Donald Trump Meeting Transcript with Acting Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar

President Trump: (00:00)
Thank you all very much, it’s an honor to be with the Prime Minister of Ireland. We’ve known each other now for quite a while and we have a great relationship and a great relationship with Ireland, and we have a lot to discuss. We will be talking about the obvious, and we’ll also be talking about the virus that’s hit the world. They’ve canceled their big soccer games, their championship games, and a lot of other games. They’ve canceled a lot over in Europe and all over the world. So this is a big world problem. We’ve taken some bold steps. We took the original boldest step of all when we closed very early with China. That helped us save thousands of lives and we went very early with Europe, and I think that’ll likewise be very good and hopefully we can get it back together very quickly in terms of reestablishing with China that’s on track to something happen fairly quickly because they’ve made a lot of progress over the last three or four weeks, and certainly with Europe we think we can go hopefully very quickly.

They have some hotspots that are really bad but they’ll get them better. Germany, I guess has some problems now. France has some problems, some pretty big problems, and Italy of course is probably record setting in terms of what they’ve gone through. Italy’s having a very hard time. But we think we’ll re-establish very quickly once this ends and it’s just a question of time and I think it will go pretty quickly. Stay away from people, and wash your hands, and do all of the things that we’re supposed to be doing a little bit anyway, but it’ll go very quickly. I know that we were just talking that Ireland’s closed their schools and maybe I’d ask the Prime Minister to say a little bit about what you’re doing in Ireland having to do with what we’re going to through.

Prime Minister Varadkar: (01:51)
Okay. Well first of all, thank you Mr. President for having us again here today in the run up to St. Patrick’s Day. Just another opportunity I think to show how close Ireland and America are, how good our relationship is politically and economically and everything else. St. Patrick’s Day has become, I think, a symbol of how close Ireland and America are and how we’re going to continue to stay close into the future. The big concern in Ireland in Europe at the moment as you know, is COVID-19, and we’ve acted just as you’ve acted decisively in the last couple of days. We have restrictions on travel for example, at Italy for a few days already, but as of tomorrow, our schools will close, our creches will close. We’re banning all indoor gatherings of more than 100 people, and outdoor gatherings of more than 500. This is all based on the public health advice from our CDC that we need to do this for a couple of weeks to make sure the virus doesn’t spread.

We’re particularly trying to protect older people and people with chronic diseases. We’ve got about 30 or 40 cases so far, with that we are real concerned that that could rise. That’s why we’re taking the action that we’re taking. But as you know, it’s a virus that’s gone pandemic. It’s all over the world, knows no borders, knows no nationalities, and I think we all need to work together in the world on this. America in particular, you’re the richest country in the world, you’ve got great scientists, great companies, great universities, and we need them working on treatments, working on tests, and working on a vaccine. Beause that’s what will get us on top of this.

Right, and we’re making great progress there I will say.

I was with the Vice President this morning, who I know is heading up the task force for you, and he gave me a lot of confidence that you’re getting on top of this and you’re investing in this.

Right.

Audience: (03:31)
Mr. President, can you confirm the [inaudible 00:03:34] from your travel ban, Europeans [inaudible 00:03:38]?

Well, they know and I think it was made very clear last night who is and who isn’t. We’ll be discussing that. We’ll be discussing some of the moves that we’re going to be making. I think it’s going to work out very well for everybody, but it’s a world problem and you do need separation in some cases. You have some areas that are very heavily infected and you have said some areas that aren’t frankly, but we do need separation for a little period of time in some cases.

Audience: (04:04)
[crosstalk 00:04:07].

Just saying that the president has excluded Ireland from the travel ban. One of the things we have in Ireland is CBP, American border security in Ireland. Went through it myself yesterday and they were asking the right questions whether people had been to China, things like that. That puts us in a slightly different position.

One of the reasons UK basically has been, it’s got the border, it’s got very strong borders and they’re doing a very good job. They don’t have very much infection at this point and hopefully they’ll keep it that way.

Audience: (04:38)
Mr. President, there were many European leaders who were upset that they weren’t consulted about the travel ban. Can you explain your rationale for not consulting with them first before announcing it last night?

Well, we get along very well with European leaders, but we had to make a decision and I didn’t want to take time. It takes a long time to make the individual calls. We are calling, and we have spoken to some of them prior to, some of the majors prior to. But we had to move quickly. I mean, when they raised taxes on us, they don’t consult us. I think that’s probably one in the same. They’ve done things… The European Union as you know, has done some very big tax raises over the years. Not so much with me because I won’t put up with it, but they haven’t consulted us. In the case of European Union, I’ve consulted with many people.

Audience: (05:28)
Do you have any idea what the overall economic impact of these travel restrictions will be?

Well, we have big impact, but it’s a bigger impact and it’s also a human impact, which is more important frankly than the financial when you lose thousands of additional lives. As an example of, I didn’t close very, very early… Leo, we closed very early with China and I took a lot of heat, including from your people, a lot of heat. They called me everything from a racist to everything else. It was terrible. The same people, then they say, “Oh, he closed too fast. Why did he close?” Most of them said, “Why did he close with China?” That turned out to be a great move. What we did with Europe is this was the time, and China, a lot of it came from when you think of what happened to Europe because it was very fast and very furious and what happened is a lot of people went from China into Europe, and Europe suffered tremendously. You see what’s going on. I just wanted that to stop as it pertains to the United States and that’s what we’ve done.

Audience: (06:27)
[inaudible 00:06:30]. What are your plans, Mr. President, about campaign rallies, about travel outside the White House? You originally had some travel on the schedule for tonight.

We had some big rallies. We canceled one that we were thinking about doing in Las Vegas as you know, and one in Reno, Nevada. We had about three of them in Nevada actually, and we had four or five of them that we were thinking about. We have a big one in Tampa all sold out. We had over a hundred thousand requests for tickets, but I think we’ll probably not do it because people would say it’s better to not do. We need a little separation until such time as this goes away. It’s going to go away. It’s going to go away. I was watching Scott this morning and he was saying within two months, but in the meantime we want to lose as few people as possible. It’s so important.

What is the number as of this morning? Is it 32? You could tell me, is it 32 deaths? Steve? Around that. I mean think of it, the United States because of what I did and what the administration did with China, we have 32 deaths at this point. Other countries that are smaller countries have many, many deaths. 32 is a lot, 32 is too many. But when you look at the kind of a numbers that you’re seeing coming out of other countries, it’s pretty amazing when you think of it. So that’s it.

Audience: (07:50)

Steve, go ahead.

Steve: (07:52)
I just wanted [inaudible 00:07:56].

Well, we have things that I can do. We have very strong emergency powers under the Stafford Act and I mean I haven’t memorized practically as to the powers in that act and if I need to do something, I’ll do it. I have the right to do a lot of things that people don’t even know about.

Steve: (08:15)
Are you going to do that today?

Well, I don’t want to say that, but at some point. It may be some of the more minor things at this point. But look, we’re in great shape. Compared to other places, we are in really good shape and we want to keep it that way. That’s why I did the ban with respect to Europe.

Audience: (08:34)
[crosstalk 00:08:34] emergency actions that you [crosstalk 00:08:37].

I have a lot of emergency actions that I can tell you.

Audience: (08:39)
As far as workers, what are you looking at to help American workers?

Well, we’re looking at a lot of things including paid leave and we’re looking at many things. We’re also making sure they’re going to get their salaries. We have other workers too, and those are people that work for tips and nobody thinks about them, and we’re including them in a lot of our schedules. We’re also making sure that the companies which are good companies stay solvent, have the money necessary to keep functioning. We have a lot of things that we’re working on with the financial markets and it’s going to work out fine.

Audience: (09:11)

You have to remember the stock market, as an example, is still much higher than when I got here and it’s taken a big hit, but it’s going to all bounce back and it’s going to bounce back very big at the right time.

Audience: (09:21)
When will you decide though for the American workers what steps-

Well, we’re deciding right now and we’re dealing also prior to even the Stafford Act, we’re dealing with the Democrats in Congress. We’ll see what can be done. I happen to think that a payroll tax cut would be a very good idea, very distributed… Really distributes it very evenly among middle-class and other workers. I mean many workers, it would be a great thing. I happen to think it would be a great thing even beyond this. We’re looking at the payroll tax cut and that won’t come immediately because that’s a stronger measure. But we are looking to do that and I think at the right time Congress will probably go along with it because it really is the most sensible thing.

We had the biggest bankers in the world here yesterday giving their opinions. They all thought a payroll tax cut would be a great thing. It would evenly and quickly distribute a lot of money.

Audience: (10:16)
Do you support the House bill? The House Democrat bill?

No, because there are things in there that have nothing to do with what we’re talking about. So it’s not a way for them to get some of the goodies that they haven’t been able to get for the last 25 years.

Audience: (10:30)
Will Irish citizens always be welcome to [inaudible 00:10:34]?

Always, always, always. Just like your prime minister always. They will be, not only welcome, loved. We have millions. What is the number now, would you say? It changes every year. It gets actually bigger.

Yeah, about 35 million are Irish.

Can you imagine? It’s got to be one of our-

Irish blood.

It’s got to be one of our biggest.

Audience: (10:51)
[crosstalk 00:00:10:53].

No, we love the Irish.

Audience: (10:57)
Do you support Irish citizens getting access to the [inaudible 00:10:58]?

We’re going to be looking at that. We’re going to be talking about that today. It’s a very important part of our conversation. That’s going to be actually a very important part of our conversation.

Audience: (11:06)
They’re concerned about Huawei [inaudible 00:11:08] operations [inaudible 00:11:11] Ireland.

Well, I think there’s a lack of security if they use Huawei, there’s a real problem with intelligence and intelligence security and we’ll see what happens. We’ll be discussing that point also.

Audience: (11:24)
Mr. President, can Americans still bring back the coronavirus in this new travel restriction?

Can I what?

Audience: (11:29)
Can Americans still bring back coronavirus?

Yeah, but we have them very heavily tested. If an American’s coming back or anybody’s coming back, we’re testing. We have a tremendous testing setup where people coming in have to be tested. If they are positive and if they’re able to get through… Because frankly, if they’re, if they’re not, we’re not putting them on planes if it shows positive. But if they do come here, they have to wear quarantine. It’s going to be a pretty strong enforcement of quarantine. Look, the key is you have to have separation. We have to have separation or this thing takes longer to go away. But the really important, and I think you can say this for your country, I think we can say it for a lot of countries, for all countries, hopefully, it goes away. It’s going away. We want it to go away with very, very few deaths. People have… We call it cases. How many cases do you have?

Well relative to other countries, we have very few cases relative to certain of the major countries that really have a bigger problem than us. We’ve offered by the [inaudible 00:00:12:39]. Just interestingly. I think we have the greatest doctors in the world. We’ve offered Iran assistance. Iran is having a tremendous problem and we have offered Iran assistance. If they’d like it, we will help them. We’d be glad to help them.

Audience: (12:51)
Speaking of Iran, Mr. President, the Pentagon has determined that an Iranian backed militia fired the rocket that killed two American soldiers in Iraq. Should they expect a response?

I’d rather not say, but let’s just put it this way. You will see. But I can’t say. I was working on that last night also. They sent a lot of rockets. That hasn’t been fully determined it was Iran, as you know. It was a rebel group, but most likely it looked like it could be backed by Iran and we’ll see what the response is.

Audience: (13:23)
Mr. President, would you like to see the Prime Minister return to the white house next year? He’s trying to form a governments at home. Would you like to see him [crosstalk 00:13:29].

Well, he’s a friend. I always want him to return because he’s a friend. We’ve been doing this now for quite a while. We started off both new to the job and yes, I would always like to see him. I know they have other people that I know and I get along with very well. Look, we get along with the country, but this is a very special guy.

We’d like to see you back in Ireland again for a longer visit I hope next time.

Audience: (13:51)
Would you like to see Mr. President re-elected in November?

That’s of course a matter for the American people, but President Trump and any American presence is always welcome in Ireland.

Audience: (14:02)
Mr. President, there’s a report that a [inaudible 00:14:06] Brazil’s Bolsonaro may have the coronavirus. Are you aware of that? Because you were in contact with that person over the weekend.

I did hear something about that. We had dinner together in Florida at Mar-a-Lago with the entire delegation. I don’t know if the press aide was there, if he was there, he was there. But we did nothing very unusual. We sat next to each other for a period of time, had a great conversation. He’s doing a terrific job in Brazil and we’ll find out what happens. I guess he’d be tested right now.

Audience: (14:41)
Well, I’m asking you what update you can provide.

Let’s put it this way. I’m not concerned.

Audience: (14:45)
Mr. President, yesterday we heard from an emergency room physician in Houston who had a patient who was showing symptoms of something, tested negative for the flu. This physician wanted to test this person for coronavirus and got caught in what this doctor described as an infinite loop of stupid trying to get through to the public health agencies in Texas trying to get permission for this person to be tested. Is there something you can do as the president to try to cut through those bottlenecks?

I was watching. They have a million tests out now. They’re going to have, over the next few days, they’re going to have four million tests out. Frankly the testing has been going very smooth. If you go to the right agents, if you go to the right area, you get the test.

Audience: (15:28)

Now, with that being said, as you know, millions are being produced. This is a brand new thing that just happened but millions are being produced.

Audience: (15:37)

But if you go back and look at the swine flu and what happened with the swine flu, you’ll see how many people died and how actually nothing was done for such a long period of time as people were dying all over the place. We’re doing it the opposite. We’re very much ahead of everything.

Audience: (15:54)
This person did contact the correct authorities, but they were closed for the day, then he was on hold for an hour or simply trying to get a test.

Well, you’re talking about one case. I mean I could certainly look into it [inaudible 00:16:01]. It’s one case. I’ve heard also it goes very well. I watched Scott Gottlieb today who was with us and I respect him a lot. I like him and I respect him. He was talking about how we have so many different tests. In some cases they’re in California where we have too many and then in other cases, the distribution could be a little bit better for certain areas, but we’ve done a good job on testing and it was very interesting. You might ask Scott about it actually.

Audience: (16:28)
[crosstalk 00:16:31]. You’re not going to Speaker Pelosi’s annual lunch. Can you tell us why?

No, I won’t be going. No, I have other things to do. I’m very busy.

Audience: (16:37)
Mr. President, [inaudible 00:16:38] 30 days on Europe. Is it possible you can extend it?

Sure it’s possible and it’s possible I could also say that we could do it early. We could end it early, but I thought it was an important thing to do because of what’s happening over there.

Audience: (16:52)
Is that, what percent [inaudible 00:16:58].

Well, I think the Democrats won’t be having rallies but nobody showed up to their rallies anywhere. So what difference does it make?

Audience: (17:07)

My rallies are very big. They’re very big rallies, and we’ll be making a decision at the appropriate time. I mean the next one scheduled is for the 25th and that’s in Tampa but we’ll have to see whether or not we do it. No, I’m not going to do it if I think it’s going to be negative at all. If we haven’t made that turn yet. We’ll make the turn. The question is when and the question is how many people will die? And I don’t want people dying. That’s what I’m all about. I made a very tough decision last night and a very tough decision a long time ago with respect to China. I don’t want people dying and that’s why I made these decisions and whether it affects the stock market or not, very important, but it’s not important compared to life and death. I had to make that decision and frankly, the people that are professionals praise the decision and it’s something I had to do and I think you’ll see the end result is very good because of it. But it’ll take a period of time.

No, the rallies, we’ll make that decision. But at this moment we don’t have… I was going to Las Vegas, I was going out to Nevada as I said. I was going to Colorado where we have Cory Gardner running and he’s doing a great job by the way. He’s done a fantastic job, but we postponed that. I think we’re going to have Cory coming in here maybe on Friday. We’re going to do our event from the White House, but we have a lot of things that we’re moving around because of what’s happening and because I want to be here. This is the nerve center. I want to be right here. I don’t want to be flying around in airplanes all over the place. I want to be right here.

Audience: (18:49)
Mr. President, clearly you’re not being advised [inaudible 00:18:52] small groups like this, but is-

No, I’m not. Actually people said, you’re dealing with people that maybe you don’t want to deal with it. And I said, “You’re right about that.”

Audience: (19:02)
I’m wondering, has the White House medical officer or the Secret Service counseled you against straying too far from the White House?

They have not, but it’s common sense. And what I say is use common sense, like washing your hands and certain things. Keep a little bit of distance away. That’s why the sporting events are a little bit tough because you have people sitting in small seats right next to each other. So it’s a little bit tough. What happened with the NBA is pretty incredible, but you look over in in Europe and you see their big soccer matches were canceled. It’s pretty amazing when you think of what happened and how fast it spread to the world. There was one country, then it was four countries. Then it was nine. I’m reading this list every week, then it was 13, then it was 22, and now I guess it’s over a hundred countries, so it’s an amazing thing how fast this one spreads. This is a very fast spreader.

Audience: (19:56)
Any more thoughts about the Tokyo Olympics?

No, I just wish the Prime Minister, he’s a great friend of mine, Prime Minister Abe, and I wish him luck. They did such a perfect job. That venues are incredible. He was proudly showing me pictures of what they’d done the last time I was with him. This is before this came up and I said, “What a job.” And they’d built it very well. They built it on budget, right on, even under budget and they’re beautiful facilities. I don’t know.

Audience: (20:24)
[inaudible 00:00:20:28].

It’s very possible that for the Olympics maybe. I just can’t see having no people there. In other words, not allowing people. Maybe, and this is just my idea, maybe they postponed it for a year. Maybe they do that if that’s possible. Maybe that’s not possible. I guess it’s never happened with the Olympics, although I think there was interruption for wars, right?

Audience: (20:50)
They canceled.

Right. It was canceled or interruption, but I would say maybe they postpone it for a year. It’s a shame because really… I used to be in the real estate business, as you probably heard, they built some… And I built beautiful buildings and they built some really beautiful buildings.

Audience: (21:05)
Would you make that recommendation to your friends [inaudible 00:00:21:09]?

No, no, they’re very smart. They’re going to make their own. But I like that better than I like having empty stadiums all over the place. I think if you cancel it, make it a year later, that’s a better alternative than doing it with no crowd.

Audience: (21:19)
Mr. President [inaudible 00:21:21]. Did you shake hands with the Ireland Prime Minister today?

Well, we didn’t shake hands today. We looked at each other. We said, what are we going to do? It’s sort of a weird feeling.

I think we went for this, did we?

We said at the same time we did this. I just got back from India and I didn’t shake any hands there and it was very easy because they go like this and Japan goes like this. They were ahead of the curve. Now we looked at each other, we said… And we also had a lot of press staring at us. I was saying, “Are we supposed to shake hands?” And when his group of very smart representatives came in who I know, likewise we did, and it’s a very strange feeling. I was never a big handshake or as you probably heard, but once you become a politician, shaking hands is very normal and it’s a very strange feeling when people that you know and like, they walk up and say hi and they’re just like this. We were safe. It’s a little bit different.

It almost feels impersonal or feels like you’re being rude, but we just can’t afford to think like that for the next few weeks.

Audience: (22:23)
Mr. President, could you talk about the trickle through effect of everything that we’re seeing here? It’s like when you cancel an NBA season, you’re losing all of the revenue from the teams, the vendors. I mean it’s that way all through the entire economy.

It has an obvious effect. The only thing worse can be that you lose thousands and thousands of people more than you would have lost if you did it the way we’re doing it. So it certainly has an impact. Again, we’re very much working with the states because the states are a smaller form of government. They can control individual arenas and individual things better, and it’s different for different areas. Some areas have no problem whatsoever in our country and others do. We’re working with the governors of the various states and I think it’s working very well. I think the relationship has been very good with California and some others that in particular have been hit.

Audience: (23:12)
Mr. President [inaudible 00:23:16] Joe Biden [inaudible 00:00:23:18]. Are you happy to [inaudible 00:23:19]?

Yeah, I’m happy. Whoever it is, I hope they make their choice soon. I thought it was going to be… Everybody thought it was going to be Bernie. I’ve said Elizabeth Warren, if she waited for… She waited that extra three days, four days and Super Tuesday was a disaster. He would’ve won every one of those states or almost, I think almost every one of those states. Maine, Massachusetts, Texas. You take a look at the states that were very close. Many of her, I would say most of her, I would almost say all of hers, but many of her votes would have gone to him. Had she left prior to Super Tuesday, which is just a few days, he would would’ve right now been declared virtually the winner, it would have been over. But now we have Joe and I’m very happy to run against Joe.

Audience: (24:04)
Mr. President, you have both of your chief of staffs-

One of the reasons I ran for president is because of Joe and the job they did. So it’s one of the reasons. So in a way it’s maybe the way it should be, but it looks to me like it would be Biden would win.

Audience: (24:20)
Are you worried that the Irish Americans might vote for Joe?

Audience: (24:24)
Is there going to be travel restrictions within the United States to Washington state or California?

We haven’t discussed that yet. Is it a possibility? Yes. If somebody gets a little bit out of control, if an area gets too hot, you see what they’re doing in New Rochelle, which is good, frankly. It’s the right thing, but then it’s not enforced. It’s not very strong, but people know they’re being watched. New Rochelle, that’s a hotspot.

Audience: (24:47)
Just a separate topic, you spoke to the [inaudible 00:24:51].

I did.

Audience: (24:49)
What do you feel [inaudible 00:24:54]?

Well. I asked him what’s going on and they’re having a dispute with Russia. This is something that drove oil prices down. One thing I can tell you is oil prices are at a point now that I would have dreamed about because the gasoline prices are going to be coming way down. They’ll be coming way down. With gasoline prices coming down, that’s like a tax cut. Frankly, that’s like a big tax cut, not a little tax cut for the consumer. There’s something about that that I like. Thank you very much everybody.

Audience: (25:26)

Thank you very much.

Donald Trump Meeting Transcript with Acting Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar

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