mr. vice president thank you so much for
joining us and our socially distant
manner here good to see you lore
dr. Fauci today told The Associated
Press that quote we're not there yet in
terms of tracing and tracking that he
believes is necessary in order to reopen
the country what does that mean exactly
Americans I think are looking for both
safety and some specifics here we really
are and president of trumps made it very
clear that he wants to reopen the
American economy but if we want to do it
at the time that is responsible can be
safe for the American people and we're
going to be producing new guidance for
states across the country too to know
when that will be possible but but as
dr. Faust you suggest a big part of that
will be the kind of testing not only
testing where you can diagnose whether
or not you have the corona virus but
also what the experts call the kind of
surveillance testing and literally just
this morning we we brought our entire
testing team together US Public Health
Service dr. Burks all of our supply
personnel and we're developing a
framework as we speak for making it
possible for a broad range of resources
to be available across the country the
concern is of course for Public Safety
but also whether these goals being set
by the healthcare professionals that
look at this very important aspect of
American life obviously that by some
measure six and seven million tests a
week and some by some measures per day
would be necessary in order to reach
that you know ultimate testing and
tracking a bar is that really realistic
and can the country wait until we have
all the people in place all the
volunteers in place all the framework in
place in order to do that well that will
be a decision for the President of the
United States to make and and right now
the president as you saw today unveiled
a broad range of leaders from virtually
every sector of the economy that will be
giving him counsel about about how we
can move forward in a responsible way to
reopen our economy
but make no mistake about it we're gonna
listen very carefully to our healthcare
experts and ensure that we have a
sufficient amount of both the diagnostic
and the surveillance testing to be able
to allow many businesses to begin to
reopen may be educational institutions
reopen but but our recommendations will
be specific to those areas of the
country where we've seen some limited
impact but we'll also have guidance for
areas of the country that have seen a
large outbreak of the corona body he
said but it's it's pretty much really
optimistic that think May 1st is going
to be possible that those are all the
signs he's giving in multiple interviews
my question is is there any is there any
dispute between kind of a more
pessimistic which he says I'm kind of
always pessimistic about this cautiously
optimistic and the president given the
real pain also being felt by those
who've lost their jobs and a lot of
people losing hope out there that this
is ever going to reopen well let me let
me say that the timing will all be
determined by the president when we're
at a responsible moment where we are on
track to put the coronavirus in the past
and that's in the hands of the American
people on the testing and tracking that
we're hearing about there are a lot of
Americans I think stuff they read online
and so they're the government's gonna
track me that government's not going to
let me work unless I'm tracked and
tested and and so forth what can you
tell the American people about that
given what they've heard about some of
these solutions in order to reopen will
always protect the privacy and the
liberty of the American people and the
testing recommendations that will
accompany new guidelines for reopening
America will make it possible for us to
do two things Laura number one is to be
able to quickly diagnose people that
have symptoms that may be from
coronavirus but when you hear about
surveillance testing that just simply
means being able to test a sufficient
number of people
to determine those that may have the
coronavirus but not be aware of it but
it's simply two different models of
testing and making sure that we deploy
the resources and activate resources
around the country to do both things
will be an important part of not only
reopening America but keeping America
open how close are we on the immunity
testing though because I know it's a
little iffy on whether false positives
false negatives and whether they are
necessarily that effective in
determining whether you've actually been
exposed or just may have been exposed we
expect the FDA to approve a new antibody
test in a matter of days and and if
approved could literally create more
than 20 million new tests a month and
but to your point Laura that'll be a
test that will tell you whether you have
had the corona virus in the past and
that whether you might in fact be immune
to it going forward andrew Cuomo said
today and his daily press conference
also an appearance on TV that if the
White House tried to force New York to
reopen he would take the White House to
court is that the state of affairs the
relationship between the White House and
New York at this point we have forged a
very strong working relationship with
Governor Cuomo with mayor de Blasio on
behalf of all of the people of New York
and and I have every confidence that
going forward as the president makes a
decision and we issue new guidelines for
reopening America that that not only New
York but states around the country will
continue to cooperate will continue to
work with us because we'll be tailoring
those guidelines based upon the science
based upon the best interest and based
upon the corona virus outbreak in those
particular communities and so we'll
there will always be disagreements in
public life but but I have to tell you
where we've come to today and I know
where we'll go tomorrow the American
people can be confident President Donald
Trump's going to continue to marshal all
the resources of the federal government
will partner with our state and local
governments and will always put the
health of America first it's not a one
size fits all for the whole country New
York is different from Nebraska it's
it's not a one size fits all I think one
of the remarkable things about the team
that the president assembled was our
health experts have literally been
tracking on a county-by-county basis the
outbreak of the corona virus and and
we've been working with States and I can
tell you that at the president's
direction we've ensured that states have
what they need when they need it based
upon the dimensions of the outbreak in
that state when we issue the guidance
we'll focus the guidance based upon what
what the data and what the science and
what the best recommendations in America
show into account the other fallout
social isolation depression suicide drug
abuse spousal abuse child abuse
despondency we saw that after the 2008
collapse now the IMF is saying this
downturn could be the worst since the
Great Depression so are you taking that
into account while you look at all of
the medical data underlying the virus
itself president Trump has said this is
clearly going to be the biggest decision
of his life and it's because he's
looking at every aspect of this and when
he speaks about his unique
responsibilities as president it's
because he understands that it's not
just a matter of looking at health data
it's a matter of looking at what's in
the interest of our economy what's in
the in the interest as you rightly
pretend the emotional and psychological
impact on Americans and and he's brought
it he's brought advisers together to
bring the full range of counsel to him
to make that decision vice president
pence the Senate is out until at least
the next seven days out of not coming
back to Washington the house isn't going
to come back until May fourth you have
spoken so eloquently about the whole of
government approach is that the whole of
government when we're in the middle of
what you and the president and
everybody's describing as a war against
this health crisis and this virus I
think should Congress be part of this
decision about whether we're going to
open or cleat you stay closed and if not
why not well I think with regard to the
decision about reopening America what
the president announced today is we've
brought together not just business
leaders from every sector of our economy
but political leaders in both political
parties to offer counsel so you're fine
with them not going back into session
during this the biggest crisis we've had
and they're in their home district I
mean you obviously served and served on
the hill and you know what it was doing
so but government workers are putting
their lives on the line doctors and
everyone else and and we're spending
trillions of dollars and yet they fly in
to vote and then they leave or I take
two things about that number one we're
very grateful for the bipartisan efforts
that have put three bills on the desk
that not only you know made corona virus
testing free for every American extended
paid family leave but the extraordinary
rollout over the last week of paycheck
protection allowing small businesses to
keep people on the payroll for two
months support for industries around the
country it really has been Congress at
its best in passing all these bills but
but to your point remember Congress can
act by what's called unanimous consent
and we're really calling on the leaders
of the Congress to expand the paycheck
protection bill another 250 billion
dollars there's been such tremendous
interest in
that that Congress can act by a voice
vote and we're encouraging them to do
that even even without having to come
back to Washington DC