you very much everybody before we begin
I'd like to congratulate all of those
incredible people that have worked for
so long on our endless war in
Afghanistan nineteen years going on 20
years and there hasn't been a moment
like this we've had very successful
negotiations we think they'll be
successful in the end the other side's
tired of war everybody is tired of war
that's been a particularly long and
gruesome one and want to congratulate
president Ghani and the people of
Afghanistan I want to remember all of
the people all of the great great men
and women that have lost their lives in
the war and to their parents and wives
and husbands and Families brothers and
sisters it's a great great people many
lives over such a long period of time
have been lost I want to thank our
wounded warriors people that are still
bearing pain and all of the problems
that they've had to go through and
they're incredible people incredible
spirit I'd go to Walter Reed and see
them so often and the spirit they had
they wanted to go back despite their
wounds they always said I want to go
back wounded warriors they're incredible
people I guess most of all I want to
thank all of the people in the United
States for having spent so much in terms
of blood in terms of treasure and
Treasury the money that has been spent
the lives that have been lost and we
just signed an agreement that puts us in
a position to
get it done bring us down to in the
vicinity of 8,000 troops the United
Nations was informed of everything and
NATO has been great secretary
Stoltenberg has been fantastic
I want to thank the United Nations for
the help they gave and I also want to
thank and congratulate secretary
Stoltenberg of NATO 29 countries
involved and all approving all very
happy with what's going on I want to
also thank and congratulate Secretary of
State Pompeo and Secretary of Defense
mark espera and I'll be meeting
personally with Taliban leaders in the
not-too-distant future and we'll be very
much hoping that they will be doing what
they say they're going to be doing they
will be killing terrorists they will be
killing some very bad people they will
keep that fight going we've had
tremendous success in Afghanistan and
the killing of terrorists but it's time
after all these years to go and to bring
our people back home we want to bring
our people back home and again it's been
it's been a long journey in Afghanistan
in particular it's been a very long
journey it's been a it's been a hard
journey for everybody we're very largely
a law-enforcement group and that's not
what our soldiers are all about their
fighters are the greatest fighters in
the world as you know we've destroyed in
Syria and Iraq 100 percent of the Isis
Caliphate 100 percent we have thousands
of prisoners we've killed Isis fighters
by the thousands and likewise in
Afghanistan but now it's time for
somebody else to do that work and
that'll be the Taliban and it could be
surrounding countries there are many
countries that surround Afghanistan that
can help we're 8,000 miles away so we'll
be bringing in it down to 8,000 to
approximately 8,000 600 in that vicinity
and then we'll make our final decision
some point in the fairly near future but
this was a very spirited agreement there
was a lot of a lot of talk there was a
lot of everything they've been trying to
get this for many years and just it's
time so I just want to thank everybody I
want to congratulate everybody I really
believe the Taliban wants to do
something to show that we're not all
wasting time if bad things happen we'll
go back I let that people know we'll go
back and we'll go back so fast and we'll
go back with a force like nobody has
ever seen and I don't think that will be
necessary I hope it's not necessary and
so I just wanted to bring that up before
we begin on a topic that has become very
very important to everybody first of all
the amount of work that these
professionals behind me and many other
professionals in many rooms behind us
who are watching right now don't have
the room here to bring them all in but
they have been working around the clock
so hard on the corona virus it's a it's
a tough one but a lot of progress has
been made I want to provide an update to
our people to our citizens to the world
frankly on our action to address the
corona
virus and those that have been hurt
badly by it at this moment we have 22
patients in the United States currently
that have corona virus unfortunately one
person passed away overnight
she was a wonderful woman a medically
high-risk patient in her late 50s four
others are very ill thankfully 15 are
either recovered fully or they're well
on their way to recovery and in all
cases they've been let go in their home
additional cases in the United States
are likely but healthy individuals
should be able to fully recover and we
think that will be a statement that we
can make with great surety now that
we've gotten familiar with this problem
they should be able to recover should
they contract the virus so healthy
people if you're healthy you will
probably go through a process and you'll
be fine since the early stages of the
foreign outbreak my administration has
taken the most aggressive action in
modern history to confront the spread of
this disease we move very early and was
one of the decisions we made that really
turned out to be a lifesaver in a sense
big lifesaver on January 31st I imposed
travel restrictions on foreign nations
who had and anybody that had been to
China or people coming out of China and
I want to say that China seems to be
making tremendous progress their numbers
are way down and if you read Tim Cook of
Apple said that they are now in full
operation again in China the numbers are
way down experts now agree that the
decision
to move so quickly despite a lot of
opposition on that decision was a wise
one it greatly slowed the spread of the
virus to the United States and it really
gave us time to do some of the critical
moves that we've done and it allowed
these great professionals to get
together and figure it all out and we
think they've done that we've taken the
most aggressive actions to confront the
corona virus and they are the most
aggressive taken by any country and
we're the number one travel destination
anywhere in the world yet we have far
fewer cases of the disease than even
countries with much less travel or a
much smaller population as an important
part of our efforts on Monday I'll be
meeting with the largest pharmaceutical
companies in the world actually they'll
be coming to the White House and we're
talking about a vaccine and developing
very quickly and they've already started
working on it developing very rapidly a
vaccine for the virus to combat the
virus and we're having very good initial
feedback but the these companies will be
coming to the White House on on Monday
tremendous amounts of supplies are
already on hand we have 43 million masks
just far more than anyone would have
assumed we could have had so quickly and
a lot more coming today the White House
corona virus task force led by Vice
President Mike Pence they met for two
and a half hours I spent a lot of that
time with them also and we came up with
some ideas recommendations and frankly
some pretty strict edicts that were
going to be going by and Mike's going to
be discussing that
but we are really having a group of
people that is so talented and they are
working around the clock and for that
reason I really would wish that we could
really that we could report exactly
what's happened how how well we're doing
under quite adverse circumstances but
we're doing really well
very very professionally handled our
country is prepared for any circumstance
we hope it's not going to be a major
circumstance it'll be a smaller
circumstance but whatever the
circumstance is we're prepared and I'd
like to just ask and caution that the
media we would respectfully ask the
media and politicians and everybody else
involved not to anything to incite a
panic because there's no reason to panic
at all this is something that is being
handled professionally I also want to
thank by the way governors and
representatives of our various states in
some cases some more than others because
they've really been working very hard in
areas where we've seen indication of the
virus but I want to thank the governors
and all of the representatives from all
of our states the the rooms they've made
available the speed with which they've
worked is really been incredible so
again thank you to everybody