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WTH Is Going on at the White House? President Donald Trump Joins Us to Talk About His COVID Recovery, the 2020 Election, the Supreme Court, and More

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WTH Is Going on at the White House? President Donald Trump Joins Us to Talk About His COVID Recovery, the 2020 Election, the Supreme Court, and More WTH is going on at the White House? President Donald Trump joins us to talk about his COVID recovery, the 2020 election, the Supreme Court, and more Episode #74 | October 14, 2020 | Danielle Pletka, Marc Thiessen, and President Donald Trump Any expression of political views by AEI scholars is in their personal capacity and not on behalf of AEI. AEI scholars have academic freedom and their intellectual product is not driven by management Danielle Pletka: Hi, I'm Danielle Pletka. Marc Thiessen: And I'm Marc Thiessen. Danielle Pletka: Welcome to our podcast, “What the Hell Is Going On?” Marc, what the hell today? Marc Thiessen: Well, to our loyal listeners, everyone who's listened to this podcast for the past year, every one begins with the President of the United States saying, "What the hell is going on?" Well today we have the man himself to tell us what the hell is going on, Dany. Danielle Pletka: And boy, does he ever. As many of you know, we often record this introduction after we've done the interview in order to set it up properly. And so we spent almost an hour talking to the President of the United States and going over some of the questions that should be front and center on people's minds: the election, the Supreme Court, foreign policy, NATO. What did I miss, Marc? Marc Thiessen: You didn't miss anything. And so we're going to do away with the normal banter that Dany and I have at the start of the podcast, because I think people want to hear from the president. And just, editorial note, we have offered equal time to Vice President Biden, if he chooses to come on, we'd love to have him and give him the same chance to present his views to you on a number of issues. Without further ado, the President of the United States. Marc Thiessen: Mr. President, welcome to the podcast! Donald Trump: Well thank you very much, Marc. Marc Thiessen: Congratulations on your recovery from COVID. I saw you had a rally last night. You looked like you were never sick. Donald Trump: I recovered rapidly and they say you have immunity. You’re immune. That would be nice. I don’t know. I’ve heard different numbers. I’ve heard for life and I’ve 2 heard for four months. I like life better. Marc Thiessen: I would too. So, you said the other day that the COVID diagnosis was a blessing in disguise. Tell us what you meant by that and also, you now having gone through this illness that hundreds of thousands if not millions – millions of Americans have fought it – what did you learn about their struggle and what it’s like to go through this illness? Donald Trump: Well, I don’t think you could ever really understand it as well as if you go through it, and I did go through it. I felt weak. I had a temperature. And I felt not exactly the best I’ve ever felt. The doctors at Walter Reed and Johns Hopkins and other – one thing good about being president, you got a lot of doctors coming at you. We had great doctors and, I think frankly, therapeutically or cure-wise we have great medicines too that we wouldn’t have had six months ago. You know, I’ve lost five friends and maybe even a little more – but five friends, some very close to me, and they were gone very quickly. And now, when I think of what I went through, I think that we would have saved those people. You know, we’ve had a tremendous increase in really great drugs. And whether it’s Regeneron or the Eli Lily version of a similar drug, the antibody drugs. So we’ve done a lot of great work in a short period of time and FDA has been terrific. Marc Thiessen: And we had Dr. Slaoui, who’s the head of Operation Warp Speed on the podcast and that drug – Regeneron – that you had was produced under this, wasn’t it? Donald Trump: It was produced under us. Six months ago or less they never heard of it and… I mean, I can’t tell you. Maybe I would have recovered anyway. Maybe it would have been fast. But I can tell you, I took it and it was a fast recovery. I could have gotten out of the hospital the next day. And I didn’t feel like that the day before, I can tell you. Pretty amazing. Marc Thiessen: Well, we’re glad you’re better. Donald Trump: Well, thank you. Marc Thiessen: You’ve been criticized for pushing too hard to end the lockdowns and reopen the economy, but the World Health Organization just came out the other day against lockdowns, and they pointed out to all the devastation that lockdowns are causing, especially to the poor. They said it might even double world poverty, it’s causing malnutrition around the world. Why do you think it took them so long to see what you and all of us saw from the beginning. Donald Trump: Well, you were there early too, because you and I had a conversation and I saw where you were coming from. And I wouldn’t say that a lot of people were with us but a good chunk of people were. I’m glad they did it because frankly, it wasn’t that easy for them to do it. That’s a big give back. But you look at depression, you look at drugs, you look at alcoholism, you look at all horrible things that were taking place with these – people are just locked in their homes, their apartments, they couldn’t leave. And it’s a terrible thing. And I came up – I think it was me – the cure can’t be worse than the problem itself. I think you were seeing that. Last night in Florida I made a speech and I said – we talked about it, I talked about it a little bit. But I also said that there are people that if you feel that AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org 3 you want to stay in a position – because there are some people who have a great fear. But if you want to stay in a position where you are now, stay in your house, in your apartment, do it. Because you can’t force somebody out. But I felt as president, I had to be out. I can’t be locked in a basement, as the expression goes. I’m president of the United States. I’ve got to meet people, I’ve got to see people. It makes a big difference in terms of dealings. I knew I was taking a risk when you do that. The more people you see, the more risky it is. But, the good news, I recovered well and I look forward to being out tonight in Pennsylvania. Dany Pletka: So, Mr. President, speaking about hiding in your basement, we are three weeks away from the presidential elections and one thing that I know I would love to hear from you is – for the American people – thirty seconds on your absolute best case for why Donald Trump, a) should be re-elected and what Joe Biden isn’t right for the country now. Donald Trump: Well, I don’t know what’s going on with Biden because nobody really understands it. Yesterday he didn’t know Mitt Romney’s name. Yesterday, he said he was running again for the US Senate. That’s happened two or three times already. I don’t know what’s going on. I mean, I really don’t. You need very sharp people to be in this position and I can tell you, whether it’s Putin or President Xi of China, or whether it’s Kim Jong Un – that war never happened and I don’t think will. That was one that was going to happen. Everybody said President Obama thought it was going to happen. But you have to be 100% sharp. And when I look, you know, I’m amazed. I’m amazed that he’s getting by. He’s getting by because the press is not asking him. I watched his town hall the other day on NBC and it was a disgraceful situation. It was a joke. It was a terrible situation to watch that. They were asking him the questions of a child, that you’d ask a child. So, you know, with that being said, I guess the polls are close but I don’t believe the polls because I had the same thing four years ago and Marc knows that better than almost anybody because he was there. And when I have thirty thousand, thirty-five thousand people show up at rallies like last night… It went as far as the eye can see. People. And then he goes to a rally and he’s got 32 people, 38 people, less than a hundred people. I don’t see it. And they oversample Democrats. Way oversample Democrats. And then they say, “You’re losing by a little bit, you’re losing by five.” But they oversample Democrats. I don’t know why they do it, I don’t know what the purpose is. We have tremendous enthusiasm, much more so than we had four years ago in 2016.
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