REMARKS

Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing | August 4, 2020
Issued on: August 4, 2020

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

6:07 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. Thank you very much. Let me begin by sending America’s deepest sympathies to the people of Lebanon, where reports indicate that many, many people were killed, hundreds more were very badly wounded in a large explosion in Beirut. Our prayers go out to all the victims and their families. The United States stands ready to assist Lebanon. I have a very good relationship with the people of Lebanon, and we will be there to help. It looks like a terrible attack.

{snip rambling word salad}

And I want to thank you all for being here. We’ll take a few questions.

Yeah, please.

Q Mr. President, I wanted to ask you about Kodak. You had a big announcement the other day about getting Kodak into the pharmaceutical business, but the SEC is now investigating what happened. Can you say a word or two whether you think that there might have been some kind of a problem in terms of how those arrangements were made? Is there any grounds for concern, from your perspective?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I don’t know. I wasn’t involved in the deal. The concept of the deal is good, but I’ll let you know. We’ll — we’ll do a little study on that, and we’ll find out.

Q Okay. And —

THE PRESIDENT: If there’s — if there is any problem, we’ll let you know about it very quickly, but I wasn’t involved in it.

It’s a big deal. It’s a way of bringing back a great area, too, in addition to the pharmaceuticals. Kodak has been a great name, but obviously pretty much in a different business. And so we’ll see what that’s all about, but we’ll — we’ll let you know very quickly.

Yeah, please.

Q I just wanted to follow up, before I ask a coronavirus question, on Lebanon. You called this an “attack.” Are you confident that this was an attack and not an accident?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, it would seem like it, based on the explosion. I’ve met with some of our great generals, and they just seem to feel that it was. This was not a — some kind of a manufacturing explosion type of event. This was a — seems to be, according to them — they would know better than I would, but they seem to think it was a attack. It was a bomb of some kind. Yes.

Q Interesting. And, on coronavirus, you’ve talked a lot about — when you talk about the mortality rate, the deaths as a proportion of cases, which — I understand that is significant when you look at how deadly the virus is or how good a country does at keeping people alive —

THE PRESIDENT: Right.

Q — who get infected. But when you’re talking about the scope of this virus, when you look at the percentage of the population that’s died, there’s only three countries that have more deaths than the U.S. So how do you explain that: that — why the percentage of the population who has died is so much higher in the U.S.?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think, actually, the numbers are lower than others. I’ll get back to you on that. But we, proportionately, are lower than almost all countries. We’re at the bottom of the list.

And we’re — relative to cases, also, we’re at the bottom of the list, which is a good thing, being at the bottom of the list. But I can get back to you. We have about four or five different lists on that. And we’re, generally speaking, at the very bottom of the list. So, I’ll get back to you.

Q Because when I — when I look at the Johns Hopkins, you know, Coronavirus Resource Center on their website, it says the most affected countries, when you look at deaths per 100,000 people of the population — so how many people in the population have died — you have the UK, Peru, Chile, and then the U.S.

You know, Canada has 8,000, 9,000 deaths. Obviously, they’re smaller than us, but that’s only 6 percent of the population. You know, that’s 6 percent of our total cases. So why are the deaths so much higher in the U.S.?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, a lot of our numbers were based on the — New York had a very tough time, as you know. New York, New Jersey — that area. And when you take them out — just as an example, take a look at Florida, relative to New York.

That’s not to say anything wrong with New York. It was just a very tough place. People are close together. It’s crowded. It’s — it’s not easy.

But when you take that out, our numbers are among the lowest. And even with it in — I will get back to you, but we have among the lowest numbers. They’ve done a fantastic job on it.

Yeah, please. Go ahead.

{snip}

Okay. Please, go ahead.

Q And if I could, on the election, sir — can I —

Q President Trump, on the sale of TikTok, you’re basically arguing that the U.S. government is going to collect a cut from a — of a transaction including two companies, in which it doesn’t hold a stake in.

That’s unprecedented. That’s never happened in U.S. history before, and the administration has offered very little explanation about how that’s going to work. Can you back your statement up and provide specifics about how that would work?

THE PRESIDENT: Did you say, “That’s impressive”? Did you actually use that term?

Q I said it’s “unprecedented.”

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, unpre- — well, it’s almost the same thing. Not quite. I like “im-“ — (laughter) — I like “impressive.” I like “impressive” much better. Not quite, but close.

So, TikTok — TikTok is very successful. It does tremendous business in the United States. People are riveted by it. I mean, I have many friends — when they saw that announcement, they’re calling. And I think their kids love it; they don’t. Because they don’t get to see their kids anymore, but they are — it’s an amazing thing, whatever it may be.

And I told Microsoft — and, frankly, others — if they want to do it, if they make a deal for TikTok — whether it’s the 30 percent in the United States or the whole company, I say, “It’s okay. But if you do that, we’re really making it possible because we’re letting you operate here.”

So the United States Treasury would have to benefit also, not just the — not just the sellers. And I said, “Inform…” —

Q (Inaudible) through a tax, or how?

THE PRESIDENT: Very simple. I mean we have — we have all the cards because, without us, you can’t come into the United States. It’s like if you’re a landlord, and you have a tenant. The tenant’s business needs a rent; it needs a lease. And so what I said to them is, “Whatever the price is, a very big proportion of that price would have to go to the Treasury of the United States.”

And they understood that. And actually, they agreed with me. I mean, I think they agreed with me very much.

Yeah, please. In the back.

Q Thank — thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: So that deal may or may not happen. We’ve give- — given them until September 15th or so, and we’ll see.

If we can have it and there can be great security — meaning, the obvious security — Microsoft would be a company that would be good in that respect. They’re approved in that respect at many levels, including working with the Department of Defense. And, you know, they’re very high-level approvals. So it would be good, but there are other companies also.

Yes, please.

Q Thank you, sir. Have you or the — anyone in the administration reached out to other companies, aside from Microsoft, to see if they’re interested in —

THE PRESIDENT: No, we’ve had other companies call us, and Microsoft called me directly. And we’ve had other companies call. I don’t know where they are. It sounds like Microsoft is along the way of doing something. I don’t blame them. It’d be — you know, it’s great company. It’s really a great company.

But we cannot take the security risks of any of those companies — including Huawei, which as you know, we put a halt to. But we can’t take the security risk.

I think our attitude on China has changed greatly since the China virus hit us. I think it changed greatly. It hit the world, and it shouldn’t have. They should have been able to stop it. So, we feel differently. I just don’t know. When you lose —

Q Can you say what other companies?

THE PRESIDENT: — when you lose so many thousands of people, and — you know, ultimately, it’ll be millions of people around the world. It’s a terrible thing that happened to the United States and Europe and the entire world. Really a terrible thing.

Yes, please. Go ahead.

{snip}

Q Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. I wanted to ask you first about what you tweeted out earlier today, in regards to Florida, and your comfortableness, as it relates to mail-in ballots —

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

Q — for Florida. What —

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, I’m glad you’re asking.

Q Why does that apply to Florida and it doesn’t apply to mail-in balloting across the country?

THE PRESIDENT: So Florida has got a great Republican governor, and it had a great Republican governor. It’s got Ron DeSantis, Rick Scott — two great governors. And over a long period of time, they’ve been able to get the absentee ballots done extremely professionally. Florida is different from other states.

I mean, in Nevada, where you have a governor — he said, “Let’s just send out millions of ballots,” and the Post Office cannot be prepared; I haven’t spoken to the Post Office about it, but I don’t know how they could possibly be prepared.

Florida has been working on this for years. And they have a very good system of mail-in — and that would be absentee or even beyond absentee. So, in the case of Florida, there aren’t too many people that would qualify.

They’re so well-run. Florida is a very well-run state: low taxes, low everything. They’ve done a great job, really a great job. And the two governors, between the both of them, they’ve really got a great system of absentee ballots and even the — even in the case of mail-in ballots, the postal services have built up their — you know, it takes a long time.

When you look at the Carolyn Maloney election, I think they — and I’ll give you the story: I think you have to do that election over. That election is no good. You have to take a look.

In New York, they have thousands of ballots. They don’t know what happened to them. Is there fraud? Is there — it’s a disaster. And that’s only for a relatively small number of ballots. But I think they have to do the election in New York over.

The Times wrote a big story about it yesterday. Front page story. It’s a disaster. It’s a mess. And they have to do that — I think they have to do that election over. Nobody can know what the election result is.

So, in the case of Florida, they’ve done a great job and they’ve had tremendous success with it. But they’ve been doing this over many years, and they’ve made it really terrific.

So, for Florida, you can mail in your ballots. You don’t have to go. In maybe a couple of other states, they’ve worked out a system, but this took years to do. This doesn’t take weeks or months.

In the case of Nevada, they’re going to be voting in a matter of weeks. And you can’t do that. I can’t imagine the Post Office could do it. All of sudden, they’re supposed to be dealing in millions of ballots?

But Florida has done a great job, and we have total confidence that if you mail in your ballot in Florida, it’s going to matter.

Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you very much.

END

6:40 P.M EDT