Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing | Eastern North Carolina Now

Press Release:

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room  •  Washington D.C.  •  April 8  •  5:47 P.M. EDT
    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. This is a holy week, when religious believers across the nation will observe Passover, Good Friday, and Easter. Millions of Jewish families begin Passover at sundown tonight, a sacred, unbroken tradition that traces back to the ancient land of Egypt. And on Sunday, we celebrate our beautiful, wonderful Easter, which we all look forward to. And we're going to have many Easters together in churches in the future.

    We're getting closer. You see the numbers. We're getting much closer to getting our country back to the way it was. We have now an extra two countries that have been attacked: 184. They're being attacked as we speak, but we'll all win. At some point, we're going to all win. We're going to do it sooner than people think.

    Earlier today, I spoke with 10,000 of America's faith leaders to thank them for raising the spirits of our people during these very difficult days. While we may be physically apart, we can use this time to pray, to reflect, and to focus on our personal relationship with God.

    I also spoke with more than 3,000 mayors, county commissioners, and state and tribal leaders to provide an update on our administration's ongoing drive to beat the virus, to crush the virus. And that's happening. And it's happening, I think if you look, a little bit more quickly than people thought. Maybe a lot more quickly, I hope. And it's something that all over the world we're watching, but people are watching us and seeing what we're doing, and they're very impressed.

    We're dealing with many countries right now. Many, many countries. And we're giving them whatever information we're able to glean.

    I just spoke with the representatives of the UK, and I think that their great prime minister is doing much better today, or at least better. But certainly he's had a tough bout, and he's still going through a tough time, but he seems to be doing better. And that's good.

    And we - we send our regards to Boris and his family and his friends, all of the people that really love him. He's - he's become a very popular - before this happened, became a very popular prime minister. He's doing an excellent job. He loves their country; he loves our country. So we appreciate everything he's done, and hopefully he's going to be okay.

    Speaking of great people, and people that have done a fantastic job, I have Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with us. And I'd like to ask Mike to say a few words. And then I think what we'll do, in order to get him back to the State Department, we'll take some questions and we'll then go on with the rest of what I'm going to say. And then we'll take some questions after that, and then Vice President Pence will take over.

    So, Mike Pompeo, please.

    SECRETARY POMPEO: Thank you, Mr. President. Under the President's leadership, my team and I at the State Department are doing our part to protect the American people from the virus and, importantly, to get them home.

    As you know, when many countries shut down their rail lines, their buses, their infrastructure systems, the capacity to get out of those countries - they were trapped, they're stranded - the State Department swung into action.

    Since January 29th, we have now repatriated over 50,000 United States citizens back to their homes from more than 90 countries, more than 490 flights back to the United States from all across the world. This worldwide scale of our repatriation efforts is without parallel in our lifetime. We are coordinating with foreign governments, militaries, airport authorities, medical units, transportation companies, hotels, you name it. We're working with them to make sure the American people get back to be with their families.

    You can see, behind me, the map of the flights, that we have brought back people -

    THE PRESIDENT: Good.

    SECRETARY POMPEO: - from all across the world. Every day, I get a chance to hear some of the remarkable stories from our team. Let me give you just a couple of examples.

    Our mission in Peru: Working with the Peruvian military and police forces to send riverboats up the - up the river to get citizens that were stranded deep inside the Amazon forest.

    Our mission in Nepal: Make sure that a woman who was running low on medication could get what she needed at a pharmacy before boarding an evacuation flight that brought her back here.

    In Honduras: After the government imposed a very strict 24/7 curfew and closed airports, our embassy sprang into action for stranded Americans - thousands of them.

    A three-year-old boy told one of our consular officers just before he boarded the flight, "Thank you for helping me get back home to my dad." Pretty neat.

    We've received similar messages from lots of people. They're proud to know that their country will not leave them stranded and we're going to get them back home.

    One woman wrote, quote, "I was in tears when I received the e-mail approving our flight back to the United States. God bless the United States of America." And another said, "I felt like I had allies there that actually treated me like a person or a family member, not just a number."

    The Repatriation Task Force at State Department, our consular officers have done great work. I want to thank our partners in the Department of Defense who have helped with some of these flights back home and other government agencies - our sisters and brothers across the United States government in this administration that have helped get these people back.

    And then, lastly, aside from our repatriation efforts, we continue to help countries around the world as well. We've got CDC officials helping these countries with expertise and all the things that these countries need to get their citizens safe and healthy and back so that we can get the economy all across the world - the global economy - back on its feet when this crisis is over.

    Thank you, Mr. President.

    THE PRESIDENT: Very good. Thanks, Mike. Maybe you stick for a little while -

    SECRETARY POMPEO: Sure.

    THE PRESIDENT: - and we'll see if anybody has any questions for Secretary of State.

    Anybody? Please.

    Q:  Sure. Mr. Secretary, that's an amazing effort that you have made. How do you know when you're done? Because I imagine there are Americans on all corners of the world, and you're always - someone is going pop up and say, "I want to go home now."

    SECRETARY POMPEO: It's a great -

    Q:  When will you give the all - call that it's over?

    SECRETARY POMPEO: Yeah. So, it's a great question. We still have several thousand people that we're working. They identify themselves every day. New people find themselves in a difficult place. Look, we're going to be done when people can travel on the road again. These people traveled abroad on vacations or with their church and were intending to get back on their own. We hope that day comes pretty soon, where they don't have to rely on the State Department to get them back home.

    But know this: In the meantime, we're devoting all the resources we have to get them - they're in - often in difficult places. They're not in the capital, near the airport, or the roads are closed. And so it's not just a matter of getting a flight down there. There's a lot of work that has to be done to coordinate, to make it all happen and get those people available so they're sitting there when the flight lands, they can get on the plane, and then we can get them back home.

    We still have several thousand. We're working on it. We chip away at that number every day. But new citizens go to the State Department website, identify themselves, and say, "I need a little bit of help, in some way," and we do our best to get that to them just as quickly as we can.

    ...

    Read the full transcript HERE.


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