Sir -- Holy smokes. The President. This is Mike. This is Mary. Oh my goodness. How you doing, Mike? Great to see you, sir. Mike, I spent a lot of time trying to put together, uh, attacking this COVID in a big way, to put people back in the position, they can regain their life again. How many employees do you have? 20? 20. 21. Yeah. How are you all doing? We're good. Good. Mr. President, my mom says "Hi." [Laughter] What's your mom's name? Judy. Well, do you have a phone? Okay, it says it's connecting. Mom? Hey Judy. My name is Joe Biden. How are you? [Laughter] I came to the hardware store to buy a pair of pliers. 400,000 small businesses went out of business. They got in line, but they couldn't get the help. What -- what hit you the hardest when the pandemic hit? The biggest challenge was, what were we going to do with our staff? You know, there were so many uncertainties related to what the virus actually did. Um, the first thing that we did was we took all of our at-risk employees and we sent them home and we paid them through that entire process. Now, obviously that was that was not cost effective, but we felt like we had to do that for our -- for our employees. What government needs to do moving forward is you need to have, particularly on a local level, we need, um, people to talk to their local businesses and come up with smart, intelligent plans so the people who are doing things the right way aren't negatively affected. How about this, uh, pair of Stanley's here? Yeah. When did your family take over this? My grandfather bought it in 1952. Are you a Jenks rewards member? [Laughter] Not yet. I think anybody who's followed your career, particularly over the last 15 years -- I mean, you are the hope and optimism guy, and we need some of that right now. I mean, we need a President who's out there saying the end of this is coming. We're going to get through this we're going to come out stronger, and small business will survive, and I think, just from a personal standpoint, hearing that from the White House will mean a lot to a good number of people. Thank you all so very much. Thank you We're gonna keep this going. Absolutely. We're gonna get through this. We're gonna get through this -- -- and thanks for letting me come in now. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Keep the faith. Thank you. Stick with it. Thank you. Okay.
