Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing | September 4, 2020 | Eastern North Carolina Now

    So my question is: Would Kimberly, Don Jr., and Ivanka Trump, who are very popular among Indian Americans - would be campaigning on your behalf around the Indian Americans with your views on the India and U.S. relationship?

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, I - I didn't understand everything you said. I know India, and I understood - those young people that you mentioned. They're very good, young people. And I know their relationship to India is very good, and so is mine.

    And Prime Minister Modi is a friend of mine, and he's doing a very good job. Nothing easy - nothing easy, but he's doing a very good job.

    We're talking - I mean, while we're at it, we're talking about China and India. They're pretty - going at a pretty good on the border, as you know. It's been very nasty. It's been a very nasty situation, and we stand ready to help, with respect to China and India. If we can do anything, we would love to get involved and help, and we are talking to both countries about that.

    But I appreciate your nice sentiments. They think a lot of India, and so do I. And I think a lot of your prime minister. Thank you.

    Q My question - sir, my question was about Indian Americans. Do you think they are voting for you or are you - are they supporting you (inaudible)?

    THE PRESIDENT: I do. We had a - an event in Houston, as you know, and it was a fantastic event. I was invited by Prime Minister Modi. And this was a massive - this was at the - where they play football - the Houston football team. And it was - it was - it was incredible. It was actually incredible. And the Prime Minister could not have been more generous.

    We have great support from India. We have great support from Prime Minister Modi. And I would think that the people - Indian people - would be voting for Trump. I also, as you know, went to India, just prior to the pandemic setting in, because India has been hit very hard. Left, really, about a week before that.


    And we had an incredible time. What - what we saw - the people are so incredible. It's really an incredible place, an incredible country, and it's definitely big. It's definitely big.

    But you've got a great leader, and he's - he's a great - great person.

    Q Thank you, sir. Do you think China is bullying India?

    THE PRESIDENT: I hope not. I hope not, but they're certainly going at it. They're going at it much more strongly than a lot of people even understand.

    Yeah, please, go ahead.

    Q Thank you, sir.

    THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, please.

    Q Thank you, sir. Just to follow up on Alexei Navalny: You just said you - you haven't had any proof yet. Do you have any reasons to doubt the results from Germany?

    THE PRESIDENT: No, I don't. I mean, I don't. I - I hear Germany has made a - was it definitive, or almost definitive? But we have not seen it ourselves, no. But we have not seen it ourselves.

    But I would certainly be okay with that. They want to do something. They want to take action. Shouldn't happen. Shouldn't happen.

    But again, we are working very closely with a lot of countries on a lot of different things. We've taken stronger action against Russia than any other country in the world, as you know. I'll tell you, President Putin would tell you that right now.

    Q Do you intend to (inaudible) with him?

    THE PRESIDENT: But the fact that I - the fact that I get along with Russia and that I get along, frankly, with everybody - right now, I'm - I'm not getting along with China, but that's my choice. I don't like what happened with respect to the pandemic, with respect to the China virus. I don't like it at all. What they've done to this world and this country and Europe and everyplace else is terrible.


    But I do get along with - with President Putin. But I've been tougher on Russia than anybody else, by far.

    If you look at the Obama administration, they were weak. Look at the land they gave up. Look at what happened with respect to - look at what happened with respect to Ukraine. Such a big part of Ukraine given up during the Obama administration. And I don't think they would have done that with me. I don't think they would have done that with me at all.

    We gave tank busters, and they gave pillows; do you ever hear that expression? They sent pillows, and we sent tank busters to Ukraine.

    So - but with that being said, if we can do a nuclear nonproliferation agreement, that would be a great thing. No, but I would not be at all happy if that were the case. And it looks like it might very well be the case. I mean, based on what Germany -

    Q (Inaudible) raise the issue with President Putin?

    THE PRESIDENT: - based on what Germany is saying, that seems to be the case.

    Jon.

    Q Mr. President, I just want to ask you about something you said a while back; it's been talked about many, many, times. Back in 2015, you said that you didn't think John McCain was a hero, that you prefer people who don't get captured.

    In - in light of all that's happened since then and all you've learned, do you regret saying that? Is that something you wish you had not said?

    THE PRESIDENT: I - look, I - I say what I say. And I never got along with John McCain. I disagreed with John McCain. You know that better than anybody, frankly. I wasn't a fan. I disagreed with many of his views. I disagreed with his views on these ridiculous, endless wars. I disagreed with the way he handled the vets, the VA. The VA is running much better now - and we did with the MISSION Act, and the Accountability, and all the things we've done for the VA. He - he was not able to do that.

    But I disagreed with John McCain on a lot of things. That doesn't mean I don't respect him. I respected him, but I really disagreed with him on a lot of things. And I think I was right; I think time has proven me right, to a large extent.

    Q But on this notion of referring to people who are captured, the -

    THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, please. Go ahead.

    Q Thank you, Mr. President. Earlier in the statement that you read before questions, you - you spoke about how you believe that we're, as you put it, "rounding the corner" on the coronavirus pandemic.

    THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. I do believe that. Yeah.

    Q And you said that yesterday as well. And I think everybody would love to see the pandemic come to an end; there's no doubt about that.

    But I wanted to ask you about a forecast that has come out from the IHME at the University of Washington. And they're forecasting, by January the 1st of next year, that we'll have 410,000 American deaths from coronavirus, which is 225,000 from where we are right now. So can you explain how you see us "rounding the corner," -

    THE PRESIDENT: Sure.

    Q - based upon that projection?

    THE PRESIDENT: If I didn't close up our country; if I didn't stop, China - highly infected - from coming in; if I didn't stop Europe from coming in far sooner than anybody else, including Dr. Fauci and others, wanted to - and Dr. Fauci was very nice; he said, "President Trump made a great decision - we would have far more than that.

    But maybe even more importantly, if I didn't close up, we would have - instead of the number that you mentioned or whatever it may be - it were - about 180 - we would have perhaps one and a half or two million deaths right now if I went a different direction, which some people wanted me to do. And I decided not to do it. We'd have 2 million deaths.

    Now, a lot of countries don't report their deaths. Obviously, China is not reporting because they had far more than we did. China had far more deaths than we did, in my opinion. It's just my opinion. But they don't report their deaths or they don't report them accurately. And I could - I don't want to embarrass other countries, but I can tell you, there are other countries where the death toll is far higher than the United States, but they don't report to us. We report it to a level that nobody reports it.

    We also do testing in cases - I - I watch your broadcasts and your - I read your information - your media outlet's - very, very carefully. And I look at the word "cases." And the reason, you know, it's - I say it 100 times; nobody wants to pick it up. But we do testing at a level that nobody ever dreamed possible. We have the best test, and we have, by far, the most tests.

    Actually, India, as per your question before - India is number two, and they've done a good job. But they're about 40 million tests behind us, and they're a country of 1.5 billion people.

    Now, because of all these tests, we have far more cases. If we cut our cases in half, if we - if we cut our testing in half, we'd probably have about half the number of cases. If we cut it down to levels - there are some countries that don't test. They test when somebody walks into a hospital; that's the test you get. They walk into a hospital, they're sick - that's your test.

    We have tested more and - and better. And you just see where we now have millions of tests coming in from a certain company that's done a fantastic job, and it's going to be anywhere from 5 minutes to 15 minutes on the spot - very accurate test.

    But if we had much less testing, no testing, we would have - you wouldn't be reporting cases. But you saw the s- - I don't want to go over the statistics. You all wrote it down. But you see how we're doing compared to the rest of the world, and you see -

    And if you took out New York, which has been a tragic situation with the amount of people that died in New York -

    Q But that's part of the U.S.

    THE PRESIDENT: - and in the nursing home.


    Q You can't just take out a major state in the U.S. It's still a part of the United States, New York is.

    THE PRESIDENT: No, I'm just saying -

    Q If you take it out of the equation -

    THE PRESIDENT: If you took - sure. I'm just saying: New York has been, in particular, run - whether it's badly, incompetently; whether it's unfortunate - and I appreciated Governor Cuomo saying that I've done a phenomenal job, and he said very good things. He said bad things too, you know, later on, when he had no real other choice. But if you took out New York from those numbers, you can multiply our tremendous success by a lot.

    But look, the bottom line is that the job we've done on COVID-19 or the China virus, the China plague - call it whatever you want; got a lot of different names - but it's been incredible. And we've also helped a lot of other countries, especially with ventilators, because we are now - you know, we built ventilators at a level that nobody ever thought possible. So -