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Trump's Remarks in Press Briefing; August 11, 2020
Mon Aug 10, 2020: Trump claims, erroneously, that Virginia sent out half-a-million incorrect ballot applications ...
REMARKS
Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing | August 10, 2020
Issued on: August 11, 2020
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
5:48 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. I thought I’d start by talking about some mail-in voting that just was revealed — just the news. Half a million incorrect absentee ballot applications were sent all across the state of Virginia, including to many dead people. This was an unprecedented mailing flub that’s heightened concerns about the integrity of expanding mail-in voting and mail-in voting efforts. It’s a disaster — all over Virginia, half a million votes. So that’s something you have to think about.
{snip. No, this is not what happened.}
This just came out: half a million incorrect ballot applications sent all over the state of Virginia to many people that weren’t living. They had some sent to pets — dogs. This is what we’re going to get into, and it’s going to be a disaster. And it’s going to be thought of very poorly, and it’s going to hurt our country.
{snip. What the hell is he talking about?}
The Dow Jones and the S&P 500 are now up 50 percent since March — 50 percent. Think: If you had money in there, if you put your money in in March, you have 50 percent. The Nasdaq index continues to set new records. It’s been up over 14 times; new record in Nasdaq.
And the S&P 500 and the Dow — Dow Jones are going to be — I mean, the way they’re going, it looks like they’re just about going to be topping records, hopefully, soon.
SECRET SERVICE AGENT: Sir, we’re just going to have to step out in the hall (inaudible).
THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me?
SECRET SERVICE AGENT: We will step out outside. (Inaudible.)
Q What’s going on, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh. Excuse me.
(The press briefing is interrupted.)
(The press briefing resumes.)
THE PRESIDENT: So, thank you very much. Sorry for that. The — there was a shooting outside of the White House, and it seems to be very well under control. I’d like to thank the Secret Service for doing their always quick and very effective work. But there was an actual shooting, and somebody has been taken to the hospital. I don’t know the condition of the person. It seems that the person was — was shot by Secret Service. So, we’ll see what happens.
And, yeah, did you have something? Go ahead.
{snip}
But the — we’re looking at also considering a capital gains tax cut, which would create a lot more jobs. So we’re looking very seriously at a capital gains tax cut and also at an income tax cut for middle-income families. We’re looking at expanding the tax cuts that we’ve already done, but specifically for middle-income families, and you’ll be hearing about that in the upcoming few weeks, and I think it’ll be very exciting.
So, a capital gains tax is going to be — a lot of — a lot of people put to work, and it would be a cut in the capital gains tax and also a cut in the middle-income income tax.
{snip}
On Saturday, I took executive action in a signing to save American jobs and support American workers. I signed directives to give a payroll tax holiday, with the understanding that after the election — on the assumption that it would be victorious for an administration that’s done a great job — we will be ending that tax. We’ll be terminating that tax.
On the other hand, the other group wants to raise taxes, and they may want to leave it where you pay it.
But the payroll tax is a big deal for people. It’s a tremendous saving for people. And we’re going to be doing it, and we intend to terminate it at the end of the appropriate period of time. It’s for those making less than $100,000, through end of 2020, to provide an extra $400 per week.
{snip}
Jonathan, go ahead.
Q Thank you, Mr. President. In Ohio, a few days ago, you said, quote, Joe Biden has “hurt God”; “he’s against God.” The Vice President has said that he’s a man of deep Catholic faith, and he has credited it for helping him endure some immense personal tragedy. So, sir, what did you mean by that, when you said that Joe Biden has “hurt God” or is “against God”?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, if you look at the manifesto that that they’ve come up with, and if you look at their stance on religion and things having to do, very importantly, with aspects of religion and faith: I don’t think a man of deep religion would be agreeing to the Bernie Sanders plan. You take a look at what they have in, and you just — you can’t put that into the realm of a religious group of people, I will say that.
And I think it’s one of the reasons why, if you look at polls, which — I’m not a big believer in polls. I wouldn’t — if I was, I guess I wouldn’t be standing here right now.
And, by the way, our poll numbers are going up very rapidly, as you know, and Joe’s are going down very rapidly. He’ll have to come out of the basement, it looks like, pretty soon, because that — you know, it’s one of those things.
But, no, if you look at the manifesto — I call it the “manifesto.” A lot of people are calling it a “manifesto.” My opinion: It’s further left than where Bernie was before. So normally, he’d be left and you’d bring it somewhere a little bit toward the center. But some of the things that they have down there — and I’m not only talking in terms of religion; I’m not talking, even, in terms of religion — but some of the things they have in the agreement made — and this was an agreement made by Bernie Sanders and Joe — it’s a terrible thing. It would be a terrible thing for our country.
It will destroy our country. We will go into a depression. We will put on regulation. We will double and triple taxes. We will — it will be terrible for healthcare. Just terrible. You’ll have 180 million people lose their healthcare. It will be a terrible, terrible thing for our country.
Okay. Yeah, please, Jeff.
Q Thank you, sir. I’d like to ask you a question about something you said in Bedminster as well. You said that you’re planning to issue an executive order to ensure that health insurance companies prevent or cover people with pre-existing —
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q — conditions. And you said that that had “never been done before.” But that’s — that’s not the case because that is the law under the Affordable Care Act. So my question is: Why do you need to issue an executive order for a law —
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I said no —
Q — that is already existing?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Yeah, but, I didn’t say — I said, as an executive order. I — as you said, I said, as an executive order, it hasn’t been done before. We want to — we want to be able to assure people that pre-existing condition is always taken care of.
As you know, we’ve done tremendous things having to do with the individual mandate. We got rid of the individual mandate from Obamacare, which really ended Obamacare, as it would be officially known, because the individual mandate was the biggest part. It was also the most unpopular part — where you pay for a terri- — terrible privilege of overpaying for insurance. You pay not to have to pay for your healthcare. And that was a disaster for people, and a very unpopular — that was called the “individual mandate,” and we terminated that, and — officially terminated that. And that was something that we have been given thanks for by many, many people.
But the individual mandate will always be with us. The — the individual mandate termination will always be — they can’t start it up. In fact, I don’t even believe — you’ll have to tell me — I don’t believe it’s been challenged when we ended it.
And pre-existing conditions — the Republicans are 100 percent there. And I’ll be issuing, at some point in the not-too-distant future, a very strong statement on that, probably in the form of an executive order.
Q But why do you need, sir, to do an executive order if it’s already a part of existing law?
THE PRESIDENT: Just a double safety net, and just to let people know that the Republicans are totally, strongly in favor of pre-existing condition — taking care of people with pre-existing conditions.
It’s a — it’s a signal to people. It’s a second — it’s a second platform. We have — pre-existing conditions will be taken care of 100 percent by Republicans and the Republican Party. I think it’s a very — I actually think it’s a very important statement.
Yes, please.
{snip}
Go ahead, please.
Q Thank you, Mr. President. You tweeted earlier today that you’re considering Gettysburg as a —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
Q — venue for your speech for the RNC nomination acceptance. What’s your thinking behind that as a possible location?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think it’s — I’ve been to Gettysburg numerous times. It’s a national park; it’s a national historic site. It’s incredible. You know, it’s the history. It’s incredible, actually, to me. It was a very important place, and is a very important place in our country.
So we’re looking at that, and we’re looking at the White House. The White House would be very much easier for Secret Service. You see what just went on here. They’re all here. Just like you have your seats; they have their seats at the White House. So there wouldn’t be any expense or any extraordinary expense. And the White House would be a lovely place to do it, also.
Least expensive place that you could do it would be at the White House. If this is a government — a government expense and I — you know, look, I watch — also with government, I watch to make sure that we do what’s right.
But we’re looking at Gettysburg, and we’re looking at the White House. And we have other sites, too, but I think these would be two really beautiful sites.
John.
Q But if it were here or there, would you envision having an audience for that speech?
THE PRESIDENT: You could. You have plenty of room at both locations.
{snip}
No, we are upset with China because of what they did. China was not good. And China will be — if you look at what’s going to happen, whether it’s Iran — Iran will make a deal with us in a month after the election is over if we win the election. But their greatest dream in the world is that Joe Biden wins because they will own this country. China will own this country. North Korea will own this country. They will own our country.
And they’re all waiting to see the election. And if we make a — if we have a win in — on November 3rd, we will have a deal with, in my opinion, Iran within one month. And I don’t know that we want to have a deal with China, to be honest with you. So I’m saying to myself, “Gee…”
But China wants us to lose very badly. And you know who else is not happy with us winning? Russia. The phony people that tell the story, the fake-news stories about Russia — it was just reported, the numbers, I raised $400 billion extra in NATO. You know that. It went from $130 [billion] to $400 billion — and that’s a year — in order to strengthen up NATO. Nobody says that.
We became the biggest energy exporter. We are now — if you look at what we have, we’re energy independent. So many different things. Our military is stronger than it ever was. We spent $2.5 trillion on our military.
I exposed the terrible deal between Germany and Russia on the pipeline. Nobody even knew about the pipeline: Nord Stream — Nord Stream 2. Nobody knew about it. Nobody talked about it. I said, “What’s this all about?” So we protect Germany from Russia, and Germany pays Russia billions of dollars a year for energy — and it’s a big portion of Germany’s energy. If I was a person that was a German citizen, I would not be happy with that deal because they’re at a very big disadvantage.
So, no, Russia would not be happy. And I can tell you that China would not be happy at all.
And we’ve taken in tens of billions of dollars. There’s your head of the Treasury — Steve, right? We’ve taken in tens of billions of dollars from China. We never took 10 cents from China, never — not even 10 cents. And $28 billion we gave to our farmers because they were targeted by China. They were actually targeted. And we gave $28 billion, compliments of China, to our great farmers and ranchers because they were unfairly targeted by China in order to make a better deal with us. I said, “We’re not going to do that. We’re going to — instead of making a better deal, we’re going to tariff you at very high numbers: 25 percent, 10 percent, and actually numbers that could go up a lot.”
And we had a lot of money left over. After giving the $28 billion to — to the farmers and ranchers and some others, frankly, we — we had many, many billions of dollars left over, and we’re still receiving that money. Even though we made the deal, we’re still receiving that money.
So if — if we win the election, we’ll have deals with a lot of countries very fast. They’re just waiting to see who wins, because they are hoping — they are hoping that Joe Biden wins. Sleepy Joe. And if he wins, you know what’s going to happen? China will own us. Our markets will crash. The 401(k)s will go down to practically nothing. Stocks will go down to practically nothing.
Remember, stocks, there’s — these big companies, they’re owned by millions of people that are carpenters and policemen and farmers and lots of other people. And they are the ones that benefit by having a good stock market, probably more than anybody else.
But the 401(k)s, the stocks, the economy will be in a shambles. They want to raise taxes. They want to triple taxes. They want to raise the corporate tax, but they want to raise all taxes. Ultimately, they can’t pay for what they want to do anyway, and what they’re going to do is destroy your healthcare and destroy so many other things.
We’re going to have 180 million people that are so happy with their private healthcare; they’re going to lose it under this crazy plan that these people are proposing.
So you will have a crash like you’ve never seen before. And I’ve been very — I’ve been very good at predicting these things.
Yeah, please, go ahead.
{snip}
.
Yeah, please, go ahead.
Q Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. You just mentioned President Putin and the possibility of inviting him here because he’s important. Your own Director of National Intelligence has said that Russia is currently planning — or actually meddling in the election. Have you raised that directly with Putin ever?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they — they said China, Russia, Iran, and probably others. But because of the fake news, they seem to think Russia plays the best, so —
Q (Inaudible) about the DNI; it’s not news.
THE PRESIDENT: So what they do — it’s all right. Well, I’m just saying, the way the politicians — look, the other day, they said — the three countries — they said China and Russia and Iran. And some reporter got up and said, “Russia is meddling.” I said, “Well, didn’t it mention China and Iran? Why didn’t you mention them, too?”
Q Because you were referring to Putin just now, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: So, I don’t know. You know what I’m telling you? I’ll tell you who’s meddling in our elections: The Democrats are meddling by wanting and insisting on sending mail-in ballots that — where there’s corruption all over the place.
If you check what happened in New York — a small — relatively small race with Carolyn Maloney. And they called her the winner the other day because I was mentioning it at conferences and getting a lot of action on that statement.
So they called her; they declared her the winner. And they have no idea who won. And the person, her opponent, is very angry. But they had mail-in voting. And they had hundreds and, I think, even thousands of ballots that are missing, that were fraudulent.
Take a look at the Carolyn Maloney race. Take a look at Paterson, New Jersey. Take a look now at this one in Virginia, where they mailed out 500,000 applications, and they’re going to people that aren’t supposed to be getting an application.
Yeah, please. Go ahead.
{snip}
Q (Inaudible) if 160,000 people had died on President Obama’s watch, do you think you would have called for his resignation?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I wouldn’t have done that. I think it’s — I think it’s been amazing what we’ve been able to do. If we didn’t close up our country, we would have had one and a half or two million people already dead. We’ve called it right; now we don’t have to close it. We understand the disease.
Nobody understood it because nobody has ever seen anything like this. The closest thing is, in 1917, they say — right? The great — the great pandemic certainly was a terrible thing, where they lost, anywhere from 50- to 100 million people. Probably ended the Second World War; all the soldiers were sick. That was a — that was a terrible situation. And this is highly contagious. This one is highly, highly contagious.
No, if I would have listened to a lot of people, we would have kept it open. And, by the way, we keep it open now, all the way. We keep it open. But we would have kept it open and you could be up to a million and a half or two million people right now — one and a half to two million people.
Our people have done a fantastic job — our consultants and our doctors. You know, and with disagreements and with a lot of things happening.
What we’ve done with ventilators has been amazing. What we’ve done with medical equipment has been incredible. We’ve supplied the governors. Nobody, not one person in this country that needed a ventilator didn’t get it. And you know, at the beginning, there was a big shortage of ventilators. Nobody had stockpiles or anything comparable to what you had to have.
So we would have lost — if you think about it, you had mentioned 160,000 people. Multiply that times 10 right now. I think it would have been unsustainable and unacceptable. But that’s what would have happened had we kept it open.
So, no, I think we’re a very large country. We are — one person — and I say it all the time; a lot of people like to leave that out — one person is too many. It should have never happened.
But they’ve done a — really, an extraordinary job. They’ll never be given the credit — and I’m not talking about me. The people that have worked on this so hard will never be given the credit, but they’ve done an extraordinary job with a very large, diverse country. Really, an extraordinary job.
And a lot of the governors who, as you know, they sort of do the micro in their states, and they go up, and I think I can tell you that a lot of the governors have done an extraordinary job, too.
Yeah, please go ahead.
Q Mr. President, thank you. Did you ask the U.S. ambassador in Brazil to focus his efforts in eliminating ethanol tariffs in Brazil?
THE PRESIDENT: You have to — you can’t — yeah.
Q Did you ask the ambassador in Brazil to focus his efforts to lower, to eliminate ethanol tariffs in Brazil?
THE PRESIDENT: We haven’t really discussed that too much, but at some point we probably will be. And we don’t want people tariffing us. And if they tariff us —
Although, I must tell you, I have a very good relationship with President Bolsonaro. He’s great. He’s — and I hear he’s doing well. He’s recovered from having COVID. “Having COVID-19,” as they say. And that’s great. And send him my regards.
I think that, as far as Brazil is concerned, if they do tariffs, we have to have an equalization of tariffs. And we — we are going to be presenting something having to do with tariffs and fairness in tariffs because we have many countries, for many years, that have been charging us tariffs to do business and we don’t charge them. And it’s called “reciprocity.” It’s called “reciprocal tariffs.” And you may be seeing something on that very soon.
Did you have one, OAN?
Q (Inaudible) Brazil on coronavirus, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: OAN, please.
Q Thank you, Mr. President. First of all, thank you for coming back to finish the briefing —
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you.
Q — after the scuffle. So I have an opinion question for you.
THE PRESIDENT: Okay.
Q Joe Biden is set to announce his running mate. At any time now, we expect him to announce her.
Many of your supporters feel that the reason that Obama’s former NSA, Susan Rice, is at the top of — of Biden’s list is that she can best cover up a lot of the Obamagate surveillance crimes that have taken place during your campaign.
What are your thoughts? What is your opinion? Do you — do you subscribe to that line of thought? And how do you feel about it?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, look, the Obama campaign spied on our campaign. And they’ve been caught, all right? And now let’s see what happens to them. But they have been caught. They’ve been caught red-handed. It’s probably treason. It’s a horrible thing they did. It probably never happened before; at least nobody got caught doing it.
{the Obama campaign?}
But they used the intelligence agencies of our country to spy on my campaign, and they have been caught. And there are a lot of people involved. I don’t want to say how much she’s involved. Frankly, if he chooses her, that’s fine. But that’s a potential liability. We’ll see.
But President Obama knew about it. Joe Biden knew about it. Comey — (laughs) — knew about it. Brennan, Clapper, the whole group, they all knew about it. Lisa Page and her lover Strzok, they all knew about it.
And we have it documented. We have it in text. We have it in all sorts of forms. They knew about it. It was a terrible thing. It should have never happened and should never be allowed to happen again to a President. This should never happen again.
This was a setup like we’ve never seen. I think it’s the political crime of the century, and they’ve been caught. So let’s see what happens to them all.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
END
6:51 P.M. EDT
Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing | August 10, 2020
Issued on: August 11, 2020
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
5:48 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. I thought I’d start by talking about some mail-in voting that just was revealed — just the news. Half a million incorrect absentee ballot applications were sent all across the state of Virginia, including to many dead people. This was an unprecedented mailing flub that’s heightened concerns about the integrity of expanding mail-in voting and mail-in voting efforts. It’s a disaster — all over Virginia, half a million votes. So that’s something you have to think about.
{snip. No, this is not what happened.}
This just came out: half a million incorrect ballot applications sent all over the state of Virginia to many people that weren’t living. They had some sent to pets — dogs. This is what we’re going to get into, and it’s going to be a disaster. And it’s going to be thought of very poorly, and it’s going to hurt our country.
{snip. What the hell is he talking about?}
The Dow Jones and the S&P 500 are now up 50 percent since March — 50 percent. Think: If you had money in there, if you put your money in in March, you have 50 percent. The Nasdaq index continues to set new records. It’s been up over 14 times; new record in Nasdaq.
And the S&P 500 and the Dow — Dow Jones are going to be — I mean, the way they’re going, it looks like they’re just about going to be topping records, hopefully, soon.
SECRET SERVICE AGENT: Sir, we’re just going to have to step out in the hall (inaudible).
THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me?
SECRET SERVICE AGENT: We will step out outside. (Inaudible.)
Q What’s going on, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh. Excuse me.
(The press briefing is interrupted.)
(The press briefing resumes.)
THE PRESIDENT: So, thank you very much. Sorry for that. The — there was a shooting outside of the White House, and it seems to be very well under control. I’d like to thank the Secret Service for doing their always quick and very effective work. But there was an actual shooting, and somebody has been taken to the hospital. I don’t know the condition of the person. It seems that the person was — was shot by Secret Service. So, we’ll see what happens.
And, yeah, did you have something? Go ahead.
{snip}
But the — we’re looking at also considering a capital gains tax cut, which would create a lot more jobs. So we’re looking very seriously at a capital gains tax cut and also at an income tax cut for middle-income families. We’re looking at expanding the tax cuts that we’ve already done, but specifically for middle-income families, and you’ll be hearing about that in the upcoming few weeks, and I think it’ll be very exciting.
So, a capital gains tax is going to be — a lot of — a lot of people put to work, and it would be a cut in the capital gains tax and also a cut in the middle-income income tax.
{snip}
On Saturday, I took executive action in a signing to save American jobs and support American workers. I signed directives to give a payroll tax holiday, with the understanding that after the election — on the assumption that it would be victorious for an administration that’s done a great job — we will be ending that tax. We’ll be terminating that tax.
On the other hand, the other group wants to raise taxes, and they may want to leave it where you pay it.
But the payroll tax is a big deal for people. It’s a tremendous saving for people. And we’re going to be doing it, and we intend to terminate it at the end of the appropriate period of time. It’s for those making less than $100,000, through end of 2020, to provide an extra $400 per week.
{snip}
Jonathan, go ahead.
Q Thank you, Mr. President. In Ohio, a few days ago, you said, quote, Joe Biden has “hurt God”; “he’s against God.” The Vice President has said that he’s a man of deep Catholic faith, and he has credited it for helping him endure some immense personal tragedy. So, sir, what did you mean by that, when you said that Joe Biden has “hurt God” or is “against God”?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, if you look at the manifesto that that they’ve come up with, and if you look at their stance on religion and things having to do, very importantly, with aspects of religion and faith: I don’t think a man of deep religion would be agreeing to the Bernie Sanders plan. You take a look at what they have in, and you just — you can’t put that into the realm of a religious group of people, I will say that.
And I think it’s one of the reasons why, if you look at polls, which — I’m not a big believer in polls. I wouldn’t — if I was, I guess I wouldn’t be standing here right now.
And, by the way, our poll numbers are going up very rapidly, as you know, and Joe’s are going down very rapidly. He’ll have to come out of the basement, it looks like, pretty soon, because that — you know, it’s one of those things.
But, no, if you look at the manifesto — I call it the “manifesto.” A lot of people are calling it a “manifesto.” My opinion: It’s further left than where Bernie was before. So normally, he’d be left and you’d bring it somewhere a little bit toward the center. But some of the things that they have down there — and I’m not only talking in terms of religion; I’m not talking, even, in terms of religion — but some of the things they have in the agreement made — and this was an agreement made by Bernie Sanders and Joe — it’s a terrible thing. It would be a terrible thing for our country.
It will destroy our country. We will go into a depression. We will put on regulation. We will double and triple taxes. We will — it will be terrible for healthcare. Just terrible. You’ll have 180 million people lose their healthcare. It will be a terrible, terrible thing for our country.
Okay. Yeah, please, Jeff.
Q Thank you, sir. I’d like to ask you a question about something you said in Bedminster as well. You said that you’re planning to issue an executive order to ensure that health insurance companies prevent or cover people with pre-existing —
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q — conditions. And you said that that had “never been done before.” But that’s — that’s not the case because that is the law under the Affordable Care Act. So my question is: Why do you need to issue an executive order for a law —
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I said no —
Q — that is already existing?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Yeah, but, I didn’t say — I said, as an executive order. I — as you said, I said, as an executive order, it hasn’t been done before. We want to — we want to be able to assure people that pre-existing condition is always taken care of.
As you know, we’ve done tremendous things having to do with the individual mandate. We got rid of the individual mandate from Obamacare, which really ended Obamacare, as it would be officially known, because the individual mandate was the biggest part. It was also the most unpopular part — where you pay for a terri- — terrible privilege of overpaying for insurance. You pay not to have to pay for your healthcare. And that was a disaster for people, and a very unpopular — that was called the “individual mandate,” and we terminated that, and — officially terminated that. And that was something that we have been given thanks for by many, many people.
But the individual mandate will always be with us. The — the individual mandate termination will always be — they can’t start it up. In fact, I don’t even believe — you’ll have to tell me — I don’t believe it’s been challenged when we ended it.
And pre-existing conditions — the Republicans are 100 percent there. And I’ll be issuing, at some point in the not-too-distant future, a very strong statement on that, probably in the form of an executive order.
Q But why do you need, sir, to do an executive order if it’s already a part of existing law?
THE PRESIDENT: Just a double safety net, and just to let people know that the Republicans are totally, strongly in favor of pre-existing condition — taking care of people with pre-existing conditions.
It’s a — it’s a signal to people. It’s a second — it’s a second platform. We have — pre-existing conditions will be taken care of 100 percent by Republicans and the Republican Party. I think it’s a very — I actually think it’s a very important statement.
Yes, please.
{snip}
Go ahead, please.
Q Thank you, Mr. President. You tweeted earlier today that you’re considering Gettysburg as a —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
Q — venue for your speech for the RNC nomination acceptance. What’s your thinking behind that as a possible location?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think it’s — I’ve been to Gettysburg numerous times. It’s a national park; it’s a national historic site. It’s incredible. You know, it’s the history. It’s incredible, actually, to me. It was a very important place, and is a very important place in our country.
So we’re looking at that, and we’re looking at the White House. The White House would be very much easier for Secret Service. You see what just went on here. They’re all here. Just like you have your seats; they have their seats at the White House. So there wouldn’t be any expense or any extraordinary expense. And the White House would be a lovely place to do it, also.
Least expensive place that you could do it would be at the White House. If this is a government — a government expense and I — you know, look, I watch — also with government, I watch to make sure that we do what’s right.
But we’re looking at Gettysburg, and we’re looking at the White House. And we have other sites, too, but I think these would be two really beautiful sites.
John.
Q But if it were here or there, would you envision having an audience for that speech?
THE PRESIDENT: You could. You have plenty of room at both locations.
{snip}
No, we are upset with China because of what they did. China was not good. And China will be — if you look at what’s going to happen, whether it’s Iran — Iran will make a deal with us in a month after the election is over if we win the election. But their greatest dream in the world is that Joe Biden wins because they will own this country. China will own this country. North Korea will own this country. They will own our country.
And they’re all waiting to see the election. And if we make a — if we have a win in — on November 3rd, we will have a deal with, in my opinion, Iran within one month. And I don’t know that we want to have a deal with China, to be honest with you. So I’m saying to myself, “Gee…”
But China wants us to lose very badly. And you know who else is not happy with us winning? Russia. The phony people that tell the story, the fake-news stories about Russia — it was just reported, the numbers, I raised $400 billion extra in NATO. You know that. It went from $130 [billion] to $400 billion — and that’s a year — in order to strengthen up NATO. Nobody says that.
We became the biggest energy exporter. We are now — if you look at what we have, we’re energy independent. So many different things. Our military is stronger than it ever was. We spent $2.5 trillion on our military.
I exposed the terrible deal between Germany and Russia on the pipeline. Nobody even knew about the pipeline: Nord Stream — Nord Stream 2. Nobody knew about it. Nobody talked about it. I said, “What’s this all about?” So we protect Germany from Russia, and Germany pays Russia billions of dollars a year for energy — and it’s a big portion of Germany’s energy. If I was a person that was a German citizen, I would not be happy with that deal because they’re at a very big disadvantage.
So, no, Russia would not be happy. And I can tell you that China would not be happy at all.
And we’ve taken in tens of billions of dollars. There’s your head of the Treasury — Steve, right? We’ve taken in tens of billions of dollars from China. We never took 10 cents from China, never — not even 10 cents. And $28 billion we gave to our farmers because they were targeted by China. They were actually targeted. And we gave $28 billion, compliments of China, to our great farmers and ranchers because they were unfairly targeted by China in order to make a better deal with us. I said, “We’re not going to do that. We’re going to — instead of making a better deal, we’re going to tariff you at very high numbers: 25 percent, 10 percent, and actually numbers that could go up a lot.”
And we had a lot of money left over. After giving the $28 billion to — to the farmers and ranchers and some others, frankly, we — we had many, many billions of dollars left over, and we’re still receiving that money. Even though we made the deal, we’re still receiving that money.
So if — if we win the election, we’ll have deals with a lot of countries very fast. They’re just waiting to see who wins, because they are hoping — they are hoping that Joe Biden wins. Sleepy Joe. And if he wins, you know what’s going to happen? China will own us. Our markets will crash. The 401(k)s will go down to practically nothing. Stocks will go down to practically nothing.
Remember, stocks, there’s — these big companies, they’re owned by millions of people that are carpenters and policemen and farmers and lots of other people. And they are the ones that benefit by having a good stock market, probably more than anybody else.
But the 401(k)s, the stocks, the economy will be in a shambles. They want to raise taxes. They want to triple taxes. They want to raise the corporate tax, but they want to raise all taxes. Ultimately, they can’t pay for what they want to do anyway, and what they’re going to do is destroy your healthcare and destroy so many other things.
We’re going to have 180 million people that are so happy with their private healthcare; they’re going to lose it under this crazy plan that these people are proposing.
So you will have a crash like you’ve never seen before. And I’ve been very — I’ve been very good at predicting these things.
Yeah, please, go ahead.
{snip}
.
Yeah, please, go ahead.
Q Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. You just mentioned President Putin and the possibility of inviting him here because he’s important. Your own Director of National Intelligence has said that Russia is currently planning — or actually meddling in the election. Have you raised that directly with Putin ever?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they — they said China, Russia, Iran, and probably others. But because of the fake news, they seem to think Russia plays the best, so —
Q (Inaudible) about the DNI; it’s not news.
THE PRESIDENT: So what they do — it’s all right. Well, I’m just saying, the way the politicians — look, the other day, they said — the three countries — they said China and Russia and Iran. And some reporter got up and said, “Russia is meddling.” I said, “Well, didn’t it mention China and Iran? Why didn’t you mention them, too?”
Q Because you were referring to Putin just now, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: So, I don’t know. You know what I’m telling you? I’ll tell you who’s meddling in our elections: The Democrats are meddling by wanting and insisting on sending mail-in ballots that — where there’s corruption all over the place.
If you check what happened in New York — a small — relatively small race with Carolyn Maloney. And they called her the winner the other day because I was mentioning it at conferences and getting a lot of action on that statement.
So they called her; they declared her the winner. And they have no idea who won. And the person, her opponent, is very angry. But they had mail-in voting. And they had hundreds and, I think, even thousands of ballots that are missing, that were fraudulent.
Take a look at the Carolyn Maloney race. Take a look at Paterson, New Jersey. Take a look now at this one in Virginia, where they mailed out 500,000 applications, and they’re going to people that aren’t supposed to be getting an application.
Yeah, please. Go ahead.
{snip}
Q (Inaudible) if 160,000 people had died on President Obama’s watch, do you think you would have called for his resignation?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I wouldn’t have done that. I think it’s — I think it’s been amazing what we’ve been able to do. If we didn’t close up our country, we would have had one and a half or two million people already dead. We’ve called it right; now we don’t have to close it. We understand the disease.
Nobody understood it because nobody has ever seen anything like this. The closest thing is, in 1917, they say — right? The great — the great pandemic certainly was a terrible thing, where they lost, anywhere from 50- to 100 million people. Probably ended the Second World War; all the soldiers were sick. That was a — that was a terrible situation. And this is highly contagious. This one is highly, highly contagious.
No, if I would have listened to a lot of people, we would have kept it open. And, by the way, we keep it open now, all the way. We keep it open. But we would have kept it open and you could be up to a million and a half or two million people right now — one and a half to two million people.
Our people have done a fantastic job — our consultants and our doctors. You know, and with disagreements and with a lot of things happening.
What we’ve done with ventilators has been amazing. What we’ve done with medical equipment has been incredible. We’ve supplied the governors. Nobody, not one person in this country that needed a ventilator didn’t get it. And you know, at the beginning, there was a big shortage of ventilators. Nobody had stockpiles or anything comparable to what you had to have.
So we would have lost — if you think about it, you had mentioned 160,000 people. Multiply that times 10 right now. I think it would have been unsustainable and unacceptable. But that’s what would have happened had we kept it open.
So, no, I think we’re a very large country. We are — one person — and I say it all the time; a lot of people like to leave that out — one person is too many. It should have never happened.
But they’ve done a — really, an extraordinary job. They’ll never be given the credit — and I’m not talking about me. The people that have worked on this so hard will never be given the credit, but they’ve done an extraordinary job with a very large, diverse country. Really, an extraordinary job.
And a lot of the governors who, as you know, they sort of do the micro in their states, and they go up, and I think I can tell you that a lot of the governors have done an extraordinary job, too.
Yeah, please go ahead.
Q Mr. President, thank you. Did you ask the U.S. ambassador in Brazil to focus his efforts in eliminating ethanol tariffs in Brazil?
THE PRESIDENT: You have to — you can’t — yeah.
Q Did you ask the ambassador in Brazil to focus his efforts to lower, to eliminate ethanol tariffs in Brazil?
THE PRESIDENT: We haven’t really discussed that too much, but at some point we probably will be. And we don’t want people tariffing us. And if they tariff us —
Although, I must tell you, I have a very good relationship with President Bolsonaro. He’s great. He’s — and I hear he’s doing well. He’s recovered from having COVID. “Having COVID-19,” as they say. And that’s great. And send him my regards.
I think that, as far as Brazil is concerned, if they do tariffs, we have to have an equalization of tariffs. And we — we are going to be presenting something having to do with tariffs and fairness in tariffs because we have many countries, for many years, that have been charging us tariffs to do business and we don’t charge them. And it’s called “reciprocity.” It’s called “reciprocal tariffs.” And you may be seeing something on that very soon.
Did you have one, OAN?
Q (Inaudible) Brazil on coronavirus, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: OAN, please.
Q Thank you, Mr. President. First of all, thank you for coming back to finish the briefing —
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you.
Q — after the scuffle. So I have an opinion question for you.
THE PRESIDENT: Okay.
Q Joe Biden is set to announce his running mate. At any time now, we expect him to announce her.
Many of your supporters feel that the reason that Obama’s former NSA, Susan Rice, is at the top of — of Biden’s list is that she can best cover up a lot of the Obamagate surveillance crimes that have taken place during your campaign.
What are your thoughts? What is your opinion? Do you — do you subscribe to that line of thought? And how do you feel about it?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, look, the Obama campaign spied on our campaign. And they’ve been caught, all right? And now let’s see what happens to them. But they have been caught. They’ve been caught red-handed. It’s probably treason. It’s a horrible thing they did. It probably never happened before; at least nobody got caught doing it.
{the Obama campaign?}
But they used the intelligence agencies of our country to spy on my campaign, and they have been caught. And there are a lot of people involved. I don’t want to say how much she’s involved. Frankly, if he chooses her, that’s fine. But that’s a potential liability. We’ll see.
But President Obama knew about it. Joe Biden knew about it. Comey — (laughs) — knew about it. Brennan, Clapper, the whole group, they all knew about it. Lisa Page and her lover Strzok, they all knew about it.
And we have it documented. We have it in text. We have it in all sorts of forms. They knew about it. It was a terrible thing. It should have never happened and should never be allowed to happen again to a President. This should never happen again.
This was a setup like we’ve never seen. I think it’s the political crime of the century, and they’ve been caught. So let’s see what happens to them all.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
END
6:51 P.M. EDT