May 13, 2020

Transcript: Donald Trump Meets with Governors of North Dakota & Colorado

Donald Trump Meets with North Dakota, Colorado Governors
RevBlogTranscriptsDonald Trump Press Conference TranscriptsTranscript: Donald Trump Meets with Governors of North Dakota & Colorado

Donald Trump held a meeting with North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and Colorado Governor Jared Polis. He also said Dr. Fauci’s warnings about reopening are not “acceptable” & that the new House coronavirus relief package is “dead on arrival.”

 

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Speaker 1: (01:17:40)
Appreciate all the support you’re giving us and for leadership of our governors.

Donald Trump: (01:17:46)
And that’s what we’re doing. That’s what we’re here for to do that and to talk about. We just came out with a new listing on testing. We just cracked 10 million tests, which is here. I thought you’d like to show that to everybody, 10 million. We set an all time record by far. If you look down here, these are other countries that have not done anywhere near what we’re doing.

Donald Trump: (01:18:08)
We double. If you add them up and double them, we’ve done more tests, but I can’t get the press to print that unfortunately, they just don’t want to print it, but I want to thank the governors for being here very much. We appreciate it. We’re going to have some good fruitful talks about going even to the next step and I know you’re trying to open up and I know you’re opening up.

Donald Trump: (01:18:31)
You’re sort of more than trying. You’re opening up and you’re both do an excellent job and it’s an honor to have you at the White House very much and these two gentlemen have done a fantastic job. And David, from interior and David’s very much involved with the states and how are they doing David? What do you think?

David Bernhardt: (01:18:48)
Fantastic.

Donald Trump: (01:18:49)
I think so. They’re doing a good job. They really are. They’re doing a good job. We’re talking about Space Force and a lot of the States are interested in Space Force and we’re talking to some of them and I know that Colorado is very interested in it. And so we’ll be talking to you about that too. Okay. We might mention that today a little bit during our meeting. So thank you all very much. Thank you.

Speaker 2: (01:19:11)
Mr. President, what’s your advice administrators and school principals around the country in terms of their plans to reopen school and colleges in the fall.

Donald Trump: (01:19:22)
I think they should open the schools, absolutely. I think they should and it’s had very little impact on young people and I think that if you’re an instructor, if you’re a teacher, a professor, and you’re over a certain age, let’s say 65, or maybe even if you want to be conservative 60, perhaps you want to stay out for a little while longer, but I think you should absolutely open the schools.

Donald Trump: (01:19:45)
Our country is got to get back and it’s got to get back as soon as possible and I don’t consider our country coming back if the schools are closed and it’s had very little, very unusual situation, it’s had very little impact on young people and I would strongly say they should open. It’s up to the governors. It’s the governor’s choice, but the state is not open if the schools aren’t open, so again, it’s had very little impact on young people and I think they should open their schools.

Speaker 3: (01:20:13)
Mr. President, Senator Graham is introduced a bill to sanction China. Would you support it if it goes to the House and it comes to your desk. Do you support that bill?

Donald Trump: (01:20:24)
Well, I respect Lindsey Graham and I’ll certainly look at the bill to sanction China, so I’ll certainly take a look at it. I have not seen it yet.

Speaker 4: (01:20:31)
Are you going to comment on the release of those names of [inaudible 01:20:34].

Donald Trump: (01:20:34)
Well the unmasking, it’s a massive thing. I just got a list, who can believe a thing like this and I watched Biden yesterday on Good Morning America being interviewed by one of your colleagues, George Stephanopoulos, and he said he knew nothing about anything. He has no idea. He knows nothing about anything, nothing at all.

Donald Trump: (01:20:59)
Then it gets released today that he was a big unmasker, so how do you know nothing if you’re one of the unmaskers? It’s one of the very big stories and I suspect you’ll have, if it’s possible, even bigger stories coming out.

Speaker 5: (01:21:13)
Can I follow up with on a separate sidekick sir, we’ve had a number of explosions in Afghanistan, are you concerned that that piece deal may be falling apart?

Donald Trump: (01:21:25)
Look, Afghanistan, we’ve been there for many years, we’re like a police force, we’re not fighting in Afghanistan. We’re a police force in Afghanistan and at some point they’re going to have to be able to take care of their country. They’re going to have to be able to police their country, but we’re not meant to be a police force. We’re meant to be fighters and we’ve been there for a long time, so I don’t know.

Donald Trump: (01:21:44)
Well have to see it. I have not heard that. In Kabul, we’ve had some, I understand some pretty big blow ups, but again, you count on the government to be able to police themselves and they’re having a hard time, I suspect. But again, we are the greatest fighting force in the world. We’re not a police force that’s going to stay around and police the streets and check out the red lights and traffic.

Donald Trump: (01:22:11)
It’s not what we’re supposed to be doing. Been there a long time. You know, our forces down quite a bit, as you know, we’re way down and a lot of people have come back, brought them back, but the government has to be able at some point to do something for themselves.

Speaker 6: (01:22:30)
[crosstalk 01:22:30] probably today Germany [inaudible 01:22:32] said both that he wasn’t interested in bringing interest rates negative and that he saw a need for additional stimulus from Congress. I know that you said we could wait and see the stimulus and that you want negative rates, so what’s your reaction.

Donald Trump: (01:22:47)
Well, I’m a believer in negative rates, only if other countries that are competitors. Like Germany, they’re an ally, they’re friends of ours, but they’re still competitors on trade and other things. So Germany, Japan, others have negative rates and I think if they do, we’re the most prime of the world. It’s based in many countries, based on the dollar, the dollar is by far the strongest, most powerful currency in the world.

Donald Trump: (01:23:11)
We’ve made it more powerful. We’ve made it stronger and certainly if they’re going to have the advantage of negative rates, we should too. I feel strongly we should have negative rates. Negative rates is basically where they pay you interest if you borrow money, this is a new one. I’ve been looking for something like that all my life. That’s a pretty good one, but certainly if other countries are going to be paid for putting out money.

Donald Trump: (01:23:34)
I mean, think of it, they’re borrowing money and instead of paying interest, they’re getting paid. It’s the craziest thing, but you know what other countries are doing it. Look at Germany, look at Japan, look at others and we’re the most prime in the world right now and we have the currency and we have the power of the dollar. I know that the chairman has… And he’s done a very good job over the last couple of months. I have to tell you that because I’ve been critical, but in many ways, I call him my MIP. Do you know what I…

Donald Trump: (01:24:03)
But in many ways I call him my MIP. Do you know what an MIP is? Most improved player. It’s called the most improved player award. Did you ever get one of them when you were playing baseball, Corey? Good baseball player?

Reporter: (01:24:12)
Certainly not.

Donald Trump: (01:24:14)
The chairman, he’s my MIP right now for the last few months. I think he’s done a very good job. I disagree with him on one thing now. That’s negative rates and only because we’re paying zero. Good news with this money, you’re talking about other stimulus. We’re paying zero. We’re down to zero interest. That’s good, but some countries and some states rather, and some also countries you look at. But we are paying, right now, zero and other countries are paying less than that if you can believe it. They’re receiving money and I think we should be in the exact same situations.

Donald Trump: (01:24:56)
And by the way, states are getting tremendous deals in borrowing. So a lot of the states that are coming to the federal government, they can go out and they can borrow. They’re getting phenomenal rates. Some of our states is what I’m talking about. They’re getting phenomenal borrowing rates.

Reporter: (01:25:11)
Would you agree that stimulus should move forward? There’s been some Republicans who suggest that [crosstalk 01:25:16]

Donald Trump: (01:25:16)
I don’t know. It depends. It’s certainly not the package that I saw today. Basically, if you look at that package, what they want more than anything else is it’s a voting package. They want to be able to make sure that Republicans can’t win an election by putting in all sorts of mailing ballots. Now, I don’t know if you do because the press doesn’t report this too much, but we had two very big victories last night. We won very big. Tom Tiffany won very big in the great state of Wisconsin.

Donald Trump: (01:25:45)
You saw that. That was last night it came in. That was a big one. You saw that Doug. Won by a very, very substantial margin. In California of all places, we had a fantastic race and this was all mail in ballots. This was all a mailed ballots. When they saw because it was mail, they saw they were losing three days ago and they ended up putting polling booths in, into basically Democrat areas. But despite that, it’s looking like Mike Garcia … I don’t know if they’ve called the race yet, but he was substantially ahead. That’s the problem with mail in ballots. Are they going to dump a whole pile of ballots on your desk just before the election? So the problem with the mail in ballots, it’s subject to tremendous corruption, tremendous corruption, cheating. So I’m against it. If you look at the bill that Nancy Pelosi is putting in, has a lot to do with elections. We’re not going to lose elections because of that.

Donald Trump: (01:26:45)
I do think you should mention the fact that the Republicans won two major congressional seats last night. I think it’s really worthy of mentioning.

Reporter: (01:26:58)
Do you believe that the judge presiding over the Mike Flynn case limits [crosstalk 01:27:01]

Donald Trump: (01:27:01)
Let’s finish with your question.

Reporter: (01:27:03)
Is that bill a nonstarter? Is there anything in there you could support?

Donald Trump: (01:27:06)
Well, as they say DOA, right? DOA, dead on arrival. Of course, Nancy Pelosi knows that, obviously.

Reporter: (01:27:18)
Thank you, Mr. President. Do you believe that the judge presiding over the Michael Flynn case, Emmett Sullivan ought to recuse himself or be disqualified for being biased against Mr. Flint?

Donald Trump: (01:27:30)
I was just with General Millie and some other generals. I asked them about General Flynn. Do you know him? They said, “Yes, sir. I’ve known him for 20 years.” What do you think? “He’s an incredible man, an incredible soldier. He’s an incredible general.” This is General Millie, head of the joint chiefs of staff, four-star. He’s done fantastically. He thinks General Flynn is a great, great gentleman and a real fighter. When I see what is happening to him, it’s disgraceful and it was all a ruse. By the way, the FBI said he didn’t lie. The FBI said he did not lie. So with all this stuff I’m hearing about lying, the FBI said he didn’t lie. But the sleazebag said, “Well, we don’t care what they say. We’re saying he lied.” Okay, but the FBI, you remember when they left, they said he didn’t lie.

Donald Trump: (01:28:29)
What they’ve done to that man and that family is a disgrace, but I just tell you that because I just left General Millie. He said, “A great man and a great soldier.”

Donald Trump: (01:28:41)
I won’t talk about that, but he’s going to be okay. He’s going to be just fine.

Donald Trump: (01:28:45)
I’m very, very saddened by what’s happening to General Flynn and others. I want to tell you right now and others. Please.

Reporter: (01:28:54)
Dr. Fauci yesterday was a little cautious on reopening the economy too soon. Do you share his concerns?

Donald Trump: (01:29:00)
About reopening what?

Reporter: (01:29:01)
Reopening the economy to soon in some states.

Donald Trump: (01:29:06)
Look, he wants to play all sides of the equation. I think we’re going to have a tremendous fourth quarter. I think we’re going to have a transitional third quarter. I think we’re going to have a phenomenal next year. I feel that we are going to have a country that’s ready to absolutely have one of its best years. Next year, with all of the stimulus and all of the fact that it’s a pent up demand like I haven’t seen. You see it right now. These two really professional, good governors that work so hard. I know both of them very well. One happens to be a Democrat, but we’ve worked together and I think we’ve worked together very well. One, you would expect me to say that, but it happens to be true. Really good job too. But we’ve worked very, very well together. They want to get their states open. Some governors and some perhaps partisans, maybe for election reasons, don’t want to have their states open. Then some shouldn’t open them quite yet. They’re not ready. They went through a lot and they’re not quite ready, but no we’re opening our country. People want it open. The schools are going to be open. I was seeing the other day, Purdue is a great school, great college university.

Donald Trump: (01:30:24)
Purdue is opening and others are opening, and they’re all announcing it. These are young people. These are students, young students. They’re in great shape. They’re in great shape. Now when you have an incident, one out of a million, one out of 500, that well something happen perhaps. You can be driving to school and some bad things can happen too. So no, we’re going to open our country. We want it open.

Reporter: (01:30:48)
When you say Dr. Fauci is playing both sides, are you suggesting that the advice he’s giving to is different?

Donald Trump: (01:30:54)
I was surprised by his answer actually, because it’s just to me, it’s not an acceptable answer. Especially when it comes to schools. The only thing that would be acceptable as I said, is professors, teachers, et cetera, over a certain age. I think they ought to take it easy for another few weeks, five weeks, four weeks. Who knows whatever it may be. But I think they have to be careful because this is a disease that attacks age. It attacks health. If you have a heart problem, if you have diabetes, if you’re a certain age, it’s certainly much more dangerous. But with the young children and students, it’s really … just take a look at the statistics. It’s pretty amazing.

Reporter: (01:31:39)
Mr. President, businesses are concerned about getting sued once they reopen? Will you be insistent on some sort of shield from liability being in a phase four bill?

Donald Trump: (01:31:49)
If anythings done, I will do that. These are the new testing numbers. So you saw that, but I was just showing this to a group of people. I said we’re now over 10 million tests or we will be very shortly, like within a couple of days. Look at that test. This is us. This is the rest of the world. We have more tests and we have better tests. We have more tests and we have better tests. We’re going to have your football team in, your championship football team. [inaudible 01:32:20] Tell us a little bit about the team. First of all, you know they won the championship and we’re all set to have them. What happened is the plague came in. Because of the plague, came in from China. Because of the plague, we didn’t have those great people, but we’ll do a rain check. But seriously, even if it’s in a few months, we’ll do a rain check. Tell them about the team because it was a tremendous season.

Doug Burgum: (01:32:47)
Well, I’ll just say that the team and Senator Hoeven was here, Senator Kramer was here, the whole codel, the first lady was here. She says, hi. But you hosted them last year because they again, won the national championship this year in January. This is the eighth out of ninth year in a row they’ve done that. They would love to get back here with the rain check.

Donald Trump: (01:33:05)
So I watched the game on television, the championship game. I didn’t know too much about it. I don’t get to watch too much of the television football games. I’m saying, “Man, that team is really good.” They were really good. Then I got a call from [inaudible 01:33:18] and I get a call from John. I get a call from our other very friendly Senator, the three of them. They said, “Do you think we could possibly honor the team?” Because we honor the national champion. My question was, “How would your team do against the national champions?” They were pretty good, LSU this year, right? Not a bad quarterback. How do you think? I don’t know. You think, okay, right?

Reporter: (01:33:44)
You open up against Oregon. Next year at Oregon. So then we’ll be able to answer your question.

Donald Trump: (01:33:48)
That’s pretty good.

Doug Burgum: (01:33:48)
That great LSU quarterback started his career playing flag football in elementary school in Fargo, North Dakota. So that’s where [inaudible 01:33:54].

Donald Trump: (01:33:54)
Had a good start.

Donald Trump: (01:33:58)
Let the team know we’re going to do a rain check.

Reporter: (01:34:01)
Mr. President?

Donald Trump: (01:34:02)
Yeah.

Reporter: (01:34:03)
What will happen to the public companies that don’t return their PPP loans to the SBI by tomorrow’s deadline?

Donald Trump: (01:34:08)
Well, we’ll go after them very seriously. If there’s any companies that got loans that they weren’t entitled to, we’ll go after them very soon. They’ll have big problems.

Reporter: (01:34:17)
Mr. President, what’s your level of confidence that the Supreme Court will ultimately rule in your favor in the case involving your tax returns?

Donald Trump: (01:34:25)
I hope they will. You have a situation where a president has to be able to focus on this. When you’re doing an audit … In the old days, no president gave tax returns. A while ago, I mean, no president gave tax returns. But when you’re under audit, who would want to give them? It’s a very big thing, but it would also take time. Ultimately, people are going to be getting returns. They’re going to see that. But I think it went very well yesterday. I have great respect for the Supreme Court. I think the lawyers put out a very strong case. From what I’ve read, it was a very strong case. Yeah, please.

Reporter: (01:35:11)
How long do you and the vice president plan to stay apart distance wise?

Donald Trump: (01:35:16)
Well, it’s an interesting question. I haven’t seen Mike Pence and I miss him, but he was in the room with somebody that tested positive. He did not test positive. He tested the opposite. He’s in good shape. But I guess we said for a little while, we’ll stay apart because you don’t know what happens with this very crazy and horrible disease. But we speak a lot on the phone, but I’m in the White House. Mike is at his office, but he’s pretty much away from people. He’s doing a great job. He’s done a great job I think you’d say on the task force. He really has. I think you’ve pretty much gotten everything you wanted and we try and get it to you quickly.

Jared Polis: (01:36:02)
We talk to the vice president regularly.

Donald Trump: (01:36:06)
We work very well together with Republican governors and with Democrat governors. When are you thinking of opening and explain what you’re going to do [inaudible 01:36:16]

Jared Polis: (01:36:18)
Most businesses are open in Colorado, pretty much everything except for those social businesses like bars and nightclubs. A few places have restaurants open. We’re working on the rest soon, but offices, manufacturing, salons, pretty much all people are back in a safer way. It’s not the same way it was. I got my hair cut the other day.

Donald Trump: (01:36:38)
It looks good.

Jared Polis: (01:36:39)
Thank you. You should have seen it before. It was crazy, what little is left of it.

Donald Trump: (01:36:42)
Not bad. Not bad.

Jared Polis: (01:36:45)
They wore a mask. I wore a mask. So we’re doing it in a safe way. All the stores are back. April 27th, we were one of the states where we wanted to do that in a safe way. People are being responsible. It’s that individual responsibility that’s going to make sure that we can stay on this trajectory. Hopefully restaurants in May, by the end of May. They’re already opening a few places in our state.

Donald Trump: (01:37:06)
How about because I go there, as you know. The ski slopes are fantastic. There are those that say the greatest anywhere. How are you doing with the skiing? It’s a big business for you.

Jared Polis: (01:37:17)
It’s a big business. It’s also one of the reasons that we got a lot of the virus in our state because people come from all over the world. All over the world.

Donald Trump: (01:37:23)
That’s very true. I’ve heard that.

Jared Polis: (01:37:24)
So that’s what led to the spread. So most of the ski season is ending, but we’re actually hopeful. A lot of people don’t know this, but in Colorado we have a few areas that they’re skiing through July 4th. We’re hoping that people will be able to ski again. David knows, the secretary Bernard knows this. In [inaudible 01:37:41] Wolf Creek, maybe Breckenridge, Loveland in June. We’re hoping that people can actually ski again.

Donald Trump: (01:37:45)
You also did a lot of a summer business and springtime business. What are you doing with that?

Jared Polis: (01:37:50)
It’s we really respecting the communities in our state because they have a lot at stake. Nobody is more at stake than … In fact, Jill Ryan who’s with us from Eagle. She’s our secretary of health in Colorado. She was a commissioner in Eagle County, which is where bail is. So they have the most at stake economically and from a health perspective. We’re really respecting what the different communities decide. I think there’ll be some folks that are coming back, spending money in stores. There’ll be other communities that say, “You know what? We have to wait a little bit longer.” It’s been very traumatic for many of those communities because Eagle County for awhile, had the highest infection rate in the country early on.

Donald Trump: (01:38:25)
I heard that.

Jared Polis: (01:38:26)
Yeah, early on. [crosstalk 01:38:27]

Donald Trump: (01:38:27)
Now there’s people coming because everyone goes, everyone coming in. How has that been? How is the level of infection right now?

Jared Polis: (01:38:34)
Eagle County has done an amazing job, as has Summit County, Picking County, Aspen. All those areas, they’ve gotten it under control because they acted early. They have great county health departments. They look at the science, they look at the data. Their residents stayed home. In fact, Eagle County was one of the first in our state, along with Mesa County, which secretary Bernard knows well in Grand Junction area, to be able to open up a little bit ahead of some of the other areas in a safer way. In a safer way. So like in Grand Junction, the restaurants are at 25% capacity. So there’s space. We’re looking at ways that people can dine outdoors, sidewalks, and even on a lane of the road because it’s safer to be in that environment. So those are the kinds of things that we think about as we’re just trying to get back to as much normalcy as we can.

Donald Trump: (01:39:17)
Corey you’re working together very much I know with the governor and everybody else.

Speaker 9: (01:39:21)
We do. We speak regularly. The government’s done a good job and I appreciate that. Here to help as much as we can.

Jared Polis: (01:39:26)
One of the things we did that Corey introduced us to and worked on, was importing some tests from South Korea. So they’re already being used in our state. We’re also partnering with the vice president and you on some Thermo Fisher tests that we think are coming very soon. We’re getting I think 95,000 [crosstalk 01:39:44]

Donald Trump: (01:39:44)
We’re still over here.

Jared Polis: (01:39:44)
Good.

Donald Trump: (01:39:45)
And we’re getting them very quickly.

Jared Polis: (01:39:46)
Good. We’re excited because we’re running through those tests from South Korea. That’s what’s so important is the supplies. We have the ability to do it, the labs to do it. You guys sent around the labs. We have the capacity, but it’s getting the tests in. Both with the Thermo Fisher test, the Abbott test, the [inaudible 01:40:03] tests, we’re mixing and matching across. We have 32 free community testing sites across our state. Some of them you drive in, some of them you walk in, but those are free. That’s in addition to the hospitals and doctor’s offices. Of course, you get tested there. But we have 32 free community testing sites [crosstalk 01:40:19]

Donald Trump: (01:40:19)
And you have good healthcare in that state.

Colorado Rep: (01:40:22)
Mr. President, so I think the key that Jared is talking about, the governor talks about is you have counties that have a plan they’re able to open up earlier than others because of the work that they’re doing. When the governor is talking about Grand Junction, you have restaurants that aren’t just open, but you have dine in. In some of these restaurants, which I think is maybe some of the first around the country to actually reopen to dine in because of the good work that they have done together.

Jared Polis: (01:40:44)
Then we wanted to, for our restaurants who were open throughout this whole period in our state. They just did delivery. They did take out, they did curbside. We even waived some of the laws so they could sell alcohol curbside and sell alcohol delivery, because that extra piece can make the difference between them staying in business or not.

Donald Trump: (01:41:00)
How did they do? How did those restaurants do with the take out?

Jared Polis: (01:41:03)
You’ll hear from some that are doing okay with it. It doesn’t work for every restaurant and that’s why they need to be open for the in restaurant dining. But for many of them, it’s paid their bills and they’ve gotten through it, and it’s helped them.

Donald Trump: (01:41:13)
That’s good. That’s good.

Jared Polis: (01:41:13)
Not every restaurant, but I hear those stories that it’s helped them get through it. That we’ve been able to make sure they’ve been able to stay in business the whole time.

Donald Trump: (01:41:19)
Good job.

Colorado Rep: (01:41:19)
Yesterday we talked as well about Colorado’s additional Thermal Fisher tests, and that’ll be a very big help to get those.

Donald Trump: (01:41:25)
That’s a great test. That’s a new and a great test. So Doug, how about North Dakota? How you doing?

Doug Burgum: (01:41:31)
Well, first I want to just lead with gratitude and say thank you to you for your leadership, and the vice president, and Dr. Bergson. The whole team has been a great partnership federal to state, to local and North Dakota. Secondly, wanted to say thanks to all the great people in North Dakota, because like Jared in Colorado, we relied a lot on individual responsibility, light touch from government and had great results. Here we sit today, we’re number two in the nation. We passed New York this week in terms of testing per capita. So we’ve really driven in. We’ve tested over 6% of the population.

Donald Trump: (01:42:03)
Great. And you’re using different tests, all different and you’re in good shape with the testing. What test are you using?

Doug Burgum: (01:42:08)
Well, this has all been the PCR, the nucleic acid testing. It’s been across a number of different platforms, Thermal Fisher, Avid, Panther. So we’ve got a variety of different platforms, but most of it driven through our state lab, which has had an order of magnitude increase. So we’ve gone to three shifts a day and each shift is doing more than three times they did before. So 10X increase going on there on the testing site.

Donald Trump: (01:42:30)
That’s fantastic.

Doug Burgum: (01:42:31)
Then we’re the fifth lowest positivity rate in the country. Alaska and Hawaii are ahead of us, but we’ve been right at the bottom in terms of that. You take those two things together-

Donald Trump: (01:42:41)
So what do you attribute? What do you attribute that to?

Doug Burgum: (01:42:43)
Well, I would say very early on-

Donald Trump: (01:42:46)
Being a good governor.

Doug Burgum: (01:42:47)
Well, geography helps and the people of the state helped. Those two things, but I’d say we took early action to try to reduce transmissible moments. So we kept 93% of the jobs in the state open, but the 7% we closed, bars and restaurants and personal care businesses. Everybody else kept going. All the construction, all of energy, all of Ag, including all of elective surgery at hospitals kept that going.

Donald Trump: (01:43:11)
Oh wow. That’s fantastic.

Doug Burgum: (01:43:13)
We were well-stocked. We had a great medical cash and [crosstalk 01:43:16]

Donald Trump: (01:43:16)
That’s great.

Doug Burgum: (01:43:16)
We never took more than 2% of our capacity in healthcare. We have a lot of great healthcare providers in North Dakota. Only 2% we’re going to COVID.

Donald Trump: (01:43:23)
That’s fantastic.

Doug Burgum: (01:43:24)
So we were able to then drive through that. We handled the virus and really focused and we got Michelle Comber here who leads our commerce department. We have less to worry about opening up because we never really closed down. But on that other 7%, we got bars, restaurants, personal care businesses open on May 1st. All that’s going very well under new operating procedures that everybody’s using to stay safe.

Donald Trump: (01:43:48)
And your oil prices are going up a little bit now. So that you’re 26, $27 a barrel. Pretty soon you’ll up to the number that you have to be up to. That’s the big difference.

Doug Burgum: (01:43:58)
Well, absolutely because what we do in North Dakota is we power the world and we feed the world. Number two oil producer, producing state in the nation. A lot of the unemployment that we saw early on wasn’t related to the virus. It was related to the demand destruction associated with the oil price drive.

Donald Trump: (01:44:13)
Great job. John, what do you have to say about the state and the job the governor and everybody else has done? I know it well.

North Dakota Rep: (01:44:20)
Listening to these two governors, I was governor for a long time. It tells me your approach is the right approach. You’re working with the governors across this country and empowering them to open up as soon as they can safely, based on the conditions in their state and every state’s different. That’s why that approach is so important. Then you providing all that support, along with us in Congress with the Cares Act as well. But you see that now with North Dakota, with Colorado, and across the country. So that’s why it’s so important that you’re doing it the way that you’re doing it with these great governors that we have across the state. So thank you for that.

North Dakota Rep: (01:44:58)
The other thing I want to mention is for our farmers. You know I work a lot on Ag.

Donald Trump: (01:45:01)
Yes.

North Dakota Rep: (01:45:01)
But for our farmers and ranchers, you’ve been there for them and hang in there with them. They’re doing a whale of a job and they’re so important, and our energy industry too.

Donald Trump: (01:45:10)
We’re sending them billions of dollars of money that we took in from a country that targeted them. Last year, we gave them 16 billion. The year before, we gave them 12 billion. No other president would have done that, I can tell you.

North Dakota Rep: (01:45:24)
That’s really important and appreciated. We need to hang in there with them. The only other thing I got to tell you is we have a great governor as you know, but he is so data driven that I was teasing Dr. Birx. Who’s more data driven? These two are amazing.

Donald Trump: (01:45:38)
She is.

North Dakota Rep: (01:45:38)
They’re amazing together. They’re just amazing.

Donald Trump: (01:45:41)
That’s great. Michelle, do you have anything to say?

Michelle: (01:45:45)
Well, it’s been a privilege to work for governor of Oregon. I think it’s through his wisdom that we’ve talked a lot about lowering the curve. But as governor [inaudible 01:45:54] pointed out, we didn’t close the state. So I feel like-

Donald Trump: (01:45:56)
That’s so good.

Michelle: (01:45:57)
We raised the bottom and we’ve had the good fortune to work very, very closely with our business community. It’s through that process and the open dialogue, and the collaboration, and the hyper connectedness in our state, that we were able to build what we call North Dakota smart, restart protocols with our business community over the span of about eight days. So we were closed for 40 days and 40 nights and we are opening in a safe way.

Donald Trump: (01:46:23)
That’s fantastic.

Michelle: (01:46:23)
We’re really proud of the work that’s happening.

Donald Trump: (01:46:25)
You’ve done a great job. Thank you very much. Just to finish off, go ahead.

Colorado Rep: (01:46:30)
Well, hi. Thank you Mr. President. I want to thank the federal government for its partnership on our COVID-19 response. Particularly, the supplies you’ve given us, the tests. Look forward to that continuing and the more people we can test, and then we can force multiply that with contact tracing. So we can quarantine people that haven’t even had a test yet. That’s really the way that we’re going to contain the virus in Colorado. We’ve got a local public health department that covers every county. They are ready to do testing and contact tracing. So that’s our plan. It’s going to be a statewide effort.

Donald Trump: (01:47:12)
Well, thank you very much. Terrific job too.

Doug Burgum: (01:47:15)
While we’re here I want to also say, Secretary Bernhardt, doing a fantastic job because we had a chance to interact with him on national parks. We had great things going on in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. As we move ahead with the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, we’ve got the US Fish and Wildlife BLM. We’ve been great partners working with the five tribal nations that are headquartered in North Dakota, with whom we share geography. We’ve done great collaboration with those tribal leaders on testing through COVID. But I just want to thank the secretary.

Donald Trump: (01:47:45)
They’ve had a lot of difficulty in the different tribes, haven’t they? A lot of difficulty. Tremendous difficulty.

Doug Burgum: (01:47:48)
Thank you secretary [inaudible 01:47:49] and for all their support as well through all this.

Donald Trump: (01:47:52)
David, you’ve done a great job. Do you feel comfortable with all those cameras right behind your head?

Speaker 9: (01:47:57)
You gave me clear direction to work with governors to open things up. We worked with local communities. Our parks, my goal is that we’re right on the shoulder of the governor. We’ve worked with [Larimer 01:48:11] County Health Department and [inaudible 01:48:14] park to bring that online. We’ve opened up Theodore Roosevelt. We just announced today, the timing of the opening for Yellowstone. So we’re moving forward.

Donald Trump: (01:48:26)
So you getting those parks open, right?

Speaker 9: (01:48:28)
Absolutely.

Donald Trump: (01:48:29)
I hope everybody’s listening. The parks are opening and rapidly actually.

Speaker 9: (01:48:33)
With those governors.

Donald Trump: (01:48:34)
And with those governors. You want the help for the governors.

Jared Polis: (01:48:37)
Even with the counties [crosstalk 01:48:38] even within the state. We’re all excited because recreating outdoors is safe and healthy. The flip side is, we’re not yet ready to have all the people from other states and other countries coming in. So that’s the battle.

Speaker 9: (01:48:48)
That’s why we’re collaborating with those local communities to ramp [crosstalk 01:48:52]

Donald Trump: (01:48:51)
So in all cases, you’re working with governors and opening up-

Speaker 9: (01:48:54)
And local towns.

Donald Trump: (01:48:55)
That’s good.

Speaker 9: (01:48:56)
Absolutely.

Donald Trump: (01:48:56)
That’s great. Great job. Thank you.

Reporter: (01:48:58)
Good neighbor.

Donald Trump: (01:48:58)
Thank you very much, everybody. [crosstalk 01:49:07]

Donald Trump: (01:49:08)
They have great confidence and they have great confidence in us. They have great confidence in the airlines. We’ve saved the airlines with $25 billion and another $25 billion. We have airlines that are now in good shape. Obviously, they’re going to pick up with the fares and with the seats, but the airline industry is in good shape. We’ve been able to save the airline industry, which would have been devastating if that happened. So they’re in good shape. Thank you very much.

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