Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing | September 16, 2020 | Eastern North Carolina Now

    And - and I was inaccurately covered, because I was on with George last night - George Stephanopoulos. And I enjoyed it. I think people enjoyed it. I got - you know, a lot of people said very good things about the show. I hope they did well. But they said a lot of good things about the show, but they always cut my sentences off. You know, they cut it off.

    On masks - masks have problems, too. And I talked about the masks about to be handled very gently, very carefully. I see that, in restaurants, they have people with masks and they're playing around with their mask, and they have it - their fingers are in their mask and then they're serving with plates. I mean, I think there's a lot of problems with masks.

    No, vaccine is much more effective than the masks. And if we get the vaccine, we have - added to the fact that our numbers are going way down. You know, you see the numbers. I'm just reading you statistics that are from wherever they get them. But they're very highly qualified statistics.

    But no, the mask is not as important as the vaccine. The va- - the mask, perhaps, helps. Don't forget: A lot of people didn't like the concept of masks initially. Dr. Fauci didn't like them, and a lot of people didn't. And I'm not knocking anybody, because I understand both sides of the argument.

    But when I called up Robert today, I said to him, "What's with the masks?" He said, "I think I answered that question incorrectly." I think maybe he misunderstood it. I mean, you know, you have two questions; maybe he misunderstood both of them. But the answer to the one is it's going to be a much faster distribution than he said. Maybe he's not aware of the distribution process. It's not really his thing as much as it would be, let's say, mine. But the distribution is going to be much faster.

    As far as the mask is concerned, I hope that the vaccine is going to be a lot more beneficial than the masks because people have used the masks. But when I looked at that chart that we put up, if you look, you know, we write - if you do the good job - they had, I guess, 240,000. But if you do the good - if it worked out well - now, look, one death is too much. One death is too much; should have never happened. But the lower level was at that 240,000 - between a hundred and something and 240,000.

    As far as the mask is concerned, he made a mistake.

    Q But on the masks, I mean, perhaps they are a part of the role for the decrease in cases because they are effective, as you just said. So I know you've worn it a few -

    THE PRESIDENT: No, they may be effective.

    Q Right, sure.

    THE PRESIDENT: And I wear them when I'm in a hospital or when I'm in a setting with a lot of -

    Q But my question is: Why not wear it more often or have the White House staff wear it more often to set an example for the country?

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, I'm tested, and I'm sometimes surprised when I see somebody sitting and - like, with Joe. Joe feels very safe in a mask. I don't know, maybe he doesn't want to expose his face. I don't know what's going on. He'll be way away from people, nowhere near people - there will be nobody with him. He doesn't draw any crowds. He'll have circles. These big circles. They'll be way far away. There's no reason for him to have masks on.


    We get tested - I'm tested; I have people tested. When people come into the Oval Office, it's like a big deal. No matter who they are - if they're heads of countries, they all get tested. So I'm in sort of a different position. And maybe if I wasn't in that position, I'd be wearing it more. But I've worn masks. And especially I like to wear them when I'm in hospital. Not for me so much as for other people. Okay? Thanks.

    Yeah.

    Q I have two questions, Mr. President. One is for Dr. Atlas. Dr. Atlas, you mentioned minorities would be the first focus of the distribution. How would that exactly work in practice when it's being distributed specifically to minorities?

    And then, secondly, for you, Mr. -

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, he didn't say "minorities"; he said "minorities and senior citizens."

    Q Well, he said the focus -

    THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

    Q Sure. Sure. But can you talk us through a bit more on the focus on distributing to minorities and how that would work?

    And then for you, Mr. President, you mentioned the drop in the poverty rate. Specifically, we noticed at - just the news that the poverty rate for African Americans hit historic lows, that the household wealth increased historically for African Americans. What was driving that increase in wealth for African Americans?

    And now, in 2020, with the coronavirus, with unemployment spiking, what would be your plan for the second term to improve lives for African Americans?

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, I'll go first, because of your question - I appreciate your question. And yeah, we've had a tremendous drop in poverty for all people in our nation, but in particular for African Americans. And that statistic came in. And it's because the African American community, the black community has had the lowest - the best employment numbers that we've ever had - both employment and unemployment, depending on how you want to define it.

    But we've had the best employment numbers we've ever had. Now, we had the greatest employment in the country ever - almost 160 million people. We've never been close to that number, but we were just six months ago.

    And yeah, the - I'm very proud of the numbers. African Americans, Hispanic Americans - they had the best numbers they've ever had, by far - both employment and unemployment, depending on definition.

    Thank you very much for that question. Scott, do you want to answer that too?

    DR. ATLAS: Okay. Yeah, so what I - to clarify, I said that the first prioritization is the high-risk people and frontline healthcare workers.

    But just to reiterate, what I said, there are 51,000 outlets for distribution for vaccination, and there's over 14,000 federally qualified health centers that are particularly targeted to minority and low-income areas. So that's a focus.

    And I want to point out two other things. We're also prioritizing testing historically black colleges and universities and we're in the process of getting that finalized because we know that there's high - there's a higher morbidity with - in certain ethnic groups.

    And last thing I would say is it's particularly heinous - an egregious abuse of the media to instill fear into people about taking a vaccine, because there is no shortcut here. Everything is safe. Everything is effective. And for people who have particularly an influence on minority communities to instill fear and doubt is a particularly, you know, outrageous abuse of public policy and of leadership. These are people that have higher risk.

    And so I implore everyone who is in a high-risk category that when we get a safe, effective vaccine, they should take the vaccine.

    THE PRESIDENT: I will say, this is a phenomena that only happened when they realized that we may very well have the vaccine prior to a certain very important date, namely November 3rd. Once they heard that, the Democrats started - just to show you how bad the intention is, they started knocking the vaccine. Had nothing to do with a vaccine, it was totally made up. It's all disinformation.


    Just like they put an ad in about football. Just like they put - with respect to me. I'm the one that got football back. And I was always against them going out. It was ridiculous that Big 10 and now, hopefully, Pac-10 [sic] goes back.

    And I say that, just like - even worse, they put out a totally fake ad, totally made-up story. It was a made-up story by a third-rate magazine, where the head guy - I guess, the head person - I have no idea who he is; I don't know him, but he's friends with Obama and Clinton. So they made up this horrible story, and then they did ads. Well, they made up this story too.

    This story is very simple: They started knocking the vaccine as soon as they heard that this actually may come out prior to election. Now, it may or may not, but it'll be within a matter of weeks. It will be within a matter of weeks from November. It's ready to go and it's ready to - for massive distribution to everybody - with a focus, again, on seniors.

    And I will say, also, the historically black colleges and universities, we are doing, at my suggestion - because they have had a difficult problem there - we are doing more testing there and finer testing. We have our - our great apparatus there.

    But we - when you look at what we've done on testing, in terms of the technology and the amount, it's been really amazing. In fact, I think we're going to crack 100 million tests very soon, in the very near future. We're going to be cracking 100 million tests.

    Now what that does do is it shows up more cases. If we didn't test, we wouldn't have cases. You would have no cases. Other countries, they don't test; they don't have cases. And then they say, "Oh, the United States..." Well - but we're proud of it because it shows where there may be a problem, and it helps people. But we're doing tremendous testing at the historically black colleges and universities. And that was a suggestion I made, and I think it's a good - I think it's a good suggestion.

    Yeah, please, go ahead.

    Q Yes, thank you.

    THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.

    Q The core of Vice President Biden's argument is that you don't trust the scientists; you don't listen to them. And here, up on the podium today, you're twice contradicting the director of your own CDC on the science, who testified before Congress today.

    THE PRESIDENT: No, he's contradicting himself.

    Q Why should the American people -

    THE PRESIDENT: I think he misunderstood the questions.

    Q Well, he was testifying under oath. Why should -

    THE PRESIDENT: You know what I think?

    Q - the American people -

    THE PRESIDENT: I think he misunderstood - I told you, I don't have to go through this. I think he misunderstood the questions. But I'm telling you, here's the bottom line: Distribution is going to be very rapid. He may not know that. Maybe he's not aware of that, and maybe he's not dealing with the military, et cetera, like I do. Distribution is going to be very rapid. And the vaccine is going to be very powerful. It's going to solve a tremendous problem. It's going to be very powerful.

    Q But how - the broader question is: How can the American people trust you on the pandemic when you're contradicting the head of the CDC in your own administration?

    THE PRESIDENT: Because of the great job we've done. Because of the great things we've done in other fields, also.

    Because of the fact that we created ventilators. We built ventilators by the thousands and now we're supplying to the world.

    Because of all of the incredible work we've done for governors, who are, on every call, saying, "This is incredible. This is great. This is great." Sometimes they're not quite as friendly at a news conference when you have people covering it.


    But we have done a phenomenal job on COVID-19, as they like to call it; I call it other things. But we have done a phenomenal job.

    I get calls from other people in other countries. They can't believe the job we've done. And then they'll say, "Is there any way that you could get us ventilators?" I say, "How many do you need?" "One thousand ventilators." I said, "We'll be able to take care of it."

    We're making thousands of ventilators - very complex, very expensive, very difficult thing to make. We're making thousands a month. The cupboard was bare when I got here.