Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Trump's Remarks in Press Briefing, Bedminster, NJ; August 7, 2020
Yeah, but....
REMARKS
Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing | Bedminster, NJ
Issued on: August 8, 2020
Trump National Golf Club
Bedminster, New Jersey
August 7, 2020
7:34 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. And it’s a great honor to have everybody here. And I know the press was not quite expecting this, so I appreciate your being able to attend. We have a terrific number of things, and some very positive things to tell you tonight.
I want to begin by giving an update on the economy. Economic health is vital to public health. That’s why our strategy to kill the China virus has focused on protecting those at greatest risk while allowing younger and healthy Americans to safely return to work and safely return to school. Very important.
We added 1.8 million new jobs in July, exceeding predictions for the third month in a row, and adding a total of over 9.3 million jobs since May. And I will say that the job growth that we’ve seen over the last three months — 9.3 million — is the single greatest three-month period of job creation in American history. That’s big stuff. That’s big news and great news.
Over the past three months, the United States has surpassed market expectations by a total of 12 million new jobs. Over the last three months, the United States has added 623,000 manufacturing jobs. Remember “You’d need a magic wand to get manufacturing jobs”? And we’re getting them even in a pandemic — which is disappearing; it’s going to disappear.
And 639,000 brand-new construction jobs. Over half of the new jobs are fulltime jobs, and wages are up by 4.8 percent, which is terrific. Unemployment has fallen by nearly 30 percent since April. Think of that: 30 percent since April.
{snip}
So, with that, I’ll take a few questions from the media. They’ve been here for a long time, and they’ve been waiting outside for a long time. And they wait for these moments. So it was a lot of fun. (Laughter.)
Please, go ahead.
{snip}
Jeff, go ahead.
Q Thank you, sir. Mr. President, the intelligence agencies today said that Russia is already meddling in this year’s election to hurt Joe Biden, and that China is considering meddling to hurt you. Do you believe that intelligence? And what do you plan to do about it?
THE PRESIDENT: It could be. I mean, it could be — very much. I think that the last person Russia wants to see in office is Donald Trump because nobody has been tougher on Russia than I have, ever.
Q That’s not what the intelligence is showing, though.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I don’t care what anybody says. Nobody — nobody with any common sense would say, do — look at what we’ve done with our military. Look at what we’ve done in exposing the pipeline with billions of dollars going to Russia. Look at all of the things we’ve done with NATO, where I’ve raised $130 billion a year from countries that were delinquent, and now they’re paying all of this money. And the 130, by the way — $130 billion — not “million,” “billion” — goes to $400 billion over a few years. And that’s all money to protect against Russia.
China would love us to have an election where Donald Trump lost to Sleepy Joe Biden. They would dream — they would own our country. If Joe Biden was President, China would own our country. And you said another country? What was the third country?
Q No, just those two. And do you —
THE PRESIDENT: No, no. You didn’t — you didn’t say then the report. The report said Iran, also. But you didn’t say that.
Q I didn’t say that.
THE PRESIDENT: Iran would love to see me — Iran would love to see me not be President. And I’ll make the statement: If and when we win, we will make deals with Iran very quickly. We’ll make deals with North Korea very quickly.
And whatever happened to the word “North Korea”? You haven’t seen that, have you? If I didn’t win the election in 2016, our country would now be — maybe it would be over by now, but in war with North Korea. Everybody said, “Oh, Trump will get us in war.” No, just the opposite.
And we actually have a relationship with North Korea, which is something that — it was never established by the previous administration. You would have been in war with North Korea, and it would have been a very bad war.
So North Korea — whether you look at Iran — every one of them will make a deal with us very quickly. Iran is dying to make a deal, but they want to see because they’d much rather make a deal with Biden. Because if they make a deal with the United States, if China makes a deal with the United States with Biden in charge, they would own our country.
Look what I’ve done. I’ve taken billions — tens of billions of dollars from China. China was having the worst year they’ve had in 67 years, and we were having the best year we’ve ever had — with big tax cuts, with big regulation cuts. We’ve rebuilt our military. We became independent, in terms of energy. We’re the energy leader of the world. We were having the best year we’ve ever had.
By the way, African American, Asian American, Hispanic American unemployment numbers — the best in the history of our country. All things — and many other groups, too — including women; including high school diploma, no high school diploma, college diploma. Everybody was doing better.
The last thing that Russia wants and China wants and Iran wants would be for Donald Trump to win.
Yes, please. Go ahead.
Q Just to follow up, what do you plan to do about that interference, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’re going to look at it very closely. You’re telling me that this came out a little while ago, and I’ve heard that it came out. It came out just a little while ago, and we’re going to look at that very closely.
But you started off with Russia.
Q Russia on —
THE PRESIDENT: Why don’t you start off with China? Do you think China is may be a bigger threat? I mean, I think maybe it is. I mean, you’ll have to figure it out. But we’re going to watch all of them. We have to be very careful.
The biggest risk that we have is mail-in ballots because with the mail-in ballots — it’s called “universal mail-in ballots” — it’s much — it is a much easier thing for a foreign power, whether it’s Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, many others, people — countries you wouldn’t expect — it’s much easier for them to forge ballots and send them in. It’s much easier for them to cheat with universal mail-in ballots.
So I think one of the things we’ll have to look at is exactly that, but that’s a big problem. That’s a big problem. You saw, in New York, they called a winner, but they have no idea what the vote is.
Please, go ahead.
Q Mr. President, we’ve watched these negotiations go on for weeks. Do you think if you had been more directly involved, we would be in a different position than we are today?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I’m totally involved. No, I — they call me all the time. They they tell me how they’re doing with Nancy and Chuck. But in my opinion, they’re just using it as an excuse to try and — you know, Chuck Schumer came out with a strong statement today that you have to get back into school because it’s good for the economy, but he has — he doesn’t do it. He doesn’t practice what he preaches.
No, my people — Steve Mnuchin and our wonderful Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows — they’re constantly on the phone with me. I’m totally involved with it. And we are going to do it in a way that’s just much easier. We gave them their chance, but they view it as an election enhancement.
You know, you talk about foreign countries cheating on the election. Well, the Democrats are cheating on the election because that’s exactly what they’re doing. If you look at what they’re doing, even with these negotiations, that’s an influence and an unfair influence on an election. But we’re going to win anyway.
Yeah. Please go ahead.
Q Mr. President, when was the last time your spoke to Speaker Pelosi, though? We’re at this historic moment. Why haven’t you spoken to her?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’ll see. We’ll see what happens, but right now they’re not ready. And they’re not ready because, frankly, I don’t think they care about people. I think they care about their politicians that have done a terrible job running the cities and states — Democrat cities and states that are bleeding money, that have been so badly run.
You take a look at Baltimore and you take a look at so many different cities, including the ones I’ve already mentioned. Take a look at what’s going on. And they want lots of money to keep — keep it going. For many years, they’ve been bad.
So all I’m doing is we’re having it out. We’re finally having it out.
Yeah, please.
Q Mr. President, if you go ahead on your own on unemployment insurance, I’m wondering both where you’re going to get the money to pay for that without Congress and will people still get $600 a week?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, we have the money. We have the money. Yeah.
Q They’ll still get $600 a week, in addition?
THE PRESIDENT: I won’t say that yet. You’ll see that when it happens, but we have the money.
Q Will you say what number they would —
THE PRESIDENT: We have it, Justin. We have plenty of money.
Yeah. Please go ahead.
Q Thank you, Mr. President. You said that the pandemic is disappearing, but we lost 6,000 Americans this week. And just in this room, you have dozens of people are not following the guidelines in New Jersey which say you should not have more than 25 people —
THE PRESIDENT: No, they don’t have to. This is a political activity.
Q So why are you setting a — why are you setting such a bad example, Mr. President, for the country?
AUDIENCE: Booo —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. You’re wrong on that because it’s a political activity. They have exceptions. Political activity.
Q (Inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: And it’s also a peaceful protest. So when you have an — and as you know —
AUDIENCE: (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: It’s a peaceful protest. They asked if they could be here.
You know, they — a number of — and, to me, they look like they all have — pretty much all have masks on. But, you know, you have an exclusion in the law. It says “peaceful protest” or “political activity,” right? In fact, specifically — yeah. It says — exactly — “political activity” or “peaceful protests.”
And you can call it “political activity,” but I’d — I’d call it “peaceful protests” because they heard you were coming up. And they know the news is fake. They understand it better than anybody.
AUDIENCE: (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: They asked whether or not — they asked whether or not they could be here. Like the question about Russia. He doesn’t mention Iran was in the report. He doesn’t mention — or he mentions very late that China was in the report —
AUDIENCE MEMBER: China wants Biden!
THE PRESIDENT: — because that’s the way they are. They’re not —
If the press in this country were honest, if it wasn’t corrupt, if it wasn’t fake, our country would be so much further ahead. But we’re doing really great.
AUDIENCE: (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. Thank you.
END
8:14 P.M. EDT
Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing | Bedminster, NJ
Issued on: August 8, 2020
Trump National Golf Club
Bedminster, New Jersey
August 7, 2020
7:34 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. And it’s a great honor to have everybody here. And I know the press was not quite expecting this, so I appreciate your being able to attend. We have a terrific number of things, and some very positive things to tell you tonight.
I want to begin by giving an update on the economy. Economic health is vital to public health. That’s why our strategy to kill the China virus has focused on protecting those at greatest risk while allowing younger and healthy Americans to safely return to work and safely return to school. Very important.
We added 1.8 million new jobs in July, exceeding predictions for the third month in a row, and adding a total of over 9.3 million jobs since May. And I will say that the job growth that we’ve seen over the last three months — 9.3 million — is the single greatest three-month period of job creation in American history. That’s big stuff. That’s big news and great news.
Over the past three months, the United States has surpassed market expectations by a total of 12 million new jobs. Over the last three months, the United States has added 623,000 manufacturing jobs. Remember “You’d need a magic wand to get manufacturing jobs”? And we’re getting them even in a pandemic — which is disappearing; it’s going to disappear.
And 639,000 brand-new construction jobs. Over half of the new jobs are fulltime jobs, and wages are up by 4.8 percent, which is terrific. Unemployment has fallen by nearly 30 percent since April. Think of that: 30 percent since April.
{snip}
So, with that, I’ll take a few questions from the media. They’ve been here for a long time, and they’ve been waiting outside for a long time. And they wait for these moments. So it was a lot of fun. (Laughter.)
Please, go ahead.
{snip}
Jeff, go ahead.
Q Thank you, sir. Mr. President, the intelligence agencies today said that Russia is already meddling in this year’s election to hurt Joe Biden, and that China is considering meddling to hurt you. Do you believe that intelligence? And what do you plan to do about it?
THE PRESIDENT: It could be. I mean, it could be — very much. I think that the last person Russia wants to see in office is Donald Trump because nobody has been tougher on Russia than I have, ever.
Q That’s not what the intelligence is showing, though.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I don’t care what anybody says. Nobody — nobody with any common sense would say, do — look at what we’ve done with our military. Look at what we’ve done in exposing the pipeline with billions of dollars going to Russia. Look at all of the things we’ve done with NATO, where I’ve raised $130 billion a year from countries that were delinquent, and now they’re paying all of this money. And the 130, by the way — $130 billion — not “million,” “billion” — goes to $400 billion over a few years. And that’s all money to protect against Russia.
China would love us to have an election where Donald Trump lost to Sleepy Joe Biden. They would dream — they would own our country. If Joe Biden was President, China would own our country. And you said another country? What was the third country?
Q No, just those two. And do you —
THE PRESIDENT: No, no. You didn’t — you didn’t say then the report. The report said Iran, also. But you didn’t say that.
Q I didn’t say that.
THE PRESIDENT: Iran would love to see me — Iran would love to see me not be President. And I’ll make the statement: If and when we win, we will make deals with Iran very quickly. We’ll make deals with North Korea very quickly.
And whatever happened to the word “North Korea”? You haven’t seen that, have you? If I didn’t win the election in 2016, our country would now be — maybe it would be over by now, but in war with North Korea. Everybody said, “Oh, Trump will get us in war.” No, just the opposite.
And we actually have a relationship with North Korea, which is something that — it was never established by the previous administration. You would have been in war with North Korea, and it would have been a very bad war.
So North Korea — whether you look at Iran — every one of them will make a deal with us very quickly. Iran is dying to make a deal, but they want to see because they’d much rather make a deal with Biden. Because if they make a deal with the United States, if China makes a deal with the United States with Biden in charge, they would own our country.
Look what I’ve done. I’ve taken billions — tens of billions of dollars from China. China was having the worst year they’ve had in 67 years, and we were having the best year we’ve ever had — with big tax cuts, with big regulation cuts. We’ve rebuilt our military. We became independent, in terms of energy. We’re the energy leader of the world. We were having the best year we’ve ever had.
By the way, African American, Asian American, Hispanic American unemployment numbers — the best in the history of our country. All things — and many other groups, too — including women; including high school diploma, no high school diploma, college diploma. Everybody was doing better.
The last thing that Russia wants and China wants and Iran wants would be for Donald Trump to win.
Yes, please. Go ahead.
Q Just to follow up, what do you plan to do about that interference, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’re going to look at it very closely. You’re telling me that this came out a little while ago, and I’ve heard that it came out. It came out just a little while ago, and we’re going to look at that very closely.
But you started off with Russia.
Q Russia on —
THE PRESIDENT: Why don’t you start off with China? Do you think China is may be a bigger threat? I mean, I think maybe it is. I mean, you’ll have to figure it out. But we’re going to watch all of them. We have to be very careful.
The biggest risk that we have is mail-in ballots because with the mail-in ballots — it’s called “universal mail-in ballots” — it’s much — it is a much easier thing for a foreign power, whether it’s Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, many others, people — countries you wouldn’t expect — it’s much easier for them to forge ballots and send them in. It’s much easier for them to cheat with universal mail-in ballots.
So I think one of the things we’ll have to look at is exactly that, but that’s a big problem. That’s a big problem. You saw, in New York, they called a winner, but they have no idea what the vote is.
Please, go ahead.
Q Mr. President, we’ve watched these negotiations go on for weeks. Do you think if you had been more directly involved, we would be in a different position than we are today?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I’m totally involved. No, I — they call me all the time. They they tell me how they’re doing with Nancy and Chuck. But in my opinion, they’re just using it as an excuse to try and — you know, Chuck Schumer came out with a strong statement today that you have to get back into school because it’s good for the economy, but he has — he doesn’t do it. He doesn’t practice what he preaches.
No, my people — Steve Mnuchin and our wonderful Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows — they’re constantly on the phone with me. I’m totally involved with it. And we are going to do it in a way that’s just much easier. We gave them their chance, but they view it as an election enhancement.
You know, you talk about foreign countries cheating on the election. Well, the Democrats are cheating on the election because that’s exactly what they’re doing. If you look at what they’re doing, even with these negotiations, that’s an influence and an unfair influence on an election. But we’re going to win anyway.
Yeah. Please go ahead.
Q Mr. President, when was the last time your spoke to Speaker Pelosi, though? We’re at this historic moment. Why haven’t you spoken to her?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’ll see. We’ll see what happens, but right now they’re not ready. And they’re not ready because, frankly, I don’t think they care about people. I think they care about their politicians that have done a terrible job running the cities and states — Democrat cities and states that are bleeding money, that have been so badly run.
You take a look at Baltimore and you take a look at so many different cities, including the ones I’ve already mentioned. Take a look at what’s going on. And they want lots of money to keep — keep it going. For many years, they’ve been bad.
So all I’m doing is we’re having it out. We’re finally having it out.
Yeah, please.
Q Mr. President, if you go ahead on your own on unemployment insurance, I’m wondering both where you’re going to get the money to pay for that without Congress and will people still get $600 a week?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, we have the money. We have the money. Yeah.
Q They’ll still get $600 a week, in addition?
THE PRESIDENT: I won’t say that yet. You’ll see that when it happens, but we have the money.
Q Will you say what number they would —
THE PRESIDENT: We have it, Justin. We have plenty of money.
Yeah. Please go ahead.
Q Thank you, Mr. President. You said that the pandemic is disappearing, but we lost 6,000 Americans this week. And just in this room, you have dozens of people are not following the guidelines in New Jersey which say you should not have more than 25 people —
THE PRESIDENT: No, they don’t have to. This is a political activity.
Q So why are you setting a — why are you setting such a bad example, Mr. President, for the country?
AUDIENCE: Booo —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. You’re wrong on that because it’s a political activity. They have exceptions. Political activity.
Q (Inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: And it’s also a peaceful protest. So when you have an — and as you know —
AUDIENCE: (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: It’s a peaceful protest. They asked if they could be here.
You know, they — a number of — and, to me, they look like they all have — pretty much all have masks on. But, you know, you have an exclusion in the law. It says “peaceful protest” or “political activity,” right? In fact, specifically — yeah. It says — exactly — “political activity” or “peaceful protests.”
And you can call it “political activity,” but I’d — I’d call it “peaceful protests” because they heard you were coming up. And they know the news is fake. They understand it better than anybody.
AUDIENCE: (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: They asked whether or not — they asked whether or not they could be here. Like the question about Russia. He doesn’t mention Iran was in the report. He doesn’t mention — or he mentions very late that China was in the report —
AUDIENCE MEMBER: China wants Biden!
THE PRESIDENT: — because that’s the way they are. They’re not —
If the press in this country were honest, if it wasn’t corrupt, if it wasn’t fake, our country would be so much further ahead. But we’re doing really great.
AUDIENCE: (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. Thank you.
END
8:14 P.M. EDT
