Thread by @RobertPLewis

POTUS Presser thread:

*interesting note - I've tried to tweet this 3x so far...let's see if not tagging POTUS in this one will allow the tweet to actually go out:

@POTUS starts at about 28mins & change in this link from The Hill:

*starts w/ the obligatory thank you's that I think we can gloss over

Governors have been mainly appreciative, not all, some need to do a better job themselves [Cuomo, NV]

Invoked DPA today to compel GE to get their shit together regarding the ventilators they promised
[I bet the union through a monkey wrench in that one]

Invocation of DPA should make clear they won't hesitate to invoke if needed

Will work in partnership w/ private sector...

but important we get to bottom line quickly & will exercise all avail lawful authorities to get the job done

Also signed bill investing dept of health & HHS with full authorities of DPA

Also establishes Pete Navarro in charge of DPA
-goes over some of his amazing credentials

Navarro:
We're engaged in the most significant economic and production mobilization since WWII

Had to invoke w/ GM today bc we need ventilators made, they're the most important thing for patients who become seriously ill

Virtually every company he's working with has been-

helpful and patriotic, but had a problem with GM and Venttec

We can't afford to lose a single day over the next 30-60d

POTUS invoked to move it along and get over the snag

POTUS:
Marshalling full power of the US Gov't, will continue until we vanquish the virus

Signing contracts w/ top ventilators co's in the US

FDA will be reducing & waiving unnecessary regs, clearing hurdles to speed that aren't needed

Normal condition 29k vents go out a yr-

in next 100d we'll make or get & send out over 100k addt'l units (plus the thousands already sent out). That's over 3x the number traditionally made in a year in the US

POTUS delivered to NY, who said they didn't know they got them [yeah right] and put others in a warehouse

Boeing will be donating face shields, thousands a week (they're going to begin producing new ones)

Boeing also offering use of their Dreamlifter cargo plan (largest plane in the world) for distribution

Boeing will dedicate up to 3 planes, carrying 60k lbs of cargo per plane

gave DoD & DHS right to activate IRR (Military Individual Ready Reserve), including retirees

Signed into law $2.2 trillion in relief
-goes to $6.2 tril depending on needs
-96-0 in Senate, essentially same in Congress

Thanks GOP & Dems [although we know the dirty tricks-

Nancy tried to get away with]

Legislation extends vital lifeline to American companies & workers, big focus on small biz, they're the energy & lifeline of our nation

We expand unemployment bennies for workers, direct cash payments going to US citizens, massive inc in funding-

for hospitals disaster relief fund + PPE

We have some interesting things happening in therapy & vaccine

Apple opened new COVID-19 app to help determine what you need, can download for free

Panera Bread company, McClain Global logistics both thanked for their help

POTUS says he's very proud to be our President
[we're proud to have you, @POTUS ]

As of a few days ago we've tested more than any other nation

Surveillance testing allows us to monitor spread

So we can mitigate new outbreaks

Wants every country & area to have on the ground intel they need to make real time decisions

Some are in great shape, some aren't, this will give us great info to help them battle

No effort will be spared in winning this war, we'll win soon-

and with as few lives lost as possible

We're going to be in very good shape w/ certain equipment that's very hard to get, we'll be working with other nations to get it to them if they need it

We'll take care of our needs but also help other countries

22d ago we had the greatest economy in the world, market at an all time high, and then we got hit by the "invisible enemy."

But we'll come out of this stronger, and we'll have fixed systems should this happen again

Q&A:
Q: negotiations w/ GM, what happened?
Not cost, we don't

want to get into cost. They built a lot of factories in other countries, didn't go into it with a favorable boom. They left Lordstown, Ohio, and I love Ohio. They closed all but 1 plant in Ohio, and I think that'd be a great place to build them. We were supposed to havce 40k vent

-ventilators and then they said only 6k, so I didn't like that very much.

Q: State quarantines and treatment: Govs in mult states have issued quarantine orders, have been intercepting ppl saying it's a recco of POTUS admin:

We're being very strong on quarantine, esp ppl

leaving states w/ big problems, going to others (NY esp).
We're not playing games

Q: invoking DPA, shortly after you tweeted this am GM said shortly after they'd found a plant. Why tweet after that happened?
It wasn't after, it was before. We have to get these ppl on board

We're not focusing on price, but we don't want them to be 3x-4x what they should be. They weren't talking right, but now they're talking right

Q: last night you told Hannity there wasn't a need for 30-40k vents, yet today you federalized GM:
I think there's a great chance we

won't need that many, but there are other countries who will and we're gonna help them. We can make them, and if we don't need we can help Italy, UK.
Q: Surplus will be...
Absolutely, they need them all over the world and we can make them

Q: Gov Cuomo said 30-40k vents were needed based on experts advising him, what are you basing your thoughts on that you don't need?
[First off, fuck this guy. Cuomo has proven that both he AND his "experts" are the level of dips hits we haven't seen in advisors since Hussein]

A: I think their estimates are high, they can be extremely high. If we don't need them, we can help ppl all over the world, but I think his estimates are gonna be very high.
Don't forget, we sent thousands to NY and they put them in a warehouse, never took them, they knew they

were there.

So we have to get ppl lined up. This is a magnitude ppl haven't seen before. They had thousands and they were still complaining.

We want to have so many, we have more than we need so we can send to other countries that can't make it themselves

Q: You also said Govs are not appreciative and suggested some aren't doing all they need to do, like the Govs are at fault
[AGAIN, day 1 civics: states rights, federalist society - the governors dropped the ball, this should have been handled by them]

I think we've done a great

job in Washington, and I think he's a failed Presidential candidate who leveled out at 0 in the polls, constantly tripping and complaining [Lolz]

We've done a great job for the great state of Washington, Michigan all she does is, she has no idea what's going on and blames it on-

Fed gov't.

Cuomo has said we've done a great job, I saw him thanking FEMA, DHS. He's been appreciative but a couple ppl aren't.

Followup: specifically what more do you want the Gov of Wash...
I want them to do..very simple, I want them to be appreciative. Don't say things-

that aren't true. Not talking about me, talking about VP, FEMA, task force. No country in the world could have done what Army Corps of Engineers has done and are doing.

They're renovating hotels, that should be for governors and states to do.

We have the Army Corps of

Engineers so T'd up, they're incredible people.

When somebody for political reasons wants to blame, I view that as blaming these incredible ppl.

Nobody's ever seen it, look at Javits, this incredible hospital boat that was supposed to be ready in 3 weeks, we were able to get it

done quickly, weeks ahead of schedule.

I think media & Govs should appreciate. Media's been good, most Govs have been good.

We've done a job like no ones ever seen.

Q: So it's the words, you're saying?
I think they should be appreciative. They're not appreciative to me, to-

Army, to FEMA, I don't think @VP sleeps anymore! I say don't call, it doesn't make any difference. He's a different type of person, he'll call quietly anyway.

He should be appreciative for the job he's done.

Q: Given the older Americans are advised to stay home & avoid travel, is it absolutely necessary for your to go to Norfolk tomorrow (for the USNS Comfort ceremony]
[F- this B-...if he doesn't go, they'll jump all over him for it. And she knows it, and he knows it]

No, but I have

spirit for the country, we have sailors & drs on the country. I think it's a good sign to have the US president there. They got it done fast, it's in great shape. I just feel like, as the leader of the country, I don't think it's the worst thing in the world, it's great if-

I go there. It's a good thing, doesn't mean i'm gonna be hugging & shaking ppls hands, but it sends a signal when the President can go there to say thank you.

Q: Stockpile: Yesterday you blamed your predecessor, saying that when you arrived "we took over an empty shell." -

You've been President over 3 yrs, why didn't you and your admin fill that shell?

We did, we did it twice. We've been distributing that for over a year. We've been filling it out, it's been filled many many times. Now we're doing something different. We fill it, then we take it-

and distribute it around. Now we do something new, saying go direct, they drop it off wherever it's needed. And we're finding it's a much better system. Yeah we started off with an empty shell.

Q: You spoke w/ Pres Xi yesterday, what did he tell you ie data he's gonna share and

how'd they get the number of cases to go down?

I had a great convo with Pres of China late in the night. Fascinating to me, different kind of world, diff model of gov't. Talked for at least an hour. I asked when he noticed, how it happened, when, what was most effective-

he's got and developed...bc he's ahead of us in time. It happened there long before here. He's developed some incredible theories, all of that information (data) is coming over here, we're gonna learn a lot from what China went through.

This invisible enemy has taken over the-

world, nobody wants to talk about trade. They're starting to buy very heavily from our farmers, but it's all about this.
And it prob should be mostly about this.

They have started very very large buying but what we mostly talked about was this. I also said how have you done-

with cures and vaccines, we discussed that. They're working on it hard, they have determined some interesting things. We talked alot about possible vaccines and possible cures.
We have various things happening right now in terms of vaccines and cures.

The vaccine thing, we're very close;

Q: did he ask you to suspend tariffs?
No, we're taking in billions of dollars

Q: Monday will end 15d. Do you expect to renew or modify guidelines?

I'll be sitting down with these brilliant (Dr. F & Dr. B) Monday and making a determination

Obv we're not doing it in NY, where a lot of things are happening. But possibly a lot of other parts of the country that are unaffected.

[If you're cynical as I am, you'd suggest to @POTUS to really, really enforce state lines as I'd expect the loonies of the leftist lunatics-

to hear that and purposely try to spread to areas as of yet unaffected]

Q: how long are we gonna have to live like this

IT depends, we want to flatten the curve at a min, we have to talk about areas that haven't been affected. But we don't want it to be long, but we also want it to be safe

Q: could it be months?
I hope not, I hope it'll disappear

sooner than that.

Q: United Air is worried there's not enough $ for them in the bill. At end of aid in Sept, they're worried they could see significant layoffs.
We have a tremendous amt of $ and brilliant ppl from Wall St w/ Mnunchin, top ppl in the world, and they're gonna

be dealing, i'm not gonna hire a political person who's never done it. Getting the most brilliant minds in the financial world, they'll be dealing with United, they want to help. Airline biz is tough, but important for our country. Also big for jobs. We'll be able to handle-

We'll have plenty of money. Will we end up owning big chunks? It's possible, or they'll make a better deal on the loan, or the taxpayers will end up owning part of their country.
Boeing was 1% of GDP, it was flawless and then they had all these problems.
But we have ppl like

Larry Fink (blackrock), they all love this country, they'll be able to work it out.

Followup: there's prob a tension to bringing companies back to economic help and protecting jobs, are you going to intervene?
To me, I'm in a much diff position as President than I would be as-

and investor. I want to preserve jobs but I also want to preserve the airlines. Saving the airlines is very important. Airlines were doing record biz a month before today. Last year was a record year, everyone was doing well.

I was presiding over most impressive economy in -

the entire world. I think we're going to have a very impressive 4th quarter, we're going to have an explosion upward, it's gonna be incredible

Q: Gov Desantis offered fewest restrictions yet has largest elderly pop. Is he handling responsibly?

I do bc he's a very talented guy-

everyone loves him, doing a fantastic job. Wasn't happy w/ ppl flying down from NY bc Fla's been doing a very good job at testing. I have tremendous confidence in him. He will get it all resolved.

Q: In letter to gov's (yesterday) you talked about ranking counties (High/med/low)

how are you going to enforce people not moving between high & low risk?
We have some very strong restrictions. But you're right, we have data coming on Monday. We can go to a higher level but that would take tough restrictions. We're going to meet Mon and we'll report back to-

the media.

Q: Millions of schoolkids home, bored, restless, learning online but better in classroom. What would you say to those kids who are watching right now from home?

[Ok, i've seen a clip of this, and damnit it makes me feel all 'MERICA so it gets its own tweet]

I would say that you are a citizen of the greatest country anywhere in the world. We were attacked, like nothing that's happened possibly since 1917, many years ago. And we're winning the battle and we're going to win the war and it's not gonna take hopefully that much longer...

But we have to win the war. And I would say that they have a duty to sit back, watch, behave, wash their hands, watch in the apartment with mom & dad, they [the reporter's kids] are lucky to have you as a father, and just learn from it. But they're, the young ppl have been

tremendous. Some are very happy not to go to school. But we've had no problem, they should sit back and be proud of our country. Ultimately we're doing it for them, more than anything else if you think about it.

The other thing that's nice & has come out, I learned this

it was reaffirmed by Pres Xi in my convo with him, the young ppl are really, it's incredible phenomena, they're attacked, successfully attacked, to a much lesser extent by this pandemic, this disease.
[OK HERE HE SAYS SOMETHING REALLY, REALLY INTERESTING - not sure if this is -

Trumpism, but it seems...IDK
"you can call is a disease, you can call it...I'm not sure if anyone really knows what to call it."

Huh, that. Well that's interesting.
@Bruno062418 @12BravoGran @JuliansRum @LisaMei62 @hmcd123 @Pipes2494 @taylordean13

Maybe you guys have an idea-

It's almost the younger they are, the better they do. Their immune system is stronger, but I'm really happy about that. But they have been attacked...for instance Spanish Flu, H1N1 (swine flu), those attacked very strongly kids.

Age is a factor, your kids should be in good shape

but tell them to be very proud of the country.

Followup: when does risk become acceptable to allow ppl to go back to their lives?

We're going to make that determination. And you'll have some input into that. A lot of the media has been fair, i'm not used to that and IDK how-

to handle that but most of the media's been fair.

Q: NY is currently epicenter. Yesterday Kellyanne blamed a lot of that on the mayor, bc he told ppl to go about life as normal, do you agree? Also congress prevented aid to your businesses, do you think that's fair?

Well that's not happening, I think they wrote us out, and -

it's allright but that's not happening. As far as mayor of NY. I'll be honest, didn't know him well, we're obv opposite persuasions. Only said high to each other a few times [before this]. But now I've spoken to him a lot, and we've had some really good discussions...

We've got him a lot of ppl, a medical center, at Elmhurst...boy, talk about an epicenter. That's epicenter of epicenter, close to where I grew up. Incredible to see.

I've spoken with mayor deBlasio alot in last week, we've helped a lot and I've gotten to like him a lot.

Today I spoke to him w/ SECDEF and we've gotten him a lot of what he needs, and he's happy. He's like us, working very hard.
My relationship w/ him over last couple of weeks has been excellent, I can't complain.

Q: a lot of talk about vents & PPE..what about hospital capacity?

[I'm so glad that got asked bc there's been so much #FakeNews about this]

Great question, we're adding through Army Corps of Engineers, though many states. Not just CA & NY. By the way Newsom has been great, hospital ships just went out.
Some of the govs have asked us to build-

hospitals, and you know normally this is done through local government...
[BECAUSE WE LIVE IN A FEDERALIST SOCIETY WHERE IT'S SUPPOSED TO WORK LIKE THAT BUT WE HAVE LAZY GOVERNORS]
...we wouldn't normally go in there to expand an existing hospital, but we're doing it now because-

we really are equipped to do it, we have incredible people. We're expanding hospitals, building many new hospitals, not just NY but NJ, CA, Wash despite my not being appreciate of the way their gov speaks.
We're doing a lot of expansions, taking over bldgs, going in an equipping-

it to make it "hospital functional." We're doing a lot of that, and they're doing a great job.

Q: You & your team have had classified briefings on pandemic, were the govs incl in the briefings in Jan & Feb?

They say I had classified briefings a long time ago, which wasn't -

true, but my understanding is that govs had that info a long ago.

Q: vents: cuomo says 21d...

Here's what we're gonna have. We're manufacturing now, acquiring a lot, buying a lot, we're taking them now, we have really talented, impressive ppl, we're gonna have plenty.

If for-

some reason we need more, we'll have the ability to make them.
we have over 10k in stockpile right now, but don't want to give out in case there's a mad rush and we need, but we gave them to an area that never needed them . We're prepared for things ppl have no idea that we'd

be prepared for. When I took over we had an empty box, broken system. I'm not blaming necessarily Obama, it went way before that, lots of Presidents who didn't prepare us for something like this.
We don't want to get into a situation where we deplete the stockpile and, like in NY

where they didn't need them, we're gonna have plenty. We're getting a lot of vents in the next short period of time. [The companies] are going around the clock...

Q: is that fast enough?
Let's put it this way. We've distributed thousands already. Normally this would be done by-

governors. I've had Govs tell me, "I can't believe you're able to do this." We're competing against states, but also many other countries.

Q: Are you able to guarantee states, hospitals that everyone who needs a vent will get one?
I think we're in really good shape...great-

shape. Number1 we've distributed vast numbers of vents, and we're prepared to do masses more. I think we're gonna be in really good shape.

Followup: SO everyone who needs one will be able to get one [he's being a douchenozzle at this point, trying to back POTUS into a corner...

But NOBODY PUTS @POTUS IN A CORNER]
Look, don't be a cutie pie. Nobody's ever done what we've done. And everything we took over was a mess. We had bad testing, stockpile, so I wouldn't tell me like you're being a wise guy.

[And this is why we love @realDonaldTrump . Don't take -

no shize, sir]

Q: PPL already talking about need for phase 4, do you?

The states have been hurt very badly. but the beautiful thin about our country, it's $6.4 trillion, but we can handle that. And we can handle...I watched Jerome Powell the other day saying we're gonna-

do what we have to do, and we'll do whatever we have to do.

followup: what would you say priority is?
Lives, safety and then the economy

Q: Easter, it seems like it's pushing longer?
It's your life, your safety, our country, but we have to take care of ppl. At the same time we-

have to get them out, and they want to get out. Our country was built on that

Q: both WHO and your health officials today said any treatment we use should be scientifically demonstrated effective, but you've said Chloroquine could be used very soon. So is the WHO and your -

health officials wrong?

[Ok this guy's still be a douche nozzle, but at least this question is much less douche nozzle-y than most of the other questions up to yesterday]

So Hydroxychloroquine, which is supposed to be the better of the 2, seems to have some good backing,

we're gonna see.
We've given gov cuomo 10k units and they're testing. it's a malaria & arthritis drug and works great for those. They're testing 10k units, and I want to thank the FDA bc they approved it for use immediately based on its use in the other things.
So, hydroxy-

chloroquine is a very powerful and successful drugs, and there's reason to think it will be successful here.
The reason I disagree w/ you, and reason I think Dr. F would disagree w/ me, is because we have a pandemic here. We have ppl dying now. If we're gonna go into labs and -

test for a very long time, we can go to people who are dying right now. If it works, we've done a great thing. If it doesn't work, we tried.
But this is not something that's going to kill ppl. So we can go in and test and take a long time.
When I talked to the FDA they said we-

can start working on it, and it'll take a year.
And I said, we don't have a year, we have to have it tonight.
If we don't have it tonight...it's on the market already.
You're talking about people who in many cases are dying, so we want to...it's sort of like Right to Try

For 44 years or more they couldn't get it approved. But now if we have someone who's terminally ill, we can use it. Which, after this is done you should write an article about bc we've had tremendous results.

Q: Just popped on WSJ, headline: Trump admin says it will postpone import tarriffs for 3 months according to admin officials. True or not true?

Nobody talked to me about that, more #FakeNews , John.

Look, they've not even talked to me. The only ones I heard that from...

for example China pays 25 % interest on $250bn of goods they send in, that's a lot. Everybody keeps asking if I"m going to suspend tarriffs.
But President Xi didn't even bring it up last night, it wasn't even discussed. That's #FakeNews , tell the @WSJ . You know the WSJ does-

a lot of #FakeNews too. It's pretty amazing.

I want to leave you by thanking you for being here, I want to thank the American ppl and all of those who have helped so much. And I'm going to give the podium to @VP

who's been incredible. And if he's tired and he's not answering questions like he should, we have a great reason, because he hasn't slept in about 4 weeks.

But I want to thank him, because he's such a dedicated person. I want to thank everyone on the TF

Ok guys & gals, I hope this helped. I've got to go feed my family...

@POTUS , out!!!

If you want the rest, link to video in the first tweet of this thread, i'm stopping at 1:29:48