Trump Addresses The Nation On Coronavirus From Oval Office | NBC News (Live Stream Recording)

another option that has been under consideration the possibility of declaring a national disaster which could free up as much as forty billion dollars in federal funds now earlier in the day the president tweeted that he is prepared to use the full power of the federal government to deal with our current challenge Lester alright Kristen Welker at the White House here now is the President of the United States my fellow Americans tonight I want to speak with you about our nation's unprecedented re

sponse to the corona virus outbreak that started in China and is now spreading throughout the world today the World Health Organization officially announced that this is a global pandemic we have been in frequent contact with our allies and we are marshalling the full power of the federal government and the private sector to protect the American people this is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history I am confident that by Counting and continuing

to take these tough measures we will significantly reduce the threat to our citizens and we will ultimately and expeditiously defeat this virus from the beginning of time nations and people have faced unforeseen challenges including a large-scale and very dangerous health threats this is the way it always was and always will be it only matters how you respond and we are responding with great speed and professionalism our team is the best anywhere in the world at the very start of the outbreak w

e instituted sweeping travel restrictions on China and put in place the first federally mandated quarantine in over 50 years we declared a public health emergency and issued the highest level of travel warning on other countries as the virus spread it's horrible infection and taking early intense action we have seen dramatically fewer cases of the virus and the United that are now present in Europe the European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other ho

tspots as a result a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travelers from Europe after consulting with our top government health professionals I have decided to take several strong but necessary actions to protect the health and well-being of all Americans to keep new cases from entering our shores we will be suspending all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days the new rules will go into effect Friday at midnight these restrictions will be adjust

ed subject to conditions on the ground there will be exemptions for Americans who have undergone appropriate screenings and these prohibitions will not only apply to the tremendous amount of Trade and cargo but various other things as we get approval anything coming from Europe to the United States is what we are discussing these restrictions will also not apply to the United Kingdom at the same time we are monitoring the situation in China and the South Korea and as their situation improves we

will re-evaluate the restrictions and warnings that are currently in place for a possible early opening earlier this week I met with the leaders of health insurance industry who have agreed to waive all co-payments for coronavirus treatments extend insurance coverage to these treatments and to prevent surprise medical billing we are cutting massive amounts of red tape to make antiviral therapies available in record time these treatments will significantly reduce the impact and reach of the virus

additionally last week I signed into law an eight point three billion dollar funding bill to help CDC and other government agencies fight the virus and support vaccines treatments and distribution of medical applause testing and testing capabilities are expanding rapidly day by day we are moving very quickly the vast majority of Americans the risk is very very low young and healthy people can expect to recover fully and quickly if they should get the virus the highest risk is for elderly popula

tion with underlying health conditions the elderly population must be very very careful in particular we are strongly advising that nursing homes for the elderly suspend or medically unnecessary visits in general older Americans should also avoid non-essential travel in crowded areas my administration is coordinating directly with communities with the largest outbreaks and we have issued guidance on school closures social distancing and reducing large gatherings smart action today will prevent t

he spread of the virus tomorrow every community faces different risks and it is critical for you to follow the guidelines of your local officials who are working closely with our federal health experts and they are the best for all Americans it is essential that everyone take extra precautions and practice good hygiene each of us has a role to play in defeating this virus wash your hands clean often use surfaces cover your face and mouth if you sneeze or cough and most of all if you are sick or

not feeling well stay home to ensure that working Americans impacted by the virus can stay home without fear of financial hardship I will soon be taking emergency action which is unprecedented to provide financial relief this will be targeted for workers who are ill quarantined or caring for others due to corona virus I will be asking Congress to take legislative action to extend this relief because of the economic policies that we have put into place over the last three have the greatest econom

y anywhere in the world by far our banks and financial institutions are fully capitalized and incredibly strong our unemployment is at a historic low this vast economic prosperity gives us flexibility reserves and resources to handle any threat that comes our way this is not a financial crisis this is just a temporary moment of time that we will overcome together as a nation and as a world however to provide extra support for American workers families and businesses tonight I am announcing the f

ollowing additional actions I am instructing the Small Business Administration to exercise available authority to provide capital and liquidity to firms affected by the corona virus effective immediately the SBA will begin providing economic loans in affected states and territories these low-interest loans will help small businesses overcome temporary economic disruptions caused by the virus to this end I am asking Congress to increase funding for this program by an additional fifty billion doll

ars using emergency Authority I will be instructing the Treasury Department to defer tax payments without interest or penalties for certain individuals and businesses negatively impacted this action will provide more than two hundred billion dollars of additional liquidity to the economy finally I am calling on Congress to provide Americans with immediate payroll tax relief hopefully they will consider this very strongly we are at a critical time in the fight against the virus we made a life-sav

ing move with early action on China now we must take the same action with Europe we will not delay I will never hesitate to take any necessary steps to protect the lives health and safety of the American people I will always put the well-being of America first if we are vigilant and we can reduce the chance of infection which we will we will significantly impede the transmission of the virus the rut the virus will not have a chance against us no nation is more prepared or more resilient than the

United States we have the best economy the most advanced healthcare and the most talented doctors scientists and researchers anywhere in the world we are all in this together we must put politics aside stop the partisanship and unified together as one nation and one family as history has proven time and time again Americans always rise to the challenge and overcome adversity our future remains brighter than anyone can imagine acting with compassion and love we will heal the sick care for those

in need help our fellow citizens and emerge from this challenge stronger and more unified than ever before god bless you and God bless america thank you president Trump an oval office address addressing the coronavirus what is now declared by the World Health Organization as of today a global pandemic the president pointing a finger of blame at Europe for some of the spread of the disease we've seen here in the US and one of the headlines is calling for a suspension of flights from Europe to the

United States beginning this Friday with few exceptions president also announcing plans to provide emergency financial relief to some individuals and businesses impacted by the coronavirus with me right now is NBC News medical correspondent dr. John torrid John Torres and our senior business correspondent Stephanie ruhle a Stephanie first president laid a number of economic steps here what's stuck out to you the small business loans 50 billion dollars that's a big number and it should be helpfu

l but here's something to remember we're a service based economy not a manufacturing economy so let's say it's a restaurant that loan might help me in terms of I can pay my rent but I need to serve people dinner tonight tomorrow and next week if we don't get customers back for six weeks or six months you'll never get that money back so yes people will be getting loans but it's gonna be very tough for them to get that money long term if they were in manufacturing they could sell those products do

wn the line being a service based economy it's difficult it's difficult to go to get consumers back he mentioned the payroll tax cut we've already seen how that's playing in Washington that's going to be a tough nut would that make it impact it would make an impact for a portion of society but remember we've got a lot of people who aren't working and think about the six million people in the gig economy you know those are self-employed people they're contractors and you also have to remember the

president can't do this by executive action he's got to get congressional approval in order to get Republicans and Democrats to agree to this Democrats have already said they don't like the idea of a payroll tax cut dr. dr. Torres I noted the president did not sound much of the alarm we've heard from other government officials that this is going to get worse significantly worse he also didn't talk much about this whole testing issue what do we know about the number of Americans who are getting

testing who have access to being tested and what we know right now is the testing is still at a deficit we're not getting all the test that we want out there and they said 1 million by the end of last week 4 million by the end of this week that's tests that that's not necessarily people getting tested because people require multiple tests and talking to doctors out there they're saying they're still having trouble figuring out how to get the tests they'll call their public health department's an

d they're sending them theirs giving them or different information so they don't quite have a handle on it and so I think we still need to get that testing under control it might not affect me if I get tested to find out I'm positive or negative because it's not really going to affect treatment a whole lot but from a national standpoint it's going to tell us where we need to put our resources and more importantly how we need to attack it and certainly if I show up my doctor's doorstep right now

and say I've got a tickle in my throat or runny nose do I get tested right away or is it a process if your doctor agrees for you to get tested and basically they're gonna ask you know what exposure do you have to this what kind of symptoms do you have and if they say yeah you want to get tested then they'll have to probably call the public health department the public health department will kind of make a decision to and then the test gets done in a doctor's office but it gets sent to the public

health office and that usually means a three to four day delay in some cases now they're starting to come out with more commercial testing I think it's gonna be a lot faster once that comes out but it's not quite there yet all right let me bring in Kristen Welker at Whitehouse Kristen as we noted some of the things the president has mentioned have been brought up already on Capitol Hill and the subject of debate how much of this can he do on his own through executive action how much will requir

e Congress to act and who further how long would that take well there is certainly bipartisan agreement that they want to do something quickly Lester so when you hear the president talking about that expanded aid for small businesses that is something that he seemed to point to that he would be able to do through executive action but when you talk about those payroll tax cuts he would need Democrats on board for that he would need congressional approval and as Stephanie just noted that is going

to be very difficult Democrats already saying they are not on board with that Democrats proposing their own package Lester that they want to move on this week it would include expanded aid for those who are out of work paid sick leave also expanded aid for children in need for example for their school lunches so they have a different set of priorities having said that Lester there is broad agreement on both sides of the aisle that there needs to be some type of congressional action to put more m

oney for federal funds into dealing with this crisis President Trump clearly with this speech aiming to tamp down some of the concerns about not only the coronavirus but also the economy but in talking to lawmakers on Capitol Hill they say because there has been so much mixed messaging that is going to be very difficult until all of these Trump administration officials get on the same page yeah yeah Kristen let me bring in Tom Costello he's been covering the corona virus outbreak he spent the da

y at Johns Hopkins Medical Center's incident command center in Baltimore to see how they're preparing for a surge of new patients Tom as we pointed out the president really didn't talk about the idea that there could be a surge that this is going to get worse but I know some of your reporting today suggest that they are preparing for worst case listen are the top people in health care nationwide are very concerned that this is going to get worse and today dr. Falchi said that on Capitol Hill and

they are concerned that as it gets worse the nation's er's and ICUs are going to be flooded with patients and they simply are going to overwhelm hospitals they all say we don't really think we can stop this virus from spreading the problem is it's already in the community it's already spreading what they're hoping to do is to slow the spread why do they want to do that because they would like to slow the spread of people going to ers and I see use across the country if it all happens at once it

could crash the system they fear if it is a slow approach if people are going to hospitals over the course of weeks and months if this thing if we can slow it out through canceling school canceling public events and more people stay home maybe that will help prevent the entire medical system from being overwhelmed unable to care for not just the coronavirus patients but somebody who shows up and who has a heart attack or a car accident all right that could overwhelm the system dr. John let me c

omb back in and one of the things president has this banning air travel from Europe to the United States what do we know about what's you know besides Italy about the threat from Europe and one of the things we're trying to do is flatten that curve and that's kind of what tom was talking about getting us slow or spread so we know it's here and the spread is gonna be here but we also know in Europe the hotspot right now is Italy Europe has open borders and so it's gonna be hard to tell where peop

le are coming from and so I think that's a basis behind us they're saying you know Italy we don't want patients from Italy at this point because they're having a lot of cases it's hard to isolate Italy from anywhere else because they could certainly travel across the free borders to a different country and come over here so I think that's what he's trying to do it seems like a big step and so let's time will tell whether that's something that's effective or not do we know how many people are inf

ected in this country beyond beyond the official numbers or we know an idea how many we don't know but we know there's a lot more than we're testing a lot more than we know about dr. John thanks very much who of course continue to follow the latest on the corona virus pandemic for now I'm Lester Holt NBC News New York good evening [Music]