that is what's driving these discussions. What's -- what we believe should be driving the policies is the body of scientific work that indicates that what sort of risk individuals face. 13:40:41 And again, in this case, the American people should understand that the risk that they face from the Ebola disease, based on the likelihood of a widespread outbreak in the United States, is exceedingly low. That's very unlikely to occur. And we know that based on the science surrounding how Ebola is spread and based on the modern medical infrastructure that we have here in this country. And we believe -- and we're going to continue to work with state and local officials as they implement these policies -- that these policies should be driven by science. Q: It's -- is it fair to say that White House take over a decision by Governors Cuomo and Christie was they acted rashly, they unintentionally temporarily stigmatized this health care worker? 13:41:18 MR. EARNEST: Well, I don't know -- I don't know if that was the effect, but we certainly believe that any policies that are in place should be driven by science and should reflect the significant commitment -- in fact, heroism -- of some of these individuals who are volunteering their time to operate in a very dangerous environment, both to serve their fellow man but also to serve the American people. Q: Then their decision was not consistent with that? 13:41:41 MR. EARNEST: Well, Again, I -- and I think I did say this pretty clearly to Jim's question -- that again, somebody like Kaci Hickox, who is making a commitment to volunteer her time and travel to West Africa and work intensively and closely with highly contagious Ebola patients, is service that is deserving of praise and respect. And having her sit in a tent for two or three days doesn't exactly do that. OK. Go ahead, Jon (sp). Q: Josh, let me ask -- and Jim asked this and I didn't hear an answer from you -- on the case -- Hickox case. She saidand having her sit in a tent for two or three days doesn't exactly do that, OK? Go ahead, John. 13:42:10 JON KARL Q: Let me ask -- and Jim asked this, I didn't hear an answer from you on Kaci Hickox's case. She said that her rights were violated. She was locked in that tent against her will. Do you agree with her that her rights were violated when that was done? 13:42:25 MR. EARNEST: It's hard for me to render a judgment on that, John. I'm not stepped in New Jersey quarantine law. What I do know, however -- Q: This is a human rights issue. I mean, this is -- you know, this goes beyond Jersey law. I mean, she was -- MR. EARNEST: Well, I think I've been pretty clear about the praise and respect I think that she's entitled to. Q: Let me come at this from a -- from a different perspective. You mentioned that U.S. military personnel are not directly treating Ebola -- those suffering from Ebola in Africa, that the bulk of them are in a neighboring country, not even in the countries that are -- that are affected here. If the major threat here is what's happening in those countries in West Africa, why not? 13:42:44 The United States military has some of the -- you know, the best medical personnel in the world. Why are we not more directly engaged in getting control of this disease at ground zero, where it's happening? 13:43:18 MR. EARNEST: Well Jon, what we feel like right now is what the president has concluded, is that the best way to leverage the expertise and resources of the American people in this instance is to offer up logistical support from the Department of Defense and that we have seen a significant response from the international community, both foreign governments and non-government organizations, dedicating resources and personnel to try and stopping -- to try and stop the outbreak in West Africa. And -- Q: (Off mic) -- there's nowhere near enough medical personnel in those countries to help the people that are affected. MR. EARNEST: There is more that is needed. I can tell you that the commitment of the American military to this effort has galvanized the international community to ramp up their response, but there's no doubt that more is needed. 13:44:02 KARL Q: What kind of a message does this send if we say that our personnel will not be allowed to treat those that are actually suffering from the disease? 13:44:10 MR. EARNEST: Well, I think what it says is it says that the best way the Department of Defense can help is by offering their logistical expertise to speed the transfer of supplies and equipment and personnel into the region. And I think it is certainly fair to say that there are a large number of American doctors and nurses who are volunteering their time who -- to trying to confront this outbreak, to stop this outbreak, again both because they believe that it reflects a commitment to their common man to try to meet those basic medical needs of those who are less fortunate. It also happens to reflect what science tells us is in the best interests of the American people. Stopping this Ebola outbreak at its source is the only way that we can completely eliminate the risk from the Ebola virus to the American people. JON KARL Q: OK, quickly, an entirely different subject, we are eight days out from midterm elections that could be highly consequential for this president and for his party. Why is he here without any public schedule at the White House? Why did he spend the entire weekend completely, you know, outside of public view? How come he is not out campaigning with and for Democratic candidates in these races? 13:45:16 MR. EARNEST: Those who are interested in seeing the president campaigning will have ample opportunity to do so over the course of this week. Q: Josh, you know what I'm saying, though. He has not been out on the campaign trail -- MR. EARNEST: I do. I can tell you that the president -- Q: -- of a single Senate candidate yet. 13:45:27 MR. EARNEST: The president is looking forward to his trip to Wisconsin tomorrow. The president will be traveling to Maine in support of Democrats there on Thursday. He will be spending some time in Rhode Island on Friday. And then he's going to ramp up even further his activities over the course of this weekend and doing two stops in Saturday and two stops on Sunday. So I think that reflects a commitment -- Q: Where? MR. EARNEST: -- by this president to supporting Democrats on the ballot. Did somebody ask where? Q: Yes. MR. EARNEST: There are so many stops that I have to look up exactly where the president traveling. (Laughter.) Q: Will there be -- (Cross talk.) MR. EARNEST: Where are they? So we've got the president traveling to Milwaukee, as I mentioned, on Tuesday, traveling to Portland, Maine on Thursday. The president will be in Rhode Island on Friday. Then he's going to travel to Michigan on Saturday. And then he's going to travel to Philadelphia and, I believe, Connecticut on Sunday. So again, a variety of stops where the president will be actively campaigning in support of Democratic candidates. Q: You're not going to stand there and tell me the president's been actively campaigning in these midterm elections, are you? 13:46:26 MR. EARNEST: I think any examination of the president's schedule over the course of the next eight days in advance of the midterm election would indicate a serious commitment by this president to supporting Democratic candidates on the ballot. Q: How many Democratic Senate candidates has he campaigned with in this midterm election? 13:46:40 MR. EARNEST: Well, there are a number of Democratic senators with whom the president has appeared. So, certainly he's looking forward to his event with Mr. Peters in Michigan on Saturday. The perident has appeared in public - for example, I know that he traveled with Senator Franken where they were discussing some issues that are important to middle-class voters in Minnesota. I don't think there were any campaign events that were associated with that specific trip. But what you've seen the presidenet do is dedicate his time to doing what he can to support Democratic candidates. And he's spent a lot of time raising money for them, and that reflects, I think, a significant commitment of this president's time and energy to supporting Democratic candidates. Q: (Off mic) -- agree that the president's been considered politically toxic to many of those Democrats running in - MR. EARNEST: It won't surprise you to hear that I do not agree with that assessment. (Laughter.) Stop the presses. Jared. Q: Josh, you seem to be going up to the line but not yet criticizing directly the actions by the New York and New Jersey governors. When state policies differ from the CDC's science-based policies and you're alluding to the fact that it might create a disincentive for health care workers, does the administration believe it's a bad idea to go beyond the CDC's science-based policies? Is it a bad idea? MR. EARNEST: Well, what we - what we believe, Jared, is that science should drive these decisions and science should drive how these policies are implemented. Q: (Does ?) the White House characterize when the policies are driven, or go beyond what the CDC recommends, that's a bad idea? 13:48:13 MR. EARNEST: Well, I think that is -- it's difficult to sort of encounter that specific hypothetical. Q: It's no hypothetical. These are actual policies that have been put in place. MR. EARNEST: Which policies? Q: The ones in New York and New Jersey. 13:48:27 MR. EARNEST: OK. Well, there's two. Is there on state you'd like to choose, or -- Q: Let's go with New Jersey. MR. EARNEST: Yeah, it's like a game show. (Laughter.) (Off mic.) What would you like -- what's behind door number one? What's your question, Jared (sp)? (Laughter.) (Cross talk.) Q: Are the state policies -- are the state policies -- I'm sorry; somebody's not going to get that -- are the state policies in New Jersey -- and just New Jersey for the sake of this -- because I don't think federalism limits your criticism. Do the state policies in New Jersey hinder health care workers, and does this administration view them as a bad idea? 13:49:05 MR. EARNEST: Jared (sp), what I can tell you is that the administration, from the CDC and HHS to even up here at the White House, has been in close touch with New Jersey officials as they implement the policies that they believe are in the best interests of the people of New Jersey. This administration believes that policies that reflect the scientific expertise of medical experts who have been tracking this disease for four decades now should guide the implementation of those policies, and we're going to continue to work with officials in New York and New Jersey and states all across the country to make sure that those -- that those policies do reflect the science, and that'll be an ongoing process. As I guess Ed noted, there has been, on occasion, the need for the federal government to strengthen the guidance that we're putting in place based on changing situations on the ground in West Africa, based on updated scientific protocols. So we're certainly open to working closely with state officials to tailor the kind of response that's necessary to protect the individuals in their states. 13:50:12 All of that is mindful of the fact that what science tells us is that the only way to eliminate risk from the Ebola virus is to stop this outbreak at the source. Q: Since the CDC's policies are not superseding state policies at this point and since Ron Klain's role has been Ebola response coordinator, can you tell me what areas are under his purview? Is it the federal response only? Is it the federal response and the state response? Is it the federal response that includes the military component, like what we've seen in Italy? Or is it to be -- to be determined? 13:50:47 MR. EARNEST: Jared, the -- we've tried a couple of times to, I think, to describe Mr. Klain's role as here, at the White House and in the federal government, and he's responsible for coordinating the whole-of-government approach that the president has suggested is necessary to -- Q: Whole-of-federal-government approach. MR. EARNEST: Yes. Yes. April. Q: Josh, couple of questions on a couple different subjects: I want to go back to the issue of the president and midterms. Michelle Nunn -- the president went on V-103 in Atlanta talking about how we -- if we go the polls, meaning young people, blacks and Latinos, they could put -- keep the Senate, basically, in the Democratic hands. So Michelle Nunn apparently has a 3-point lead, basically tied, with a 3-point lead. What does this White House feel about this? Do they -- do you feel that the president made an impact on some of those voters to help, possibly, see a win? 13:51:46 MR. EARNEST: Well, April, let me just say as a general matter that the president is very interested in supporting Democratic candidates on the ballot who are interested in promoting policies that benefit middle-class families. That's what's at the top of the president's domestic policy-making agenda, and he's interested in having partners in Congress, in the House and the Senate, who will work with him to make progress in support of middle-class families. And the president has done a number of interviews to encourage voters to be engaged in the mid term election process and he's worked hard to elevate the attention around issues that are affecting the middle class. And, you know, I guess we'll find out on Election Day the extent to which Democratic candidates benefited from that advocacy. Q: Also, what's the timeline for this administration -- since you're saying that you want to attack it at the source, the Ebola situation at the source, what is the timeline for this administration as it pertains to the medical infrastructure in West Africa and the U.S. military? What is your timeline, because I talked to retired General Kip Ward who was the head of AFRICOM, he said it could take you six months literally to help build -- if you were serious about it -- to help build the medical infrastructure over there? 13:53:07 MR. EARNEST: Well April, I don't have an updated time frame. I guess I'd refer you to the CDC or maybe even HHS or maybe even the State Department on this. I think that reflects the number of agencies that are engaged in this process. But we believe, again, that the only way to entirely eliminate the risk to the American people from the Ebola virus is to stop this outbreak at the source. And you've seen a significant commitment of resources from the Department of Defense to supporting the infrastructure that's necessary to move supplies and equipment and personnel into the region to do exactly that. Q: And I hear you, but I -- and I understand there's a great need for this infrastructure, but if it's so urgent, why not (give ?) a timeline to help build this infrastructure to stop it at the source? 13:53:51 MR. EARNEST: Yeah. Well again, I think you might be conflating two different things. I'm not suggesting that the United States is going to go in and construct a medical infrastructure for these countries, I'm suggesting that this virus is raging out of control in these countries because there isn't a modern medical infrastructure in place. Putting -- Q: But you're helping to support the building of a medical infrastructure -- MR. EARNEST: What we're hoping to do is to put in place the infrastructure that will allow supplies and personnel and equipment to get to this region of the world so that these medical professionals can do their work and treat those who are afflicted with this deadly disease. 13:54:25 I'm confident that it's going to require more sustained and longer-term investment in this area of the world, to build them the kind of medical infrastructure that's needed to prevent these kinds of outbreaks in the future. What we're focused on right now is trying to stop this outbreak. Q: And lastly, there's this conversation going in this room about the situation in New York and New Jersey. What's the thought of this administration when it comes to colleges and universities in this country who have a lot of college students that come from Africa, particularly West Africa -- Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia? And they're imposing tougher travel restrictions on their students as -- particularly when it comes to the holiday season now. What's the administration saying about that? 13:55:08 MR. EARNEST: Well, there is a -- there are policies that are in place that guide this, April, which is -- you know, there are screening measures that are in place in West Africa and there are screening measures that airports in this country to make sure that individuals who have recently traveled to West Africa, when they get off the plane, that their temperature is checked, that their personal contact information is collected so that the government can stay in touch with them; that information is then transferred to state and local authorities who can monitor the health of these individuals once they return. And, you know, we believe that's what -- that the science tells us that's the best way to ensure the safety of the American public. Q: (Off mic) -- about the science to universities and colleges when they are imposing tougher restrictions? MR. EARNEST: Well, I don't think it's the -- I can't speak to any restrictions that are being put in place by colleges and universities. What I can speak to are the restrictions that are currently in place -- or -- I mean, or the screening measures that are currently in place at airports in West Africa, at airports in this country, and then the kind of active monitoring that state and local officials will be responsible for doing when you have individuals with a travel history of being in West Africa that appear in their states. OK? Kristen? Q: Josh, thanks. Has President Obama spoken to Governors Christie and Cuomo? 13:56:26 MR. EARNEST: Kristen, as I've mentioned I think a couple of times now, the members of this administration have been in close touch with state and local officials in New York and New Jersey over the last several weeks. (Cross talk.) Q: (Inaudible) -- if the president has spoken with them. 13:56:40 MR. EARNEST: And, Kristen, I'm telling you that I'm not going to detail specific conversations other than to say that there are a range of conversations that have occurred from White House officials, officials at HHS and DHS and CDC with state and local officials in New York and New Jersey and a variety of other states across the country. Q: Have the White House officials actually spoken to the governors? And the reason why I ask that is because as late as yesterday evening Governor Christie said he hadn't spoken to the White House. So has someone from the White House reached out to Governor Christie directly? 13:57:06 MR. EARNEST: Kristen, I'm just not going to be in a position to read out individual conversations. Q: Well, on the point of Ron Klain, he was appointed to be the point person and the Ebola czar, whatever term you would like to use. What -- MR. EARNEST: That's not one we'd use. Q: What has changed since he started his job, because it appears as though this week there's more confusion than there was last week, given what we're seeing in New York and New Jersey, and more differences between how the states are dealing with it. So what's changed? Has he accomplished and is he accomplishing what he was appointed to do? 13:57:40 MR. EARNEST: Kristen, I will -- I think the record should reflect that Mr. Klain started one week ago today. And in that time we have seen a significant number of announcements related to the whole-of-government approach that the president has ordered to dealing with the Ebola situation. We've seen a commitment from DOD not just to invest resources in West Africa but also to put together a team of medical professionals that can be on standby in this country and ready to respond as necessary. We have seen a significant commitment of resources from federal governments around the world to the broader effort to stop the outbreak at its source in West Africa. We've seen beefed up protocols that were issued by the CDC to guide the precautions that medical professionals in this country should take when they're dealing with an Ebola patient. We've seen the CDC stand up and actually deploy a SWAT team from Atlanta to New York when there was the suspicion that an Ebola patient had been identified in New York. There've been a whole series of training and outreach programs that have been performed by CDC officials in consultation, obviously, with state and local public health officials. 13:58:56 This came in particularly handy in New York where there were thousands of health care professionals that were trained at the Javits Center in New York just days before this Ebola patient turned up in New York City. There were additional screening measures that were implemented by DHS to ensure that individuals who had recently traveled in West Africa were now traveling only into those five airports in this country. I see that you want to interrupt me. I've gone on quite some time, and I apologize for doing so, but I think it's important to reflect all that has been -- all that has happened and all that has been announced in just the last week. You know, obviously, some of that Mr. Klain was very closely involved with, some of it he wasn't because it reflected work that had been done before he arrived. But I do think that what you -- what you see here is intensive coordination among a range of federal agencies to respond to this very difficult challenge. Q: And yet wasn't part of his task to streamline the response all across the country? And I understand what you're saying about different states and James Madison. But still, picking up on where some of my colleagues have left off, the fact that you're seeing this different response in New York, New Jersey, Florida fueled panic, I think, and misunderstanding about the disease. So doesn't there need to be more of an effort to get everyone on the same page? 14:00:11 MR. EARNEST: Well, I don't think that it - I don't think it fuels panic because I think people understand the facts. And to the extent that there is any panic, if that's what you've observed, then maybe it's important for me to repeat the basics about this disease one more time. It's important for people to understand that you cannot catch Ebola by drinking the water or eating the food in this country. Ebola is not spread through the air like the flu. The only way you can catch Ebola, the only way that Ebola is transmitted, is by coming into close contact with the bodily fluids of an individual who is already displaying symptoms of Ebola. That's why the only two situations in which the Ebola virus has been transmitted in this country have been by health care workers who were treating a very sick Ebola patient. 14:00:52 So to the extent there is panic, I would encourage panicked individuals to consult the scientific facts and understand that the risk that is facing the average American, as Dr. Fauci said yesterday, is vanishingly low. Q: Does Ron Klain have any plans to go to New York or New Jersey, to that region and meet with officials there in person? MR. EARNEST: I don't anticipate that he has - (the plan ?) to do that any time soon. Q: And just one more, Josh. According to our latest NBC News/Marist, three of the hardest-fought states - Iowa, Colorado and Arkansas - show Republicans with a one-point lead. How much responsibility does President Obama bear for this moment, the fact that Democrats are - (Q/MR. EARNEST ?): (Tied ?) (Laughter.) Q: -- I should say Republicans are inching closer? MR. EARNEST: I think as I mentioned - Q: A one-point lead eight days out. 14:01:42 MR. EARNEST: Yeah, I - that's not something - I guarantee you that if Democrats had a one-point lead in those states, I wouldn't be bragging about it. What I will tell you is that the - even though they are states that - at least one of them that you named is a state that is considered a red state. 14:01:59 But let me just say something that I alluded to last week, which is that I am confident that in the aftermath of the election, there'll be - there'll be ample opportunity for all of you to assess what sort of impact the president had on these races even though his name wasn't on the ballot. that in the aftermath of the election, there'll be -- there'll be ample opportunity for all of you to assess what sort of impact the president had on these races, even though his name wasn't on the ballot. But what I feel confident in predicting in advance is that the president will at least get some credit if Democrats hold on to the majority in the Senate and he'll get more than his fair share of the blame if they don't. Ron. Q: A question about Ebola. You keep saying that what's driving the decision-making on this is the science, and you were just explaining how difficult it is to catch this disease and so forth. What is it is about the science of Ebola that has drawn this firm line where no DOD personnel will directly treat patients, particularly because, again, this is a matter of national security, you say, and every doctor you talk to, I've talked to -- they -- this problem can be solved. So what is it about the science that has drawn this line stopping American doctors associated with the DOD, at least, or elsewhere, from directly tackling this national security problem? 14:03:04 MR. EARNEST: Well, Ron, I think we have seen a commitment from American doctors and nurses to -- traveling to West Africa -- Q: But for volunteers. MR. EARNEST: Yes, that's right. Q: And -- MR. EARNEST: Again, Americans who are summoning their own sort of spirit of humanity to go -- Q: Right, but that's not something that's being organized by the administration to deal with a national security issue. And in talking to a lot of these volunteers, yes, they're not paid well, they're doing it on their vacations. Why leave such a huge problem to that sort of spirit, individual? 14:03:33 MR. EARNEST: Well, Ron, I think what you have seen in this particular response is a commitment of resources by the United States government and by our Department of Defense that's unparalleled. There's no other international government that's made a commitment like the United States has to ensuring that we're going to strengthen the logistics in place in West Africa to speed the transfer of supplies, equipment and personnel into the region to stop this outbreak at the source. 14:04:02 And again, this goes to something that the president talked about in the interview that he did with "60 Minutes" last week: that when there's a significant problem like this that's going on around the globe -- and this is the kind of problem that people, I think, would prefer to just sort of, you know, put awaythat's going on around the globe. And this is the kind of problem that people I think would prefer to just sort of, you know, put away the newspaper, turn off the television, pull the blinds and act like it doesn't exist. 13:15:14 And the reason they want -- they would prefer to do that is because it's a really hard one to solve. We're talking about three countries in West Africa that do not have modern medical infrastructures. You have very difficult situations in which medical professionals are trying to operate to meet the needs of the local population. And you've seen the commitment by the United States, by the president of the United States, and by our men and women in uniform that's unprecedented, that is unparalleled by other countries. And again, when we have a situation like this on the -- on the global scene, people aren't wondering what the Chinese are doing to respond to it. People aren't picking up the phone and wondering if Vladimir Putin is going to commit Russian resources to this effort. People want to know what the United States of America is doing about it. And what this president has done is stepped up and showed the kind of American leadership that makes the American people proud. And it also happens to be, as you point out, in the clear interests of the American people. 14:05:08 This is a national security priority and it's one we're going to solve. Q: But what exactly is it about the science of Ebola, since you're driven by science, that has drawn this line whereby the DOD American troops will not deal directly with American patients -- with Ebola patients? What scientifically has drawn that line? 14:05:27 MR. EARNEST: Right. Well, again, I'm not sure that this is -- this is a scientific decision that was made as much as it is an operational decision that is made. The best way that the United States government can assist in this effort is to put in place the kind of infrastructure that is sorely lacking in West Africa. Right now it is hard to get a large shipment of supplies and equipment where it is sorely needed in West Africa, but if you have -- because of the involvement of the Department of Defense, because of the logistical expertise that our American military has, we can make that process of getting supplies and equipment into the region much more efficient and much faster. And so that's sort of the -- that's the expertise that they can leverage to benefit this situation. And what we have seen is that because of the commitment of American resources and personnel in that logistical effort, we've seen a bunch of nongovernmental organizations and other governments commit their own significant resources to dealing with this problem. Now their commitment is not as big as the commitment that's made by the United States, but it has had the effect of galvanizing the international community to pay attention and respond to this pressing situation. Q: Lastly, are there -- are there incentives to individuals provided by the government to go and do this work, because, again, one of the concerns about the quarantine is coming back three day -- or three weeks and not being able to work, taking time off to go do this. That's what many of these volunteers obviously are doing. MR. EARNEST: That's right. Q: Aside from providing airlift capabilities and so forth, are there -- are there incentives built into what you're doing that on an individual basis would encourage a doctor to go and spend a month there trying to deal with this problem? 14:07:12 MR. EARNEST: There's nothing that I know of, but I'd encourage you to check with a couple of other agencies, like USAID or CDC. Maybe there are programs where individuals can volunteer their time and get some compensation from the government in those programs, but I'd check with them. Q: Thanks, Josh. MR. EARNEST: Justin. Q: I just wanted to return to something that April was asking about. Do you think it was -- it would be fair to say that between the radio ads, robo calls, radio interviews, all these sorts of things, that one area -- I mean, to kind of contrast with what Jon (ph) was talking about -- that the president has been very active is trying to turn out the black vote? 14:07:49 MR. EARNEST: Well, I think there is no question that there is -- that the president in the course of his own campaign has been successful in motivating core elements of the Democratic Party to support his campaign. That's been true of African-American voters. That's been true of Latino voters. It's true of Asian voters. It's true of young voters. So to the extent that the president has had his own personal success in motivating certain elements of that coalition, then yes, the president is eager to try to use his influence to motivate people and help -- at least at a minimum -- help them understand the stakes of this election. Q: Would you say that that's the most important part of the coalition? I mean, just based on what the president's been doing, we haven't seen him, you know, campaign for women or Latinos or young people in the -- in the same way. He hasn't been going to college radio stations -- 14:08:45 MR. EARNEST: Presumably, there are young people and women that listen to those radio shows, but you can check that out. I'm not -- I'm not certain about that. Q: And then lastly, kind of on this issue. You said that we'll find out on Election Day how successful the president's outreach efforts have been. Would you say that getting part of those coalition votes above where they were in 2010 or 2012, is that a success for the president's campaign efforts in these last few weeks? 14:09:08 MR. EARNEST: Well I think we'll see. We'll see. J.C.? Q: Let me just follow up on my colleague Ron. Will -- would the administration consider providing free military transport, let's say, to U.S. volunteer health care workers and offer them -- to pay them for their possible quarantine period as well. Is that something that might work? 14:09:28 MR. EARNEST: I don't know if -- I don't know how logistically feasible that is, J.C. I'd refer you to the Department of Defense on that. Leslie? Q: Thanks Josh. Appreciate it. Do you know if the White House has developed any protocols yet for Ambassador Powers when she returns in terms of will she be quarantined? Will she, you know, observe it at home? And can you tell us how big her party is, and sort of give us a little background on what she's doing. 14:09:50 MR. EARNEST: Right. I'd refer you to my colleagues at the United Nations in terms of who else is traveling with her. But I'm confident that she will follow all of the policies that are in place when she returns, and that will include, you know, the active monitoring and the screening that everybody goes through when they go through that process. I'm confident that she'll be subjected to those policies in the same way that everybody else has. Q: And it'll be more so sort of on the CDC base than anything we saw in New York or New Jersey? 14:10:19 MR. EARNEST: Well, again, it's important -- and this actually goes back to the very first question from the briefing today. What New York and New Jersey put in place were specific policies related to health care workers who were returning from Africa. Ambassador Power is -- as far as I know, is not rendering any medical assistance while she is in West Africa. So there are policies in place that are implemented by state and local officials, because they have the authority to do so, that guide the monitoring of the health of those who are recently returned from West Africa. So she will, just like any other traveler, abide by those monitoring requirements. Q: Which are? 14:10:59 MR. EARNEST: Well, again, I guess I'd refer you to the state of New York. They obviously have been talking about this quite a bit, but my understanding, and what the CDC has recommended, is that individuals who have recently returned from West Africa or recently traveled in West Africa, that they go through the screening process. They're going to get their temperature taken before they board and aircraft. They'll get their temperature taken when they return. They'll be subjected to an additional layer of screening once they disclose that they've spent some time in that region of the world. Their contact information will be collected and it will be shared with state and local officials who will be responsible for following up and actively monitoring the health of those individuals. That is -- that is the policy that was envisioned by the Centers for Disease Control. I believe that's the policy that's been put in place in each of these states. But again, you'd have to check with the state officials who are -- who have the authority for putting these policies in place. Q: And you don't have anything different here at the White House? There's no official White House protocol? 14:11:51 MR. EARNEST: No. Again, it's state officials that have the responsibility for implementing these policies. (Inaudible) -- I'll give you the last one. Q: Thank you. I have a question about Ron Klain. MR. EARNEST: OK. Q: Basically, Ron Klain has a -- we want to know whether or not Ron Klain was involved in the discussions over the weekend with New York and New Jersey, whether or not he played a leading role, given the fact that he is the Ebola response coordinator, in convincing the governors there to change their policies. 14:12:22 MR. EARNEST: Well, as I mentioned to Kristen, I won't read out specific conversations, but I can tell you that the administration has been in close touch with them for a number of weeks, including over the weekend, and there was - - there continues to be robust coordination between federal officials here in the Obama administration, including here at the White House, but also at the CDC and HHS, and state officials. And again, the -- I think the best evidence or illustration of that successful coordination is the announcement from earlier today that Kaci Hickox had been discharged from the hospital where she'd been the last few days and was traveling to her home in Maine. Q: And the American people have not yet heard from Ron Klain directly. Is he the face of the Ebola response for the American people? Will we see him? And if not, why not? 14:13:09 MR. EARNEST: The -- as I've mentioned before, I wouldn't rule out some sort of public appearance from Ron, but his principal responsibility is a behind-the-scenes role in coordinating the whole-of-government response that the president directed be implemented to respond to this specific situation. And that means that he will work closely with the CDC and HHS, other White House officials to make sure that their Ebola response is to up the high standards that the president has set. That will -- that has in the past included conversations with state and local officials, and I'm confident those kinds of conversations will continue. All of that sounds like a lot of work to me and, I anticipate, will limit the amount of time that he can dedicate to making the case publicly about our response, but if that need arises, I'm confident that he will -- he'll do that if necessary. Q: And Afghanistan? Q: Lastly, do we know what he'll be doing in Atlanta? (Inaudible.) 14:14:03 MR. EARNEST: No, I know that he's slated to travel down there later this week. He's going to meet with CDC officials that he's been in regular touch with over the last several -- or, I guess, over the last week that he's been in the job. But I don't have any preview of his trip. 14:14:15 OK? Thanks a lot, everybody. We'll see you tomorrow.