Donald Trump Talks TikTok, Dr. Fauci, COVID-19 Relief Transcript August 3

Donald Trump: (00:00)
It can’t be controlled for security reasons by China, too big, too invasive, and it can’t be. Here’s the deal. I don’t mind whether it’s Microsoft or somebody else, a big company, a secure company, a very American company buy it. It’s probably easier to buy the whole thing than to buy 30% of it. Because I say, how do you do 30%, who’s going to get the name? The name is hot. The brand is hot. Who’s going to get the name? How do you do that if it’s owned by two different companies? So my personal opinion was, you’re probably better off buying the whole thing rather than buying 30% of it. I think buying 30% is complicated.

I suggested that he can go ahead. He can try. We set a date. I set a date of around September 15th, at which point it’s going to be out of business in the United States. But if somebody, and whether it’s Microsoft or somebody else buys it, that’ll be interesting. I did say that if you buy it, whatever the price is, that goes to whoever owns it, because I guess it’s China essentially, but more than anything else. I said a very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the Treasury of the United States because we’re making it possible for this deal to happen. Right now, they don’t have any rights unless we give it to them. So if we’re going to give them the rights, then it has to come into this country.

It’s a little bit like the landlord-tenant. Without a lease, the tenant has nothing. They pay what’s called key money or they pay something. But the United States should be reimbursed or should be paid a substantial amount of money. Because without the United States, they don’t have anything, at least having to do with the 30%. So I told him that.

Maybe a deal is going to be made. It’s a great asset. It’s a great asset, but it’s not a great asset in the United States unless they have the approval of the United States. So it’ll close down on September 15th unless Microsoft or somebody else is able to buy it and work out a deal, an appropriate deal. Really, the Treasury, I guess you would say, of the United States gets a lot of money, a lot of money. Okay?

Speaker 2: (02:19)
Mr. President,-

Speaker 3: (02:19)
Mr. President!

Speaker 2: (02:20)
… can you explain why so many of the public health experts on the Coronavirus Task Force are contradicting you on things like why the virus has been widespread in this country, on the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine? Why are so many of these people on your task force contradicting you?

Well, I think we’re doing a great job. I think we’re doing great on vaccines. We’re doing great on therapeutics. You’ll be seeing that very soon. When you look at a map, this is a map of the … I’ve sort of shown that around a little bit. The red is the area of most concern. It’s a pretty recent map of the country. There’s a lot of people in a lot of areas that have gotten better very fast.

Hydroxy has tremendous support; but politically, it’s toxic because I supported it. If I would have said, “Do not use hydroxychloroquine under any circumstances,” they would have come out and they would have said, “It’s a great thing.” Many doctors have come out strongly in favor of it. They want it very badly. It’s a great malaria drug.

Speaker 2: (03:27)
[crosstalk 00:03:27].

For many years,-

Speaker 2: (03:29)

Let me finish my answer. It’s, I guess, 60 years it’s been a malaria drug. Very successful, as you know. It’s been also a drug for lupus. It’s caused no trouble, virtually nothing in terms of causing people to get sick or having problems with anything. You add the zinc and you add the azithromycin, the Z-Pak as they call it, and it’s been very … I happen to take it myself, the threesome. I took it myself for a period of two weeks. I had no problem. I had no problem whatsoever. Importantly, I didn’t test positive. That’s very nice. I’m very happy about that negative. That’s the story. It’s very highly thought of.

Interestingly, a great doctor, from what I understand, a great doctor from Yale feels very strongly about hydroxychloroquine. The Ford Clinic in Michigan came out with a very, very powerful paper saying it’s very good. In France, as you know, they came out with a very positive statement. Many individual doctors have come out with very positive statements. I will tell you that if I was surrounded by people, as I was at the time, the reason I took it, we had some people that were relatively near me that tested positive. I took it for that reason just because I’ve heard good things.

Speaker 2: (04:56)
But Fauci says it doesn’t work. Dr. Weil says it doesn’t work.

Well, I don’t agree with Fauci on everything.

Speaker 2: (05:03)
You own task force-

I don’t agree with Fauci. I like him. I get along with him actually great. But he didn’t want to ban people from China from coming into the country, and I overrode him and I did the right thing. He was saying face masks are no good a short while ago. It doesn’t mean he’s a bad person, because he’s not. He’s a good person. I like him. But we disagree on things. We disagree on things.

Now I will say this, we’ve done an amazing job with ventilators. We’re supplying the world with ventilators. Ventilators are very hard, very expensive, very hard to make, very complex, very complicated machines. Very, very expensive.

Speaker 2: (05:40)
Well, why does the-

Hold it, hold it.

Speaker 2: (05:41)
Well, why does the US have so many deaths?

Hold it.

Speaker 2: (05:42)
The US has so many deaths compared to so-

Hold it.

Speaker 2: (05:45)
… many countries around the world.

Fake news, CNN. Hold it. We have done a great job in this country. Not me. I’m not talking about me. Vice President and the task force have not been given the kind of credit. If you look, countries all over the world are exploding right now. People that you said were doing a wonderful job, so wonderful; but right now, take a look at the countries that are exploding. You have Italy back, you have Spain back, you have France back, you have Germany back. You have a lot of countries, and that’s not to knock them. It is a very delicate, very contagious disease.

It was released by China. It should never have been allowed to release. There was the source where you could have stopped it, and they did stop it from going into China. Although now, they say that China is having a lot of problems. Moscow in Russia is having tremendous problems. What China unleashed was a very, very sad situation.

With all of that being understood, the United States has done an amazing job, a great job. You’re going to see that because we have vaccines and we have therapeutics coming very soon.

Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 4: (06:50)
Mr. President, why are you not involved directly in negotiations with Capitol Hill?

I am.

Speaker 4: (06:54)

Why? The fact that I’m not over there with Crazy Nancy? No, I’m totally involved.

Speaker 4: (06:59)
[crosstalk 00:00:06:59].

I’m totally involved. We’re going to be doing some things that are very good because we don’t think that she … Look, what Chuck Schumer wants more than anybody, and I would say Nancy Pelosi would be second, they want to bail out cities and states that have done a bad job over a long period of time. Nothing to do with coronavirus or China virus or whatever you want to call it. They want to bail out cities and states. They want bailout money. They want a trillion dollars in bailout money. A lot of people don’t want to do that because we don’t think it’s right. The Democrats have run some very bad states and some very, very bad cities, and a lot of people don’t want to give them a trillion dollars to reward them for doing a bad job.

If you look at some of the states, I won’t insult anybody by naming those states, but you know what they are. They want bailout money. They’re not interested in the people. They’re not interested in unemployment. They’re not interested in evictions, which is a big deal. The evictions, they want to evict. A lot of people are going to be evicted. But I’m going to stop it because I’ll do it myself if I have to. I have a lot of powers with respect to executive orders. We’re looking at that very seriously right now.

But what the Democrats want, they’re slow rolling it. All they’re really interested in is bailout money to bail out radical left governors and radical left mayors, like in Portland and places that are so badly run. Chicago, New York City. You see what’s going on over there? Bail out cities and states who have been poorly run and spent a fortune doing it. They want a trillion dollars, and we’re really not interested in that. Okay, thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Speaker 5: (08:37)
Let’s go, guys. [crosstalk 00:08:37] Let’s go. Let’s go.

Thank you very much.

Speaker 5: (08:37)
[crosstalk 00:08:37] come on, gentlemen.

Thank you, Jim, very much.

Thank you.

Speaker 5: (08:37)
Thank you.

Thank you very much. You’re doing a great job. [inaudible 00:09:01] Even Sarah’s afraid of you.

Speaker 5: (08:37)
All right, come on guys.

Sarah’s afraid of you. Sarah’s afraid of nobody.

Speaker 6: (09:07)
She must have kids. Are you a mom?

Speaker 5: (09:08)
No, no. I don’t know.

Donald Trump Talks TikTok, Dr. Fauci, COVID-19 Relief Transcript August 3

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