Trump says he had no idea how popular the coronavirus task force was until he started talking about winding it down
President Trump said he had no idea how popular the administration’s coronavirus task force was with the public until he said yesterday that it would begin to wind down. Today, the president said the task force will remain indefinitely.
Video Transcript
- Mr. President.
DONALD TRUMP: Yes.
- Is this-- could you explain the change between what you said yesterday about winding down the task force and now saying--
DONALD TRUMP: Well, I think--
- --you're going to leave it.
DONALD TRUMP: Yeah, well--
- Because it is different from what you said yesterday.
DONALD TRUMP: Yeah. Well, I guess if you think, we're always winding it down. But, you know, it's a question of what the end point it is-- is. But I think it is a change a little bit.
I thought we could wind it down sooner. But I had no idea how popular the task force is until actually yesterday. When I started talking about winding it down, I'd get calls from very respected people saying, I think it would be better to keep it going. It's done such a good job.
It's a respected task force. It's-- I knew it myself. I didn't know whether or not it was appreciated by the public. But it is appreciated by the public.
When you look at the job we've done on everything, on supplies, on everything-- the gowns, the gloves, the masks-- you saw yesterday the masks. We were at a factory yesterday, a great company, Honeywell. And in a period of four days, they took a big factory-- essentially four days, a little longer, two weeks, but it was really most of the work done in four days. They took a big plant that did other things, and they converted it into masks.
You have to see it. It's actually a complicated process. But they have unbelievable equipment. And they're doing millions of masks out of this factory, and that took place so quickly.
And that was all because of the task force. I mean, all of this happened because of the people working within the administration. And something I didn't know, Mike, they take different layers of material and compress it, put it together, because one layer is good for something. One layer is good for something else. One layer is good for very tiny particles.
I mean, it's really, you think of it as a mask. They make a very good-- this is really something that's very special. So the task force will be around until we feel it's not necessary.
But I will say that I learned yesterday, even after I spoke, Jeff, that the task force is something-- you knew. It's very respected. People said, we should keep it going.
So let's keep it going. And so we'll be doing that. But we'll be adding some people to it, actually.
