Pence, you probably have heard, made a non-essential trip to deliver the commencement address to the graduating class at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. The veep - as is the case with pretty much everyone on the White House task force and the administration as a whole - did not follow the CDC guidelines to wear a mask when social distancing was not possible, even though Colorado's governor did.
So, there's that. Anyway, let's start with Chris Wallace. The first question was related to the protests around the country where some of the protestors are ignoring social distancing, and what Pence thinks, specifically, of their protests and how they're being carried out. It took the VP 321 words to not answer this one.
Well, first let me say from the moment President Trump asked me to lead the White House Coronavirus Task Force two months ago he made it clear that we had one objective and that was to save lives. And in the intervening two months the American people have stepped forward, have embraced the social distancing, have done the mitigation efforts. And as we sit here this morning, we continue to see encouraging results, declining cases, declining hospitalizations, because of what the American people have done, because of the president's leadership and what governors have done around the country. We are slowing the spread, we're hastening the day, when we can put the coronavirus in the past and re-open the American economy. Beyond the focus on lives, the president also made it clear that we wanted to ensure that our hospital workers, incredible men and women, had the resources and equipment that they needed. We've sent hundreds of millions of medical supplies to the critical areas around the country. And I must tell you the fact that no American who has needed a ventilator has been denied a ventilator. It's a great testament to our national response at every level. And on the subject of testing, we're continuing to scale and expand testing and will do that because as the president laid out those guidelines this week -- no one wants to re-open America more than President Donald Trump. And what you see, I think, among millions of Americans who have been embracing those social distancing measures and making the sacrifices is they want their governors to find a way to responsibly and safely re-open their state economies. And what the president laid out last week is a framework -- a phased framework to re-open America, to do that, and we're going to work very closely with governors to implement that as soon as we can responsibly do it around the country.The second question was to get Pence's take on what the president meant when he tweeted 'Liberate Minnesota!" "Liberate Michigan" and "Liberate Virginia, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege." This time, it took only 219 words to not answer the question.
The American people know that no one in America wants to re-open this country more than President Donald Trump. And on Thursday the president directed us to lay out guidelines for when and how states could responsibly do that. And in the president's tweets and public statements, I can assure you, he's going to continue to encourage governors to find ways to safely and responsibly let America go back to work. And the guidelines for opening up America again give a roadmap for doing just that, Chris. For states that have 14 days of consecutive declining cases, that have proper hospitalization capacity, we recommend that they can begin under phase one to ease the social distancing measures that have been put into effect, allow some people to begin to come back to work, allow some activities in the community to begin to happen. And when the president speaks about re-opening America it's all about encouraging governors, as soon as they determine as most proper and most appropriate to be able to do that and do that quickly. America works when America is working and the president wants to see us put the coronavirus in the past by these strong measures the American people have embraced. But we want to get America working again, just as soon as we can.The third question was pretty straightforward: when will we be doing 500,000 tests a day, which is what the health experts are calling for? This time, 279 words were uttered; unless you think "in the coming weeks and months ahead" is an acceptable answer, the VP is now zero for three.
Well under the guidelines for opening up America again, we create, in phase one, a specific criteria for testing that we believe is appropriate to be able to test people that have symptoms with coronavirus and be able to monitor people that are particularly vulnerable to serious outcomes, nursing homes and particular populations in our cities that have shown some vulnerability. That's -- we believe the testing that we have today, Chris, across the country, once we activate all of the labs that can do coronavirus testing, is sufficient for any state in America to move into phase one. We're doing about 150,000 tests a day. And you remember a month ago we had done 80,000 tests total. Now we've cleared 4 million overall. But at 150,000 tests a day -- we think we can double that number by working with governors to activate all of the laboratories in their states around the country that can do coronavirus testing, that would put us at roughly 300,000. But what we're going to make clear to governors, again tomorrow in our weekly conference call -- and I want to make clear to the American people, is that President Trump's direction -- we're going to continue to fully partner with governors around the country and health officials in increasing and scaling the amount of testing. And we have every confidence that we can have a sufficient amount of testing to be able to re-open America, not just in phase one, but continue in the weeks and months ahead to expand testing in ways that will give the American people the confidence and the tools to be able to go back to work.The next question Wallace asked was about when there might be an agreement on more funding for the Congressional Payroll Protection Program. Since no one knows when that will happen, I give the veep a pass on this one. The final question? What specifically will the administration be doing to hold China accountable for covering things up? He showed a clip of House Speaker Pelosi talking about this. Again, Pence summoned lots of words - 282 of them, to not answer the question.
Well I appreciate you referencing the fact that by the end of January of this year, President Trump took the unprecedented step of suspending all travel from China. No American president had ever done that. And there's no question all of our health experts agree that that bought us an invaluable amount of time to -- it's enabled us to save lives and make sure healthcare workers have the resources that they need to meet this moment. But it is clear to us that not only was there a failure by the World Health Organization to communicate to America and the world what was happening in China, but also that China was not as forthcoming as they should have been with America or the world about what was happening. Well the president's made it clear he's not happy. He -- we're going to make proper inquiries into this at the proper time. But, I have to tell you, the one mission that this president has given the White House Coronavirus Task Force is to save lives, to put this coronavirus in the past. We're going to stay focused on that mission. It's one mission and one team. We're going to work with governors across the country in both political parties. And I just want the American people to be encouraged by the fact that we are making progress. We really do see downward trends in cases and in hospitalizations and we really believe that because of what the American people have done, because of our incredible healthcare workers, that we are together as a nation hastening the day when we will put the coronavirus in the past and get America working again.
Moving on to MTP and Chuck Todd's interview, I can assure you it was more of the same. In reference to the governors, Rs and Ds alike, saying that they cannot manage the testing themselves and that they need federal assistance, the question was why doesn't the president want the federal government to be the lead on testing. Here's the 527-word response.
Todd tried again, asking, since the governors are saying they can't get the supplies they need to do the testing that the feds aren't helping with, why the administration hasn't used the Defense Production Act to get the testing supplies prioritized. It only took 168 words this time.Well, Chuck, thanks for having me on. And it really is remarkable to think about the progress the American people have made over the last several months. When the president tapped me to lead the White House Coronavirus Task Force, he gave us the first objective is to save lives. And to focus on slowing the spread, bending the curve. And because of the extraordinary efforts of the American people, we continue to see every day evidence that cases are declining, hospitalizations are declining. That's a tribute to the American people. Frankly, it's a tribute to all of those governors, governors in both parties across the country who put these mitigation efforts into effect. Secondly, the president made it clear to us that we were to make sure the hospitals in impacted areas had the resources and the equipment that they needed to be able to save as many lives as possible. And I have to tell you that tens of millions of personal protective equipment that we've coordinated for delivery around the country, especially in areas most impacted and the fact that ventilators have been delivered in areas across the country so that no American who needed a ventilator has ever been denied a ventilator. We're actually increasing the stockpile today. But testing has been a focus of ours as well, from very beginning. And it's the reason why the president, early on, brought in this vast array of commercial labs that took us from 80,000 tests one month ago to now four million tests as of yesterday. And as we'll make clear again to governors tomorrow in our weekly conference call, we look forward to continuing to partner with governors all across the country as we continue to scale testing. Because we really believe that, while we're doing 150,000 tests a day now, that if states around the country will activate all of the laboratories that are available in their states, we could more than double that overnight and literally be doing hundreds of thousands of more tests per day in a very short period of time. But, Chuck, just so we're very clear, when the president outlined his guidelines for opening up America, we laid out a plan for both -- for when and how we thought it was best according to our best scientists and advisors for states to be able to responsibly and safely reopen. And we believe today as Dr. Birx has said, as Dr. Fauci and others have said, is that there is a sufficient capacity of testing across the country today for any state in America to go to a phase one level which contemplates testing people that have symptoms of the coronavirus. And also doing the kind of monitoring of vulnerable populations in our cities, in our nursing homes that we ought to be watching very carefully for outbreaks of the coronavirus. But we believe working with the governors, as we'll continue to partner with them, that we can activate labs around the country and that states today, if the governor so chooses, have sufficient testing to be able to move into the testing contemplated in phase one.
What we've done through FEMA and through U.S. public health service is literally marshal the full resources of the American economy. We've been bringing medical supplies including, testing supplies, in from all over the world and will continue to do that. But, look, as you said, Chuck, I've been working almost daily over the last two months with Republican and Democrat governors across the country. And this vast and complex system of testing, using the commercial labs around the country and using hospital and public labs, is a new concept. And so we've been working with governors around the country to make sure that they and their health officials know about all the resources in their states. And we also have deployed a team from Walter Reed that over the last two weeks has been calling every single laboratory in the country that can do coronavirus testing. And tomorrow we'll be presenting all of those details to governors so that they can activate those tests in their state.Todd pointed out that this seemed to make the case FOR national coordination, not against national coordination, and asked if there was a single person solely focused on the testing strategy and how it's going to be expanded. The question could have been answered in four words: Yes. Admiral Brett Giroir. But, why use four when you can use 300.
Chuck, we actually have coordinated it at the federal level. Admiral Brett Giroir of the U.S. Public Health Service spends all of his time coordinating testing deployment and resources deployment from FEMA. And what we're making clear to governors, and I want the American people to know, is that we will continue to do that. While the president has made it clear that we want the governors to implement testing and deploy testing where they deem it's most appropriate in their state, we're going to continue to fully partner with states around the country to increase the supply, to make sure that they have the reagents and the test kits necessary to perform those tests. But I want to say again, it is truly -- it's a tribute to the president's leadership that early on in this process he brought in the top commercial labs in the country. They formed an alliance. And we went from one month ago to 80,000 tests being done to four million tests being completed as of yesterday. We'll continue to increase that. We'll continue to make governors aware of that. But our approach from the beginning, Chuck, has been we want -- in any health care crisis, we want to make sure the health care workers at the local level have the resources they need because it's locally executed. It is state managed. But it's federally supported. And the federal government at the president's direction will continue to support governors as they deploy the testing resources in the time and manner of their choosing. But we believe today, as Dr. Deborah Birx has confirmed, is we have a sufficient capacity of testing today for any state in America to move into phase one and begin the process of reopening their state and their economy.I'm pretty sure Pence is going to be in hot water for actually spewing an alleged answer to a question without a single mention of the president. We'll have to see how that shakes out. Also noteworthy? The distinct lack of pushback from Chris Wallace. Todd wasn't a whole lot better, at all.
For tomorrow's Extra Credit, we'll have Speaker Pelosi, for sure, and I'll see who else I can find. In the meantime, stay safe - be well - wash your hands - keep your distance - shelter in place - stay off the beaches unless you're wearing a mask... you know the drill.
See you around the virtual campus.
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