Aug 3, 2020

Donald Trump Coronavirus Press Conference Transcript August 3: Talks Trump Organization Investigation, Election

Donald Trump Coronavirus Press Conference Transcript August 3: Talks Trump Organization Investigation, Election
RevBlogTranscriptsCOVID-19 Briefing & Press Conference TranscriptsDonald Trump Coronavirus Press Conference Transcript August 3: Talks Trump Organization Investigation, Election

President Donald Trump held a Coronavirus Task Force press conference on August 3. He discussed vaccine development, the federal election, the Trump Organization Investigation, and suing Nevada over mail-in voting. Read the transcript of his news briefing here.

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Donald Trump: (00:00)
I want to start by providing information on our response to Tropical Storm Isaias. It’s a very interesting name. Last week, the storm hit Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and I’ve issued emergency declarations to support our response in both of those areas. So that’s Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. This week, the storm passed just east of Florida. Got a little bit lucky, didn’t hit Florida too hard. Working with the governor, working with everybody, but it did not hit directly as a lot of people thought it might. It’s currently off the coast of South Carolina heading northward to North Carolina, is expected to make landfall sometime this evening as a Category 1 hurricane, very serious, a lot of water, a lot of water coming from that storm. I’ve already issued emergency declarations for Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, and FEMA’s personnel, and they are great, they’re doing a job. They’re already on the ground in all areas. Every single area that we mentioned just covered.

Donald Trump: (01:06)
Over the next several days, there’s expected to be heavy wind and rain in the coastal areas of North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey. We’re working with each of those states. And in particular, as it relates to FEMA, the military, law enforcement, all of the different groups that are involved, storm surge and inland flooding are possible and everyone needs to remain vigilant until it passes. I encourage everyone to follow the guidelines of the state and local authorities. We’re working with them. And I think the guidelines have been very accurate so far. So stay safe.

Donald Trump: (01:45)
Next let me provide an update on the path forward for our country as we continue our war to defeat the China virus. We’re beginning to see evidence of significant progress. Nationwide, the number of positive cases has declined by nearly 6% from the week before. And the positive test rate is also dropped from 8.7% to 8% over that same period of time, an encouraging sign, very encouraging. I have to add that the virus is receding in hotspots across the south and west. We’ve seen slow improvements from their recent weekly peaks. Arizona’s weekly case counts have dropped 37%. That’s a tremendous drop and the governor and the state have done a fantastic job, down 37%. Texas down 18.7%. I was there a couple of days ago. And Florida 21.2% drop. So that’s a tremendous job that they’re all doing.

Donald Trump: (02:47)
As we begin to contain the virus in these states, we must focus on new flare ups in the states where the case numbers have risen, including Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Missouri and I think you’ll find that they’re soon going to be very much under control. Meanwhile, 18 states continue to have very low case numbers and low test positivity rates under 5%: Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. It’s under five.

Donald Trump: (03:26)
Even in these states, however, where the virus is under control and at a very low number, Americans should continue to be vigilant, be careful in order to prevent the new hotspots from opening up or any new hotspots from opening up in those states. To that end, I urge all Americans to continue to socially distance, wash your hands, wear a mask when you cannot avoid crowded places and to protect the elderly. Very, very important, protect the elderly. It’s much different. Young children have very strong immune systems. We’ve learned how strong they are, but protect the elderly. The average age of those who succumb to the virus is 78 years old. That’s the average age.

Donald Trump: (04:13)
It’s important for all Americans to recognize that a permanent lockdown is not a viable path toward producing the result that you want, or certainly not a viable path forward and would ultimately inflict more harm than it would prevent. As we’re seeing in foreign countries around the world, where cases are once again surging, you have many places where we thought they were under control and doing a great job, and they are doing a great job, but this is a very tough invisible enemy.

Donald Trump: (04:47)
Lockdowns do not prevent infection in the future. They just don’t. It comes back, many times it comes back. The purpose of a lockdown is to buy time to build capacity, especially with respect to hospitals, learn more about the disease and develop effective treatments as we did in the United States. We’re doing very well with the vaccines and the therapeutics. Countries where there have been very significant flare ups over the last short period of time are Spain, Germany, France, Australia, Japan. And also, as you probably heard in Hong Kong, they’ve had some very serious flare ups. Japan has gone, yeah, a lot of six fold flare up. It’s a lot, but they’ll get it under control.

Donald Trump: (05:37)
In our current phase, we must focus on protecting those at highest risk while allowing younger and healthier Americans to resume work and school with careful precautions. Ideally, we want to open those schools. We want to open them. At the same time, we’re placing an emphasis on continuing to drive down the mortality rate with improved care, treatment and medical interventions, building a bridge to the introduction of a vaccine. The vaccines are coming along incredibly well. Today I’d like to also provide an update on the actions of my administration and the work that we’ve done. We’re really taking an increased interest and we’re seeing numbers that nobody can even believe in terms of percentage increase. It’s telehealth for American patients. The percentage increase is being worked on right now, but it’s very, very significant, numbers that you would not even think possible. This has been a priority from the beginning of my administration when we launched an initiative to allow veterans to connect remotely with their VA healthcare team. And it worked out really well.

Donald Trump: (06:47)
We have a 91% approval rating in the VA in terms of the job we’re doing. It’s the first, it’s the highest ever recorded. Now telehealth is a critical part of our path forward in the VA. And it’s becoming a critical path, especially with our senior citizens. You don’t have to go to the doctor’s office. You don’t have to go to hospitals.

Donald Trump: (07:06)
When the invisible enemy struck our shores, I took immediate action to eliminate regulatory barriers to telehealth, making it easier for patients to consult with doctors from safety and convenience, and really they have great safety and great convenience right from their homes. Today I’m taking action to ensure telehealth is here to stay. Moments ago in the Oval Office, I signed an executive order to make many of our regulatory reforms permanent. We’ve done some regulatory reforms that have had a tremendous impact on what we’re doing, on medicine and medical and what we’re doing. We can do things that you wouldn’t believe, that even a year ago, two years ago, would not have been doable.

Donald Trump: (07:53)
We’re enshrining the right of American patients to meet with their medical providers in a way that is best for them and very, very convenient and very talented people on the other side of the line, I have to tell you. The order builds upon a series of actions we’ve all taken to make telehealth available to all. We ensured that Medicare covers telehealth visits at no additional cost. That’s no additional cost. And copayments can be waived for telehealth services. We are working very hard also on prescription drug prices. And I will tell you that the Favorite Nations Clause that I’ve signed into existence, nobody thought anybody would ever do that, has a massive impact on prescription drug prices. In addition to the three other elements of reduction of drugs, particular prescription drugs, but the Favorite Nations Clause is massive.

Donald Trump: (08:55)
For instance, if Germany buys a pill for 10 cents a pill, as an example, just as an example, and the United States pays $2 for the same pill, we get the same privilege, the same right, as they do. Never had that before. We paid all of the expenses, all of the research and development. So the numbers are astronomical. And as you probably noticed, big ads are taken against me by big pharma, very big ads, very massive buy. But in the meantime, they’re calling, they want to know if they can make a deal. And I say to people, the only reason these ads are being taken is because prices are coming down for you. And they understand that. I think our people understand that.

Donald Trump: (09:37)
But in particular, when you look at the matching, you could call it matching, or you could call it Favorite Nations, call it whatever you like. It’s going to have a tremendous, and I’m talking about 50%, 60%, 70%. That doesn’t mean it goes to 10 cents, as an example, but theirs comes up and ours goes down. And you have many, many countries where the numbers are so low. I mean, it’s…

Donald Trump: (10:03)
… but the numbers are so low. I mean, so low. And by that, I mean much lower than the United States. Another thing I’m doing is if a certain country like Canada, Canada buys for very much less than United States has bought. How they allowed this to happen, representatives of our country, standing at these podiums or in the Oval Office, how they allowed this to happen is just, to me, incredible. We’ve been working on this for a long time. I’ve been talking about it with Kayleigh for a long time, right? So now a governor like Ron DeSantis of Florida is doing a great job, or our great governor of Ohio, or our great governor of any state can call up and buy the drugs directly from Canada, at sometimes 50% less. So we’ll be buying from Canada. Now what the drug companies are going to do, maybe they’ll raise them, maybe they’ll lower them, or maybe they’ll just give up and sell them to us directly, much cheaper.

Donald Trump: (10:59)
So a lot of things that are happening. Also, the rebate, we have people that are very wealthy, that nobody ever heard of them, nobody knows who they are. I guess in some cases they can be pharmacies. In some cases, they’re individuals. We’re doing a rebate and the rebate goes to the people that lowers the price of drugs. So we have a series of four things that we signed, and you will see over a fairly short period, drug prices are going to be tumbling down, at numbers that nobody would have ever believed possible. In 51 years, the only time prices came down was during this administration. It was last year, 51 years, it went up. But that was just a small decline, this is a massive decline. This is a decline that nobody can believe. I was called by senators. I was called by congressmen, “Please don’t do this.” But big pharma doesn’t mean anything to me, other than we want them to do a great job. We want them to get their vaccines. We want them to do what has to be done.

Donald Trump: (12:02)
So I think you’re going to see drug price reductions over the next four or five or six months. Probably take a little while to kick in, then they’re going to be at numbers that you wouldn’t believe. But in the meantime, they called on Friday afternoon, they want to meet, see if they can do something else. They don’t like favorite nations clauses, I understand that. We vastly expanded coverage, allowing Medicare to cover more than 135 new services through telehealth, by the way, including physical therapy, emergency department visits, home visits, mental health counseling, substance abuse treatment, which is a very big priority. We brought the substance abuse, at least prior to the China plague or whatever you want to call it, we brought it down very substantially. Pediatric critical care and much more. Thanks to our actions, an estimated $2 billion of additional funding will support Medicare patients receiving telehealth services. So a very, very big priority on tele-health.

Donald Trump: (13:03)
As part of the CARES Act, we secured $200 million to help healthcare providers and hospitals expand their telehealth. And they’re all doing it, they’re doing it gladly. Prior to the epidemic or the pandemic, whatever you want to say and how you want to refer to it. But prior to the pandemic, the telehealth was fine, but it wasn’t anything raging. And I guess one of the only good things that we’ve gotten out of this whole horrible situation is telehealth has been incredible. And again, the increases are many hundreds of times greater than it was before. Do you have a number? It’s like 2000% or something like that. It’s an incredible increase. You’ll get the number, but it’s… I think they have it now finally. And it’s really an incredible… Thank you, Kayleigh.

Donald Trump: (13:58)
We work with the leaders of major health insurance companies to ensure coverage for the telehealth visits related to coronavirus. We cut red tape to allow many services to be conducted by phone rather than video, which is much simpler, providing a much easier option for many seniors in particular. 35% of the Medicare beneficiaries who received telehealth services, or over 3.6 million seniors, did so over the phone. So you’re talking about 3.6 million seniors, that’s something. 10.1 million Medicare beneficiaries have accessed care through telehealth since the beginning of the pandemic. So you’re talking there, 10.1 million people. In April, over 43% of all Medicare primary care visits were done via telehealth and compared to less than a 0.1% in February. Those are part of the numbers that I think I’ll have you get them. So this part you don’t have to, you’ll get the the other section. Thank you.

Donald Trump: (15:06)
So think of that, compared to less than 0.1%. 0.1%, that’s an incredible number. So over 43% of all Medicare primary care visits were done via telehealth compared to… So you went from 0.1% to 43%. It’s an incredible number. The executive order I signed today will also expand healthcare access in rural America. We take care of rural America. It directs agencies to deploy strategic investments in our rural communications infrastructure. And we’re working very hard with all of the people in government that are involved with the communications infrastructure, so that the telehealth gets very quick and easy access. Additionally, revenue for rural providers varies significantly from month to month, making it difficult for many to stay in business. Many, many are having a very difficult time. To help fix this problem, my order will create a voluntary Medicare payment system that will give rural hospitals flexibility, really great flexibility and a more consistent income stream to better serve their patients.

Donald Trump: (16:21)
Furthermore, I am directing the Department of Agriculture, Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Communications Commission… We were just with the heads of each one in the Oval Office, just before I came up to the podium. To form a task force that will break down barriers to expanding rural healthcare. This order continues my administration’s focus on rural healthcare. We allocated nearly $165 million through the CARES Act to support nearly 1,800 small rural hospitals, who have done an incredible job, as well as $11.5 million to expand technical assistance for rural and underserved areas. We allocated another $10 billion to 2000 rural hospitals, and more than 2,400 rural health clinics. We waived burdensome licensing certification and registration requirements, which took tremendous amounts of time. And these are people that had great reputations and great track records, for practitioners that serve on the front lines in rural areas, allowing more medical personnel to serve their wonderful patients.

Donald Trump: (17:37)
We’re also, in terms of PPE, ensuring that the state and local areas have the supplies they need. We’ve been supplying hospitals and cities and states, governors, helping governors at a number that nobody’s ever heard of before. 15,440 nursing homes have received a second shipment of personal protective equipment. They’re very much stocked up. They’re in great shape. They all have the ventilators, all the ventilators they need. They have actually more than they need. And their medical equipment is in very, very good shape. They’re full. My administration has worked with the private sector to deliver over 100 million N95 respirators, 85 million gloves and nearly 250 million face coverings nationwide. We continue to make the extraordinary progress that we’ve been talking about together on vaccines and treatments under Operation Warp Speed, which is very exciting, most exciting.

Donald Trump: (18:39)
Last week we distributed 2,979 cases of remdesivir, which is proving to be extremely powerful and good, enough to treat more than 19,000 patients, had great results. This includes 500 cases for Florida, 500 for Texas, 300 for California, 200 for Ohio, and 150 for Arizona and Georgia. And those numbers will be going up rapidly as we move along. Hospitals are reporting an adequate supply of steroids, such as dexamethasone, that are used successfully in late stage illness. They’ve been very good. We’re also very encouraged about the prospects for plasma therapies that we’re working on. And that’s a brilliant art. It’s really an art. And we launched a national plasma drive last week. I was at the Red Cross building with the American Red Cross and 13 other healthcare organizations. I urge everyone who has recovered from the virus to go to coronavirus.gov, coronavirus.gov, and donate plasma today. We would really appreciate it. This really makes people better. But what we need is, we need that beautiful ingredient, that you that got better, seem to have in your…

Donald Trump: (20:03)
… be it that you that got better seem to have in your veins, you have to go to coronavirus.gov and donate plasma today. It would be tremendous. We really appreciate it if you do it because we’re low. We’re low. We could help a lot more people, and it would be a terrific thing. It’ll take an hour, maybe a little bit more than an hour, but everybody will be very appreciative. It makes people better. You had something very special, you had something that knocked it out, so we want to be able to use it. So whatever you can do, coronavirus.gov.

Donald Trump: (20:35)
As a result of improvements we’ve made in treatment for Americans over the age of 18, the mortality rate has declined 85% from its April peak, 85% decline.

Donald Trump: (20:48)
On vaccines, last week we announced a $2.1 billion partnership with Sanofi and GSX to purchase and produce 100 million doses of their coronavirus vaccine, 100 million doses. This is the sixth vaccine candidate we are proactively supporting. We are supporting numerous companies that are doing very well, having wonderful results, and they’re in final stages of testing. There are now two vaccines in that final stage of clinical trials in America with a third vaccine likely to begin phase three almost immediately. We have additional clinical trials scheduled over the next few weeks for a couple of the other companies. These are great companies. These are companies that are not only well-known, they’re well-respected, most importantly.

Donald Trump: (21:41)
We’re balancing speed and safety, and we’re on pace to have a vaccine available this year, maybe far in advance of the end of the year. We’re mass producing the most promising candidates in advance so that we’re ready immediately upon approval. We have our military lined up. It’s logistics. It’s all about logistics. They deliver a lot of things, including soldiers, but now they’ll be doing vaccine. Our general is all ready to go, and he’s very excited. Once we have the vaccine approved, fully approved, he’ll start the process. They will start the process, and they’ll get it out very, very quickly all over the country, and maybe beyond if it works as we think it probably will.

Donald Trump: (22:24)
By unleashing America’s technical and scientific brilliance, we will end this pandemic, and we will hopefully end it very quickly. The therapeutics are very exciting to me, where you can go into a hospital, and whether it’s through a shot or a transfusion, you take care of somebody and they get better. That’s something to me that’s very important. We’re doing really well on therapeutics and really well on vaccines.

Donald Trump: (22:49)
So thank you all very much for being here. We’ll take a couple of questions.

Speaker 1: (22:53)
Hey, Mr. President. If I could ask your response to two items in the news and ask a couple question. First, have you been briefed on the incident off the coast of California, where the Marines and the Navy [inaudible 00:23:06] died in a training accident a couple [crosstalk 00:23:11]

Donald Trump: (23:10)
They’re actually briefing me in a little while. We have it scheduled for a little while from now.

Speaker 1: (23:16)
[crosstalk 00:23:16] speak to the families?

Donald Trump: (23:17)
Oh, it’s terrible. No, it’s terrible, and we’ll be in contact with the families. A thing like that is terrible.

Speaker 1: (23:23)
Secondly, in New York today, there’s a city prosecutor that confirmed a criminal investigation into the Trump organization. Do you have any reaction to that?

Donald Trump: (23:32)
Well, I just heard about it. This is just a continuation of the witch hunt. It’s Democrat stuff. They failed with Mueller. They failed with everything. They failed with Congress. They failed at every stage of the game. This has been going on for three and a half, four years. Even before I got in, this was starting with the Mueller deal. Mueller started a little bit after, but it started with some of the people that you know very well the names, Strzok and Page and all of the different people, Comey. This has been going on. This is a continuation of the worst witch hunt in American history, and there’s nothing that I know even about it.

Donald Trump: (24:11)
I had seen that today just a little while ago. I said, “What’s this all about?” I know nothing about it, but it’s just a continuation of the witch hunt. Didn’t work out for Congress, didn’t work out for Mueller, didn’t work out for anybody. So what they’re doing is they send them around to all over the country, I guess maybe, but it’s a terrible thing that they do. It’s really a terrible thing. The witch hunt has gone on long enough. What else?

Speaker 1: (24:34)
Just one on COVID, you mentioned the vaccine development program. Could you assure the American people that politics and considerations around the election will not interfere with the science?

Donald Trump: (24:45)
Absolutely not. Absolutely.

Speaker 1: (24:46)
Do you plan on playing a role in determining how the vaccine, if there is one, will be distributed across the country? Is that something that you will be doing [crosstalk 00:24:52]

Donald Trump: (24:52)
It’s possible that I get involved; but no, it won’t have anything to do with … We want to make people better. We want to send them to the areas that most need it, and I think we’re going to have something very soon. It’s going good. Jeff [inaudible 00:25:02]

Jeff: (25:03)
Mr. President, you said today, this week that Dr. Birx was taking bait from Speaker Pelosi. What did you mean by that considering that she was just describing the facts about the case of the pandemic right now across the country?

Donald Trump: (25:15)
I think we’re doing very well, and I think that we have done as well as any nation. If you really look, if you take a look at what’s going on, especially now with all these flareups and nations that they were talking about. Don’t forget, we’re much bigger, other than India and China. China’s having a massive flareup right down. India has a tremendous problem. Other countries have problems. I noticed that in the news, in the evening news, I never read about that in any of the news. I don’t read about the other countries. You’re starting to see that other countries are having very big flareups, countries that thought they were over it. Like we thought we might be over it in Florida; and then all of a sudden, it comes back. They do come back, but I think we’re doing very well. I told Dr. Birx, I think we’re doing very well. She was in my office a little while ago. She’s a person I have a lot of respect for. I think Nancy Pelosi’s treated her very badly, very, very badly, very nasty. I’m just referring to the fact that I thought that really they should say the job we’ve done, whether it’s on ventilators or testing, we’ve tested now over 60 million people. No other country is even close to that. We’ve tested 60 million people with great … In many cases, about 50% now, rapid fire, meaning 5 to 15 to 20-minute tests, where you get the result almost immediately. Nobody has anything like that. Nobody. I think we’re just doing very well.

Speaker 3: (26:40)
[inaudible 00:26:41].

Donald Trump: (26:40)
Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 3: (26:42)
Just to follow up just quickly.

Donald Trump: (26:43)
Go ahead, please.

Speaker 3: (26:43)
Does that mean you disagree with her characterization, Mr. President?

Donald Trump: (26:46)
Go ahead, please.

Speaker 2: (26:47)
Thanks, Mr. President. I wanted to follow up on two things that you had said earlier in the cabinet room. The first was on TikTok, and the second was on coronavirus. On TikTok, you said that you wanted money for the US Treasury from the sale. Does that mean you expect the Chinese company to pay the US Treasury directly? Or are you talking about [crosstalk 00:27:08]

Donald Trump: (27:08)
Either way, whether it’s Microsoft or somebody else, or it was the Chinese. What the price is, the United States should get a very large percentage of that price because we’re making it possible. Without us, I use the expression, it’s like the landlord and the tenant. Without the lease, the tenant doesn’t have the value. Well, we’re in a certain way, the lease. We make it possible to have this great success. TikTok’s a tremendous success, but a big portion of it’s in this country.

Speaker 4: (27:37)
So from the sale directly, it would come [crosstalk 00:27:38]

Donald Trump: (27:39)
It would come from the sale. Yeah, whatever the number is, it would come from the sale,-

Speaker 4: (27:41)
Then you mentioned-

Donald Trump: (27:41)
… which nobody else would be thinking about, but me. But that’s the way I think. I think it’s very fair.

Speaker 4: (27:47)
And you mentioned-

Donald Trump: (27:47)
But we want no security problems with China. It’s got to be an American company. It’s got to be American security. It’s got to be owned here. We don’t want to have any problems with security, etc. Something could come out. I will tell you, there’s a lot of excitement, not only by Microsoft, but by other companies in terms of buying it. We’ll see what happens, but we want, and we think we deserve, to have a big percentage of that price coming to America, coming to the Treasury.

Speaker 4: (28:14)
Then on the negotiation on Capitol Hill, you expressed some frustration and said you might take executive action to address-

Donald Trump: (28:21)
I might do that. Yes.

Speaker 4: (28:23)
So I was wondering if you could talk about both how you might prevent evictions through executive action, and then also-

Donald Trump: (28:29)
Yeah, I can do that if I want, and I want to do that. I don’t want people to be evicted. When they’re evicted, when they’re thrown out of whatever the place may be, in many cases, they go to big shelters. If you talk about pandemic, this is a pandemic, and they go to shelters. Number one, they’re thrown out viciously. It’s not their fault. It’s China’s fault. It’s not anybody’s fault. It’s China’s fault. But number two, and if they are thrown out, they oftentimes will go to a shelter with tremendous numbers of other people, and the virus will spread. We don’t want that.

Speaker 4: (29:05)
Are you considering suspending the collection of payroll taxes?

Donald Trump: (29:09)
Well, I can do that also through an executive order. So we’ll be talking about that. But we’re having a very good discussion with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

Donald Trump: (29:16)
The problem is they want to do bailouts of their various Democrat-run states and cities. They want a lot of money. They want a trillion dollars for that. They want to do much more than COVID-related. They want to bail out cities and states that have been in trouble for years of bad management. In all cases, Democrat-run cities, and we don’t think that’s fair. You understand that. You’ve heard it before.

Donald Trump: (29:42)
Yeah, please. Go ahead.

Speaker 5: (29:42)
Thanks, Mr. President. I wanted to ask you about the Justice Department sending federal agents into cities like Chicago as part of Operation Legend. How exactly do you envision these federal forces working alongside local police departments to help stop violent crime?

Donald Trump: (29:58)
It’s not a mass send, but it’s sending very talented people to help them with the drugs and the shootings and the gun-

Donald Trump: (30:03)
… So sending very talented people to help them with the drugs and the shootings and the guns and the things that are happening. It’s not like sending in the National Guard and stopping it cold, which is an example. A lot of progress has been made in Portland, but you know, frankly, sending in the National Guard like we did in Minneapolis, it stopped it cold. From the time we sent that National Guard, they walked down the street, it was over in Minneapolis. Now it may be starting up again. These are Democrat run cities and states and it hasn’t been a pretty picture to watch.

Donald Trump: (30:33)
We will help Chicago. We’ll help New York if they request. They have to request the help but we want to stop the drugs. We want to stop the guns. A lot of the Chicago is guns and what it is, is drug related; gang related, largely gang related. With ICE, we send out thousands of MS-13. Thousands and thousands of MS-13. We send them back or in some cases have to put them in prison. They’re too violent. They’re truly violent. So we’re helping out.

Donald Trump: (31:01)
When you look at what’s happening in Chicago and some other cities with the shootings and the killings, they need help and we haven’t met with resistance, I have to be honest with you. I think it’s good that we haven’t. We’re only looking to help them. We’re only looking to help.

Speaker 6: (31:16)
Thank you, Mr. President. In our nations 243 year history, there has never been a stronger push for mail-in ballots to determine a national election. Are you considering at any point issuing an executive order addressing mail-in ballots and why do you think some people are pushing it so hard?

Donald Trump: (31:38)
Well, there’s never been a push like this for mail-in ballots and if you look at the New York congressional race, which is a disaster. Carolyn, it’s been a total disaster. They’re six weeks into it. Now they have no clue what’s going on and I mean, I think I can say right here and now I think you have to rerun that race because it’s a mess. Nobody knows what’s happening with the ballots and the lost ballots and the fraudulent ballots, I guess.

Donald Trump: (32:07)
I think you’ve probably have to take the Carolyn Maloney race and run it over again. How can you do this? This is a small race with literally thousands of people, small thousands, and it’s all messed up. You look at Patterson, New Jersey. It’s all messed up. Almost every one of these and these are small, easy to control. They should be able to do this easy.

Donald Trump: (32:27)
Now you’re talking about like Nevada, where last two nights ago, they went out and in the darkness of night without people, without having any meetings of the public, without having anything, they approved the ridiculous you don’t have to look at signatures. You don’t have to approve anything. You can have double mailings. You can have all sorts of things. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. It’s a disgrace. I mean, honestly, it’s a disgrace.

Donald Trump: (32:53)
So it’s a very good question. I mean, the mail in ballots, if you look at just some of the small places, the small races, congressional race in New York, should be very easy. Normally that would have been announced at seven o’clock and it would have been down to the wire and everybody would have loved it. If it was at all complex, it would have taken an extra 45 minutes or an hour. They would have announced it a little bit later. They have no clue. This was about six weeks ago and they have no clue what’s going on. They’ve lost ballots. There’s fraudulent ballots. It’s how are you going to do you do that for an entire nation? They’re using COVID to try and get the mail-in ballots. Now, absentee ballots are great. Absentee ballots, you have to request them. They go through a process. They get them. But the universal mail-in ballots have turned out to be a disaster.

Donald Trump: (33:48)
What Nevada has been doing, if you look over the last few days, you have to look at what they’ve done. You can have two ballots. You can harvest; it’s harvesting. So you can take thousands of ballots, put them together and just dump them down on somebody’s desk after a certain period of time.

Donald Trump: (34:06)
They have something where if you vote, the vote can count up to seven days later. Well, if the vote is going to count seven days later, that means, if it depends on the one state like Nevada, that would mean simply that you can’t have, supposing it’s down to that one state, it could be. It’s a great state. But supposing is down to that one state. That means you have to wait seven days but they won’t have it there. This is something that’s so messed up.

Donald Trump: (34:33)
By the way, I have to say the post office for many, many years has been run in a fashion that hasn’t been great. Great workers and everything but they have old equipment, very old equipment. I don’t think the post office is prepared for a thing like this. You have to ask the people at the post office but how can the post office be expected to handle? They have regular mailing and then now on top of that, they have the internet where you have Amazon and these companies doing all the buying instead of going to a department store, they go buy through mail.

Donald Trump: (35:06)
So you have massive numbers of purchases now going through the post office, purchases of items and gifts and that’s a tremendous strain on the post office. The post office loses a fortune. It has been for many, many years, for decades. So now on top of it, it has this and the Amazons of the world and the others they pay very, very little money. They lose money on every… The post office loses money which is ridiculous on every package that delivers.

Donald Trump: (35:33)
Now, on top of that, and I’m not just referring to Amazon, I’m talking about all of the competitors, if there is such a thing to Amazon. It will be. But if there is such a thing, but now on top of that, you’ll have somebody like the governor of Nevada, come out with this massive plan out of nowhere to take millions of ballots and send them all over the place. You’ll never know who won that state. It’ll get messed up just like New York and just like Patterson, New Jersey, and just like many other places.

Donald Trump: (36:05)
In West Virginia, they indicted a postman for doing something very bad, you know that, but there are many cases all over the country. If you look, you’ll be able to find there’s a list of them all over the country and that has to do with universal mailing.

Donald Trump: (36:21)
Again, absentee is great. It works. Like in Florida, they’ll do absentee. It really works but universal mail-in ballots is going to be a great embarrassment to our country.

Donald Trump: (36:35)
Well, I have the right to do it. We haven’t gotten there yet, but we’ll see what happens. We will be suing in Nevada and that’s already been taken care of. We’ll probably file something tomorrow.

Donald Trump: (36:46)
I do want to say that we’re going to be introducing a tremendous healthcare plan sometime prior, hopefully prior to the end of the month. It’s just about completed now. In addition, next month we’ll be doing the immigration plan. So we’ll be doing that in September. We’ll be doing sometime during this month, the healthcare plan and I think that’ll be before the end of the month and I think it will be very impressive to a lot of people. Thank you very much.

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