Transcript - Leaked Remarks: Donald Trump Addresses Governors on Coronavirus Call - Via NYT - March 16, 2020 | Factba.se

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00:00:00 - 00:00:00 (0 sec)

[This audio was leaked to, and released by The New York Times. It is a recording of a portion of the phone call between Donald Trump and governors in regard to the coronavirus pandemic on March 16, 2020. The audio begins and ends somewhat abruptly, and there is possibly a break in the audio at 81 seconds. The audio and transcript is exactly as published by The New York Times.]

Donald Trump

00:00:00 - 00:00:21 (22 sec)

[Audio in progress] ...it's taken over, taken a very big part of everybody's time, and life, and we're going to get it -- we're going to get it remedied, and hopefully very quickly. We want to assume, I guess, for purposes of what we're doing, a worst case scenario. Hopefully it's going to be a best case scenario, and we're very prepared.

Donald Trump

00:00:21 - 00:00:41 (20 sec)

We've been working with a lot of the governors. They've been doing a great job, everybody -- Democrat, Republican, they've been doing a great job. Where -- I want to just give you a little information. Vaccine work is going along smoothly, I would say, in a very positive manner. It takes a period of time to get it, between tests and everything else, as you know.

Donald Trump

00:00:41 - 00:01:11 (29 sec)

You all know the times. And therapeutic is going along very well. We're getting a lot of good response. We'll have to see what that means, but we'll be reporting. You know what we did with HIV, you know what we did with Ebola and others. It's pretty incredible, on both of those elements, the vaccine and the therapeutic, and so far they're only giving me positive, but the positive has to be tested, and we'll see how that all works out.

Donald Trump

00:01:11 - 00:01:20 (9 sec)

I want to thank all of the governors and territories and everybody for being with us. We have a great group of people -- many friends of mine. Many people I know very well...

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[Break in Audio - 00:01:21]

Donald Trump

00:01:20 - 00:01:42 (23 sec)

I want to tell you we're marshalling the power of the federal government. We've had tremendous cooperation from just about everybody. This is -- this is just a bipartisan effort. We really have had -- for the most part, not in all cases, but pretty much for the most part -- it's been very bipartisan. We've had some great response from a lot of people.

Donald Trump

00:01:42 - 00:02:06 (23 sec)

We are dealing with states and local governments. You're the -- you're the point of the arrow. You're the tip, and you're going to have to get that all set, but we're backing you 100 percent, things happening as of -- actually, for a -- for a while, because what we did is we broke down a system that was broken, and very badly broken, and we have a system that I think that I think will be the talk of the world.

Donald Trump

00:02:06 - 00:02:31 (25 sec)

It's going to be used elsewhere, and the General will talk to you about that. We have the Vice President will be discussing -- [Inaudible] very well. We had the leaders -- the top people of all of the department stores and grocery stores. We had Wal-Mart. We had Kroger. We had Publix, we had everybody yesterday on a major conference call and meeting.

Donald Trump

00:02:31 - 00:02:56 (25 sec)

On Friday, we had the stores -- the Wal-marts and the like. They were all on and they are -- they're geared up. They said they've never had anything like it. This is -- the -- I asked them to compare this to shopping at Christmas. They said this is far greater than shopping at Christmas, and we had to put out a statement yesterday to sort of go in and, just don't buy everything.

Donald Trump

00:02:56 - 00:03:22 (27 sec)

The first ones in the store -- they want to buy out the entire place, and so we put out a statement. But Wal-mart, all of the great stores are working round the clock, and I think they're doing a great job. We don't want to see the empty shelves, but we have told people buy a little bit less. On Friday I declared a state of national emergency that will send up $50 billion automatically in disaster relief funds available to the states, territories and local governments.

Donald Trump

00:03:22 - 00:03:49 (27 sec)

Yesterday, the Federal Reserve, as you know, cut the rates to near zero, and zero, you could say. Between zero and point two five. They're purchasing $500 billion in Treasuries and $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities and you'll see that probably go up substantially from that level. We instituted travel restrictions on China, Europe and UK, and we did it very, very early.

Donald Trump

00:03:49 - 00:04:15 (25 sec)

We added UK and Ireland as you saw yesterday. UK's had a sudden rash. UK was seemingly doing very well. All of a sudden, we were getting numbers that weren't good. So we had to put UK in, we added that in. We did that yesterday. They had a -- a burst, unfortunately. We commend the states that have opened drive-through and walk-through testing sites.

Donald Trump

00:04:15 - 00:04:32 (18 sec)

I've been watching a lot of you on television where you have you drive-through sites. That's great. We are working very much with you. We also have Wal-Mart and stores doing it likewise. But still it's always better locally -- it's always better when you have the mayors working on it, the governors working on it etcetera.

Donald Trump

00:04:32 - 00:04:50 (18 sec)

But we are backing you in terms of equipment and getting what you need. Also, though, respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment, try and getting it yourselves. We will be backing you, but try getting it yourselves [Inaudible] much better, much more direct if you can get it yourselves. [Audio Ends]