CORONAVIRUS: [Reporter: “Mr. President, you mentioned that you were trying to avoid price gouging. But you mentioned to Bob Woodward that you recognized, as this virus spread through the air, in — on February 7th — you didn’t begin Project Air Bridge until March; you didn’t use the Defense Production Act until March; you didn’t start ramping up ventilator production until March.”]
“Well, I mean, you didn’t — you didn’t really think it [coronavirus] was going to be to the point where it was. All of a sudden, the world was infected. The entire world was infected. Everyone was scrambling around, looking where to buy facemasks and all of the other things.
We’ve opened up factories. We’ve had tremendous success with facemasks and with shields and with the ventilators. We’re now supplying the rest of the world. We have all the ventilators we can use.
And remember this: The ventilators were very important. Not one person that needed a ventilator didn’t get it. And these are very complex, expensive machines to make. We opened up something like hadn’t been done since the Second World War. We — honestly, we’ve done a — an incredible job.
But we don’t want to run around, screaming, shouting, “Oh, look at this. Look at this.” We have to show leadership. And leadership is all about confidence. And confidence is confidence in our country.”
-Donald Trump, “Remarks by President Trump on Judicial Appointments,” whitehouse.gov, Sep. 9, 2020