Remarks by President Trump in a Roundtable with Restaurant Executives and Industry Leaders | Eastern North Carolina Now

Press Release:

State Dining Room  •  Washington D.C.  •  May 18  •  2:47 P.M. EDT
    THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. We're here with the leaders of the restaurant industry. It's an industry that's been tremendously impacted by what's happening with COVID, and it's an industry that we're working very hard with and on. We're looking at doing deductibility so that a corporation can use a restaurant or entertainment clubs, et cetera, and get deductibility. I think that'll really have a big impact. Steve can maybe talk about it — Steve Mnuchin.

    But I'd like to have some of these leaders talk about — real quickly — about their company and the industry and any ideas they have, and I think we can do it in front of the media for a little while, and then we can answer a couple of questions, and we're going to get back to business. Okay?

    Please.

    MR. CIL: Well, Mr. President and Mr. Vice President, Secretary Mnuchin, Secretary Scalia, and everyone else here, including my — my brethren from the restaurant industry: Thanks so much for — for having us here. It's an honor for me to be here representing 10,000 restaurants in the U.S. We have Burger King, Popeyes, and Tim Hortons. These restaurants are owned by small businesses. We have franchisees from coast to coast that — that work day in, day out. We have team members that are in the restaurants day in and day out.

    We have — we've been in the restaurants, working as an essential service since the beginning of the crisis in March. We have had our drive-throughs open and delivery open, but we've still had a tremendous impact on our business. And so we're really looking forward to the process of reopening the economy, reopening the country.

    We already have about 1,000 locations around the country that have started to open the dining rooms with reduced capacity. We've added PPE. We've added safe social distancing in the restaurants to ensure that people can come in. We have acrylic screens in the front counter. We have masks and gloves for the employees to ensure that everyone feels safe — our guests and our team members.

    And I just wanted to thank the President. Mr. President and your administration, I think you've acted quickly and swiftly and with good measure. The CARES Act and the PPP had a tremendous impact on our businesses. I mean, I think there's a lot, we think, that it can do to make a very good program even better.

    One of the things that we've talked about as we were kind of chatting here is this idea of extending the eight-week deadline. We think that eight-week deadline, when it — when it was implemented, was probably — you know, eight weeks probably seemed like an eternity. But today, we're — we're in the 10th week of the pandemic, and I think it's going to take some time for our restaurants and our owners to get back to the capacity levels and the traffic levels that we were seeing pre-COVID.

    And so a little more time, we think — probably taking it to 24 weeks — would be appropriate to allow for restaurant owners that are participating the program to be able to manage through and rehire the employees, which is what the purpose of PPP was intended for.

    There was two other things that I think are important for us. One is we think business liability protection for small businesses is important. You know, we're going to see potentially — with the reopening of the economy, with the reopening of small restaurants, we're going to see frivolous, I think, and unfounded lawsuits against restaurant owners, against small businesses that are trying to do the right thing, trying to survive, and trying to keep their — their businesses going. So we — we firmly believe that protection from these types of frivolous lawsuits would be helpful.

    And then finally, to the extent that there's additional federal assistance that's targeted for the restaurant industry, I think the restaurant industry as a whole took about — participated to the tune of about 9 percent of the PPP, and we think there should be additional funds available for us to be able to weather and continue to weather the storm.

    But we're really proud to be here, proud to be part of this extraordinary group of restaurant leaders, and thank you so much for the opportunity to be here.

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you. That's a lot. Ten thousand restaurants. And some big — that's some big group and a good group, too. I know — I know your chains, and I know a lot about your company. It's a great company. So you'll be back very soon, I have no doubt about it. And some of the things you mentioned, we'll be talking about.


    I do want to say before we go further: So this was a very big day therapeutically, cure-wise, and vaccine-wise. Tremendous progress has been made, as I've been saying for two weeks, because I've been seeing what's going on and, I think, spearheading it largely. And this was a very, very — some big announcements are — are coming and have just come out, and the market is up almost 1,000 points. You'll check your market, your — I'm sure you did before you walked in the room, but I imagine your company is doing better today than it was a week ago, right?

    MR. CIL: We're focused on the profitability of our franchisees. That's my focus.

    THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Okay, good. So what we have is big announcements coming, big announcements have already come, and tremendous progress has been made — therapeutically, cure-wise, and also, obviously, vaccine. To me, thera- — therapeutically and cure is more important than vaccine because it's immediate. And if we have something — even people that are very sick right now, we try and expedite everything so it goes really quickly — really, really quickly. Like, "Let's get it going, immediately."

    So if you have somebody that's not going to make it, if you have somebody that's going to pass away, going to die, and if we have something that we think works, we want to get them immediately into those hospitals or wherever the people are located. So that's being talked about also with the FDA, with Dr. Stephen Hahn, who's doing a fantastic job. And so we're trying to expedite things,

    But very importantly, just overall, what big news it is, medically. We are so far ahead of where you would normally be, just from a logistical standpoint.

    And that's the other thing: We're also gearing up and close to geared up because we have tremendous people in the military. So they'll be able to deliver service very rapidly.

    So, a lot of good things are happening, and let's see what happens in the very near future.

    Steve, do you have anything to say?

    SECRETARY MNUCHIN: I just want to add, Mr. President, that - thank you for all being here. We appreciate how many people you employ as an industry and the special issues that we have, and we look forward to continuing to work with you.

    THE PRESIDENT: Good. Thank you very much. How are you doing on deductibility, Steve? How's that going? Good? Good.

    Please.

    MR. RODRIGUE: Thank you, Mr. President. Really appreciate you gathering us here today. This is a great representation of restaurants from across the country: José with his 10,000, my two on Bourbon Street. I am the president and CEO of Galatoire's. We've been there since 1905.

    THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Right.

    ...

    Read the full transcript HERE.


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