Press Briefing by Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany - September 24, 2020 | Eastern North Carolina Now

    The President was referring to the normal interagency process that happens with guidance, and that includes running through the Office of Management and Budget. So that's standard operating procedure.

    And I would also point out - I spoke to Dr. Hahn this morning, and Dr. Hahn said that the guidance issued was a follow-up to June 30th guidance that they put out, and it was guidance - it was guidance that they gave to pharmaceutical companies to provide them with more regulatory clarity.

    Yes.

    Q Thanks, Kayleigh. The White House is describing this healthcare event today as a chance for the President to outline his vision. Is that something less than his plan?

    And just a second part of that: Does the White House think that it can address the country's challenges with healthcare solely through executive action?

    MS. MCENANY: So, the President will be laying out his healthcare vision today. I don't want to get ahead of exactly what that will look like. There will be some tangible actions taken, as well as the President really laying out, which I - something that I think has been overlooked: the real contrast between what Obamacare gave us between 2013 and 2017, and what the President has delivered.

    And I think we have a graphic to that effect. I'm not - I'm not sure if they were able to put it together in time.

    But with Obamacare, it is a fact that from 2013 to 2017, premiums in this country went up. In fact, they went up by 105 percent on the individual market. And you contrast that with President Trump - what he's managed to do by rolling back a lot of Obamacare, and we've seen premiums on the individual market go down. Same for Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage - the polar opposite of what happened with Obamacare, where those premiums went up.

    So premiums have come down under this President. Drug prices have come down. Under President Obama, drug prices were up 15 percent. Under President Trump, they came down for the first time in 50 years.

    And then, finally, under Obamacare, you had choice that went down. One third of counties had only one insurer in the individual market. And with President Trump, there are new, affordable options, like AHPs, STLDIs, and HRAs - healthcare reimbursement arrangements; as well as employer-sponsored insurance that has gone up. We've seen an increase of 1.5 million in 2019.

    So these principles have undergirded the Trump presidency, and he will use many of the same principles going forward. And you'll get his comprehensive healthcare vision that will include some action items here in short order.

    Q Is this the extent of the plan or is there more after this?

    MS. MCENANY: This is going to be his full vision that he has been talking about over the last few weeks, and it will be in Charlotte, North Carolina, today.

    Yes.

    Q Thank you so much, Kayleigh. I wanted to ask about the Supreme Court consideration. Has the President met with all the top candidates that are under consideration? Are there any others? Who else is he - are there any others that he's still plans to meet with? Judge Lagoa, for example - does he still plan to meet with Judge Lagoa?

    MS. MCENANY: So I'm not going to get into the President's private meetings with these candidates. He's noted that there are five he's considering. They all fall in the same mold as textualist, originalist, Constitution-abiding judges.

    Q And on another note: Today, at the Supreme Court, when the President approached - you know, was paying his respects to Justice Ginsburg - there were some people in the crowd that started the chant to "respect her wishes," to "uphold her wishes." Do you have some thoughts on those chants, which also, you know, included "Vote him out"?

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    MS. MCENANY: Yeah, I think the chants were appalling, but certainly to be expected when you're in the heart of the swamp. I travel with the President all across the country - Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, and Nevada - and everywhere we go, the streets are lined with support like I don't think any other President has had previously.

    But with regard to precedent, as I've noted before, 29 times has an appointment been made in an election year - 29 times. And that was all 29 times when there was a vacancy at hand. So the precedent is very much on our side here.

    And I would also note the hypocrisy of Democrats. Joe Biden saying, "I would go forward with a confirmation process as chairman, even a few months before an election." Barack Obama saying, "Fill the Supreme Court vacancy," when it was his tenure. And you had Kamala Harris saying, as well, that "Senate GOP is holding SCOTUS hostage for political gain. Join me & call on them to consider [President Obama's] nominee."

    So they've really flipped here, because the precedent is on our side and their hypocrisy is on full display.

    Yes.

    Q The former number two of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Paul Selva, who served under President Trump - he and 500 other national security and military leaders, they endorsed Joe Biden today. Do you guys have a comment on that, given that it doesn't seem like Jim Mattis and Joe Dunford, who also served under the President, are rushing to support him in this election?

    MS. MCENANY: Yeah, I think the President's record speaks for itself. Our military men and women, our veterans love this President for a very distinct reason. Under Obama-Biden, sequestration really gutted our military. You had the Navy at its smallest point ever, and the other military branches were absolutely gutted. Then you had President Trump who came in and secured a record amount of funding for our military and our Department of Defense and built up our military.

    When it comes to veterans, the appalling way that our veterans were treated at the VA under Obama-Biden - there was an IG report that as many as 300,000 veterans - think about that - 300,000 veterans could have died waiting for care.

    This President came in, put in the VA MISSION Act, secured real choice and options for our veterans, and that's the reason that the military and our veterans love this President.

    Q But why is Selva endorsing Joe Biden?

    MS. MCENANY: I can't speak to one person's reasoning. But this President, when you look at what he's done - bringing our troops home and all he's done in aggregate - the rank and file in this military love this President.

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    Yes.

    Q Thanks, Kayleigh. Two quick follow-ups on what's been discussed earlier. Does the President still have confidence in the FDA Commissioner based on his comments yesterday?

    MS. MCENANY: There are no changes. Dr. Hahn is FDA Commissioner. So, yes.

    Q And then to follow up, you said that you thought the chants outside the Supreme Court this morning were appalling. Is there any issue with people peaceably demonstrating and chanting at the President?

    MS. MCENANY: No, of course. Everyone has a First Amendment in this country, but I thought it was an appalling and disrespectful thing to do as the President honored Justice Ginsburg.

    Yes.

    Q What was the emergency call the President left yesterday's briefing to take?

    MS. MCENANY: I'm not going to get into a readout of the President's calls, but he regularly takes very important phone calls.

    Yes, Debra.

    Q What is the likelihood that Sudan will be the next country to recognize Israel? And are there any new developments you're expecting after the Emirates and Bahrain recognized Israel?

    MS. MCENANY: So the President has noted that there are several other countries that want to make agreements of this sort. I won't confirm exactly which country will be next.

    But rest assured the world has looked at what this President did: historic agreements between the UAE and Israel and Bahrain. And do - you see deals that like you haven't seen in a quarter of a century. It was 26 years between the second and the third deal, and just 29 days between the third and the fourth. This President is the only President to have overseen the normalization of relations between Israel and two Middle East countries. To have two on his watch is a really big deal. And no wonder, two Nobel Peace Prize nominations, as well.

    Yes, Lalit.

    Q Yeah. Thank you. What's the status of coronavirus vaccination this year? Do you expect this to be available before Christmas?

    MS. MCENANY: We do expect to have a vaccine by the end of the year. That has always been the goal, and we are still on track for that. It's very important that - what the President has done with regard to commercial-level manufacturing. As Dr. Slaoui told me, the fact that you have scaled up to manufacture these vaccines in advance is a - something that this President has done because he's a businessman and thinks through exactly how to get a safe and effective vaccine delivered at record speed, and part of that has entailed manufacturing in advance.

    And to do this, it normally takes years to scale up to commercial-level production, but this President has done it in just a few short months. And if we have this vaccine by the end of the year, it will be the fastest pace for a vaccine for novel pathogen in history.

    Yes.

    Q Thank you, Kayleigh. I wanted to go back to mail-in voting for just a bit. Right now, five states conduct elections entirely by mail-in, prior to the pandemic, with no cases or no major cases of fraud. Does that success not give the President confidence in mail-in voting?

    MS. MCENANY: So those states have had time and a history of doing - having a workable system and one that has been done for many years, for many election cycles.

    To move the entire country to mass mail-in voting, all at once, and have an entirely new system, and do that in just a few short months is an untenable and an unworkable proposition, and one that has shown to not work well at all, especially when you look at the disenfranchisement, which I think is really troubling when it comes to mass mail-in voting.

    In 2016, you had 1 percent of ballots thrown out - absentee ballots - that amounted to 319,000 votes thrown out. And if you have the entirety of the country voting by mail, you can imagine that number would be many folds higher than that.

    And you look just in the primary, where you've seen states try to move to this mass mail-in system. There were 100,000 ballots rejected in California. In New York City, one in five mail-in ballots were rejected. And as a former DOJ voting rights official said, "It's nuts. That is just way too high," when one in five voters, because of mass mail-in voting, have their ballots thrown out.

    Yes.

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    Q You said it's the whole country. Obviously, it's only the states though. Right, Kayleigh?

    MS. MCENANY: Chanel.

    Q Thank you, Kayleigh. Yesterday, the Senate released an 87-page report on Hunter Biden and Joe Biden's dealings across the board of Ukraine and with Russia. Specifically, it showed Hunter Biden supporting Russian prostitution, human trafficking, receiving $3.5 million from Moscow.
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