soon as next week. all of this on the same day germany slowly began opening up businesses today. plans to open up all schools next week. it is a sordid world. here comes "the five." ♪ >> greg: i'm greg gutfeld with dana perino, juan williams, jesse watters, and dagen mcdowell. "the five." ♪ so, this road map to economic return looks pretty messy. that's normal. you have 50 states all different with different economies. different distances. hence, the need for a road map, not a prism. the good news, we accomplished what we set out to do so far. we are flattening that curve toast spread out the pandemic brought so that it will not crush our health care system. so far, so good, but now what?

do we keep economies closed indefinitely? we know we can't. we have already dug a hole so deep it might reach china. once we reopen, the curve could on flatten, that's why nobody knows the right thing to reopen, so stop pretending. dems have the luxury of doing nothing but waiting for something to go wrong especially when you have an ocean view and a fridge full of gelato. >> this is something you can get through the mail. >> okay. >> come on out and show me. >> yes, absolutely. this is the episode of "cribs" i never knew i needed. >> other people and our family go for some other flavors. but chocolate and we have some other chocolate here. >> greg: marie antoinette had cake, nancy brought the ice cream. but adults, we get it. each decision brings a wrist. but insulated dope still smear americans on their selfishness for just meeting a paycheck. patton oswalt mocked anxious

gangs for cracking under the lockdown. he assumes that everybody can sit down with netflix and manning's indefinitely just like him, a well-off finger sniffing jack ass. his was not an attack on class, he said that adults would risk their lives were cheeseburgers. but it's a good day when a rich leftist shows his hatred for the working class. so as we move with more ups and downs than a kangaroo on meth. all adults know that the path we choose must be flexible. it should pull back, change course based on new info. we can do so based on age or region, but we need the government to be straight with us on tests. seriously, what is the deal with tests? we will get through this. we have so far. but sadly for you, retreating to a mansion stocked with sherbet is not in the cards. so dana, what drives me nuts about tests is that we keep

being told how many we have. we are never told how many we need, and experts, and i know the doctors always hedge and condition everything, because that's what they have to do. there is nothing ever as good news, just news. so what should they say today, you are the press. let's say you are the press person, what should they say? what should pence say about the tests today so that we can say it, okay, thank you? >> dana: i want some of my weekends back. i've spent so much time reading articles about tests trying to understand and to figure it out. luckily i have not had any symptoms. i've not had a test. but i also have not been sick. but could i be an ape symptomatic carrier? i don't know. go back to january and february, we know because of testimony that dr. fauci gave in front of congress that he said the testing team has not been good enough. he said it was a failure at the time.

and then you have the situation where the fda is approving some tests, not others, sometimes they work. sometimes they don't. it's unclear. the private sector wants to do it. the governor saying we want more tests. the president is saying it is irresponsibility. but we need help, okay, i will help you. but let's just focus in on this, what is the purpose of the tests? there are two types of tests? the first one is do you have coronavirus or not. and the goal of knowing that is to say if dana perino ends up having a positive test, so i have to go quarantine for two weeks, and then you should find out everyone that i've been in touch with, and those people should know, they should probably get a test, and they should probably quarantine for two weeks. it's too isolated and to stop the spread. but then there is also the antibody test. because if you are asymptomatic and actually have been had an immunity to it, should you donate plasma or go back to work? but the test is supposed to be a

measure of confidence for us to be able to move forward. dr. william hayes had a report that basically said in the first round, you'll almost need 1 billion tests so that each person can be tested three times. that is the ultimate goal. that would be if we can possibly do it. but then in a second round coming in need another billion tests over the next two years while we wait for a vaccine. that's a lot of testing. but we have to understand, what are we testing for? and also when they get up there at the press briefing and they talk about how many tests we have done, for who? when, what, why, how? it is absolutely maddening. if we are supposed to have a measure of confidence from the tests, than they have to do a better job of communicating it. when the president says to the governor, it is your responsibility, the governors are saying, we agree, but we need the federal government to help us scale up. and the president says, i will help you scale up. so there is less friction between the states and the federal government on this than

the media is making us think there is. but we still need better answers. >> greg: that leads me to my next question, that the cdc was not invented in 2016 when trump was elected, so apparently was there a plan for ramping up testing for a coming pandemic? or is that not possible, because you don't have the tests for an upcoming pandemic if you don't know what the virus is? so this is just the natural kind of chaos and horribleness that would happen? >> dagen: the cdc did screw up initially on the test they sent out to the state labs was faulty and had to be recalled. it was about seven weeks ago that the fda allowed private companies to manufacture test kits and put them to use without having them be approved. but now it has been a supply chain nightmare. we have labs hoarding some materials needed for testing. other labs, where the testing supplies are short, and they

need them. the abbott machine has not been that effective, the one that the president showcased, that has been a problem. but you literally have a long list of components that are in short supply. i can go through the pipette tips and the glass pipettes, and those style parts, chemical agents, swabs that the president was talking about using the defense production act to do so up the supply of swabs. they need to have at least one person who is definitely an charge and directing the supply chain around the country. but not everybody is going to get tested to go back to work. you know what, americans have taken the potential deaths in this country from about 240,000 deaths down to what 60,000 deaths? close to that, just by wearing masks and social distancing and washing their hands and staying the hell away from one another. and if we trusted them to bend the curve, that we can trust them to do the same thing and

get back to business, and at least reopen the economy in a small way. >> greg: you know, juan, about opening it up, it is obvious when you look at states. it cannot be one-size-fits-all. new york has 933 deaths per million. south dakota has eight per million. so obviously it is going to be kind of messy, because every state is almost an individual with different traits. >> juan: yes, that is true, i guess i would start with the fact that we are all talking about dr. fauci, and he said this very morning that we have to be careful about reopening too quickly. because then this thing could spike again and we would be back in trouble. but to your point, greg, we have a federalist system. that's why you will have the governors were the regional town packs with the neighbors in neighboring states make some rules. the problem is even with the federalist system, to pick up on

your analogy, if i am in new jersey, which is a relative hot spot and decide that i'm going off to dubuque or cheyenne, which is not a relative hot spot, who knows? nobody can stop me. i am an american, right? that would introduce a theory of big problems in terms of people just doing what they want to do and saying, i have a business trip or whatever and taking -- going to see a relative, and nobody knows that they helped to spread coronavirus into an area that did not have a problem previously. right now most americans -- more than 60% according to the polls, they say, slow down. we are worried that we are going to reopen too quickly. rather than not sufficiently quickly. people are obviously suffering economically. there is horrific economic pain in our country, but right now people are so concerned that if they have to go back to work or they have to go into places that they want to be assured that they are not going to suddenly

get terribly sick or possibly die. we have seen a lot of deaths. >> greg: jesse, does your dog rookie have an opinion? because i swear i heard rookie. >> jesse: yes, you heard correctly, sorry about that, americo. i'm going to beat him after th this. >> dana: no. >> jesse: sorry, dana, i'm not going to beat him, i will just kick him. [laughter] i'm not going to do anything, everybody relax. to juan's point, the guidelines address nonessential travel. if you are living in new jersey, you can't do nonessential travel in phase one. that is already addressed. and to the testing situation, i actually spent my friday night to listening to the task force. and fauci went on for minutes and minutes about the testing situation. they say listen to the experts. and the expert said, dr. fauci,

we have enough tests to make it through phase one. that made me feel a lot better. he also said this, we are not going to test 350 million americans. you don't do that. you test and hot spots and the front lines, and you test people that are showing symptoms. if you test everybody in kansas, 3 million people, when they have a couple hundred cases, what's the point of that? that is a colossal waste. to say i live in kansas and i am a some dramatic and i get a test, i am negative, and then i leave the lab and shake someone's hand, now i have coronavirus. to do i get tested again? what is the point? the point is that we even have someone, a admiral in charge. being rolled out strategically, and you are going to have enough tests. i think what happens with the tests have been with the ventilators. there was a huge panic about ventilators, and it turns out there was never a ventilator shortage. no one ever went without a ventilator, and now we have

access to capacity ventilators, we can give every country in the world an extra ventilator times ten. so everybody needs to relax. we are going to get through this. and it's going to be okay. and geographically, guys, they are freaking out about opening up a beach or two in jacksonville, florida, duval county. duval county, huge county has 15 coronavirus deaths. queens county in new york city has nearly 3,000. 15 deaths to 3,000 deaths. devol county is nine times the size of queens county and everybody in new york is panicking that they opened a beach in florida. they are doing things strategically, smart. they are talking to the local health officials on the ground and consulting the task force. the federal system, we all learned this in middle school, it's going to go county by county, state by state, one step at a time. >> greg: i hope you are right, jesse. and it is fair for you to use the ventilator example, but i would have to come back with the

face mask example. that they were dead wrong, and we had horrible shortages on face masks. and that did not build any trust in me. which is why i am worried about the tests. but i see your point about the ventilator, and we shall take a break now and discuss it further. >> jesse: you don't need a face mask at the beach, that is my point. >> dagen: you do, actually. yes, you do. >> jesse: no, not really. enclosed spaces. >> dana: we will go to the exports. >> greg: at the press briefing will be up soon, and it is trump versus pelosi as the president gets called out for another stimulus plan.

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not take responsibility, he places blame on others. and that might've been okay for before, but we cannot continue down a path that is again a combating with science, science, science. evidence, data on how we can go forward. >> dana: trump and pelosi clashing over funding to help small businesses, republicans lashing out at democrats over delays because funding for the program ran out last week. after an impasse, it looks like the white house and congress are close on a $470 billion package to help small business owners. president trump weighed in on that. >> you say it is ready to go, then they say, we have a good negotiating system, because he said it was ready to go. we are negotiating with the democrats, and they negotiate the things that we can do that we don't think are in the best interests of the people of this country. we are very close to a deal. >> dana: i'm going to go to you first on this, because i

want to point out that it is likely that what ever they pass is going to look almost identical to what they had proposed two weeks ago. so this money did not actually have to run out, it was just playing politics with it, and i have small business owners who have applied, and they can't get their money. and every day they are thinking they are going to have to lay off or they are going to lay off people or they are going to have to lose their business. >> dagen: these are family businesses that are flat on their backs. and these people don't know how they are going to stay open. because the democrats were playing politics with a reload and a refreshing and a refill of the small business paycheck protection program. seven days before that program ran out of money, mitch mcconnell put in front of the democrats a 25-line bill just for the money. and what did they do? they drag to their feet. so every time anyone of these

democrats ever says small businesses. so they figure out the fabric of america, they could be proceeded with the go to hell, small businesses, because that's what you did. and now they are trying to turn it on the republicans -- the democrats are, why did the blue states not get as many loans filled as some of the red states? because that's where the big banks were, and they deserve all lot of the big banks. but making about $120 billion in loans out of a $350 billion program. those big banks, bank of america, jpmorgan, they slowly walked for the first ten days of the program when they should've been stepping up like the community banks. there is shame to go around. and i have a steaming pile of horse manure they can all jump in. >> greg: yeah. >> dana: i knew that i wanted to go to you first on that.

greg, what about the view between pelosi and trump? going through a emergency and a pandemic and an election year. >> greg: i hate it when politics intrudes. but first i want to address the small business owners that are being ignored. there are a lot of sole proprietors and 1099 on salary workers that are being turned down by banks as well. so restaurants, hospitality sectors, they employ a lot of nonsalary workers. and they are not getting any help from the banks on that, because they don't accept 1099. that needs to be addressed. but to the feud, we learned in times of virus that politics is incurable. and it has a chief symptom of amnesia where it allows people to accuse others of sin that they just committed. like pelosi or de blasio, or cuomo, who said people should just keep going to mass events, so they really can't criticize

trump about delay, since they are telling people it was no big deal. it wasn't pelosi focusing on the exaggerated hysteria of labor dates before she got around to this? by the way, everyone do themselves a favor, google dan crenshaw on bill maher, it is the best. >> dana: yes, yes, you should do that and spend some time without one. but the small business owners, like restaurants, they have their rent that they have to pay to the landlord. and they are not sure if they are going to be able to make it much longer. >> jesse: could you imagine, dana, if there was a republican in charge and that republican was holding up money to small businesses, to families in the middle of an economic calamity? the media would be breathing fire, but for some reason nancy pelosi gets a pass. i cannot believe that she says

that trump bumbled the thing, that must mean that fauci and birx fumbled it, because every time they came with a recommendation, he acted immediately on it. i mean, it was march 16th that they said, shut this down. trump shuts it down. you know how many deaths there were? five dozen. if nancy knew on march 16th that we should've shut it down to weeks earlier, why did she not get on the horn with fauci and birx and say, you are too late. because on march 1st there was one death, and if master thomas nancy knew after one death on march 1st that we need to shout to the greatest economy down, well, then my god, she is in the wrong line of business. because no one knew at that point, the europeans had not shut anything down, no one knew a thing. and i had our researchers check to see if nancy pelosi had pointed a finger at china or the w.h.o.? guess how many instances they

found? zero. that says a lot about nancy. maybe she is colluding with the chinese? maybe we should wiretap her? >> dana: let me get juan in here. we'll talk about the chinese and the republicans in the democrats when we get into the next block. but do you think congress should respond about coming back to washington to work these things out in a quicker way? >> juan: sure. and i think that speaker -- majority leader, said we need to get this done. and he is going to open the senate at 4:00 to get in a vote, but they could not get anything in place today. but they need to get it done. but to your point into the other point, listen, i think democrats are advocating that the money needs to go to regular folks. to the people. to the american people. and not through the jpmorgans and end up in the plans of blue chris steak house, because even

though it is a big company and individual franchises apply, but they get the big paycheck, and they say, this backlash coming at us, we have to give some of the money. i think they gave all the money back that they were getting. >> dana: they did. they gave their loan back. >> juan: what you need a smaller banks, and i think that's part of what chuck schumer and the democrats want to. you want smaller banks that do community banking that to reach out to small businesses and localities, both urban and rural, and to smaller nonprofit organizations to make sure they get a fair share of the money. and it does not simply go to people that are politically connected at the very top, not only in terms of washington, but in terms of the big banks. that's not fair. >> dana: i don't know if you heard that train whistle, but -- the train whistle means we got to go. but you make a good point. [laughter] we have to go so that we have more time because the president

will brief soon. the white house coronavirus task force is going to come up any moment. the president said 5:30. we will take a quick break and be right back. a major 2020 clash, president trump and joe biden are going to battle over who is tougher on china from now until election day. ♪ i don't add up the years.

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attack. >> may be sleepy joe biden is going to win. and if sleepy joe biden wins, he will own the united states. and china will own the united states. >> juan: and biden's campaign is fighting back with this new ad. >> trump rolls over the chinese. trump praise the chinese 15 times in january and february as the coronavirus spread across the world. >> juan: dana, as you see in that biden-ad that is 90 seconds long. there is an emphasis on how often the president had nice things to say not only about the government, but president xi. and i wonder if you think the president had interest in trying to preserve a possible trade deal with china? >> dana: so first of all, a 90-second ad is not an ad, that is a short film. so it should be submitted into

the awards that way. nobody can watch a 90-second ad. that does not work. the other thing is, both campaigns have realized that there is a vulnerability to look like you are too close to china. president trump already played this, well, he played the card in 2016, but he has been anti-china up until really he became president and then had to work with them. he has an interesting lane to walk, because he has to still do diplomacy. and what if china comes up with the vaccine first? what do we do then? are we going to want access to the vaccine? i'm assuming so. so he has to lead that way. and vice president biden knows that it is really hard to campaign during a pandemic. if he goes too hard, it's going to look like he is rooting for the pandemic response to fail, which would look really bad, because we can't have americans fail. and we will not fail.

i do not envy joe biden. but they have to figure out a way to get him on television to be sharper if he can possibly pull it out. >> juan: hey, greg, but isn't this a case where trump is saying that biden did what apparently trump dead when he was saying all of the nice things about the chinese? >> greg: i find it funny when people are surprised or shocked when trump says nice things about a leader when he is dealing with the leader. he is a salesman. a salesman know that you don't mock the opposition in public during a negotiation. he never insults them, that he go somewhere else and later he applies pressure. but this is a tell about joe biden. he is parroting what is put before him. gramps would read the ingredients on a package of beef jerky if they placed it in front of biden, everybody knows trump, except joe biden and the media who obsesses over trump.

>> juan: so, jesse, what do you think about this? is it the case that biden fighting back on china, and i thought it was a very strong ad is going to be effective with voters? >> jesse: no, i don't think biden wants any smoke. if that is trump's turf, he is softer on my pillow then china. he rolled out the corporate for the communist chinese his whole career while they stole our factories, and dumped drugs here while his son got rich. i will go toe-to-toe with biden all day on china. i will take apart that ad. i know we don't have enough time, because we have to go to break, but just to say that trump which travel ban was not tough enough, because 40,000 ams came home from china. okay, so you were against the travel ban, but now you are saying it is not tough enough because it allowed americans to come home much to mark like joe would not allow americans to come home.

he does not know what he is talking about, and everybody knows it. >> juan: so very quickly -- >> dagen: i will wrap up by saying here is what joe biden said to remind the american people that day the travel ban was an ounce january 31st, this is no time for donald trump's record of hysteria, xenophobia, hysterical xenophobia, and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science. well, it saved countless lives. and it will take joe biden more than 90 days to explain what his son hunter was up to and china, much less 90 seconds. >> juan: i think that trump will have to explain how tariffs hurt the american people. they did not hurt china. this is an interesting argument. but we can see the politics. >> jesse: did not hurt china? >> juan: there is no question. you should check with dagen on that one. president trump will come soon for the task briefing, but up

next on "the five," find out what facebook is doing to track covid-19 patients, and how concerned you should be about that. that is next on "the five." ♪ customizes your insurance, so you only pay for what you need! [squawks] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

>> president trump: struggling with the financial consequences of the virus, it is critical to

continue the medical war while reopening the economy in a safe and responsible fashion. during this time americans must remain strick vigilance and practice careful hygiene, social distancing, and to the other protective measures that we have outlined and that everyone has become familiar with. we continue to be encouraged that many of the areas hardest hit by the virus have turned the corner. for example, recent deaths are down very, very substantially. you can compare that with their peak not so long ago. and you have numbers of 30%, 25%, and detroit as an example. it is down by over 50%, congratulations. and in new orleans where they have done a terrific job, they are down 65%. 30 states with one case or less, far fewer cases per capita, and germany, the united kingdom, france, singapore, belgium,

spain, norway, austria, sweden. my administration continues to press congress to replenish of the enormously successful paycheck protection program, which has impacted 30 million american jobs. we hope to have an agreement very soon and hopefully tomorrow the senate is going to be able to vote. a lot of progress has been made on that tremendous progress. it is a great plan. it is a great plan. it has helped a lot of people. we hope to be able to vote in the senate. and based on the record low price of oil that you have been seeing at a level that is very interesting to a lot of people, we are filling up our national petroleum reserves, strategic. you know, the strategic reserves. and we are looking to put as much as 75 million barrels into the reserves themselves. that would top it out. that would be the first time in a long time that it has been

topped out. we get it for the right price. we are also pushing for the deal to include an additional 75 billion. our deal. that we are talking about. a $75 billion for hospitals and other health care providers. many providers and their employees have taken a huge financial hit in recent weeks, and visits, elective procedures, surgeries, et cetera, et cetera were canceled. we think they can all get back online and will get it done. the hospitals have really been fantastic. the hospitals, they have stepped up to the plate. they've really done a great job. we appreciate it so much. for areas less affected by the virus, we have issued new recommendations about how to safely resume elective treatments. hhs has distributed the first $30 billion in direct payments to a million health care providers across the country. we have also invested

$1.4 billion in community health senses to ensure our most vulnerable communities including many african-american and hispanic-american communities have access to the services and testing that they need. earlier today, vice president pence spoke with governors from all 50 states about our unified effort to defeat the virus. he had a great call. it was a great call. very positive. i would say in every way. prior to the call, we provided each governor with a list of names, addresses, and phone numbers of the labs where they can find additional testing capacity within their states. many, many labs are providing you with the list. we will show it to you now if you need it. we will give you the details. hundreds and hundreds of labs are willing, ready, and able. some of the governors, as an example, the governor from maryland did not really understand the list. he did not understand too much about what was going on, so now i think he will be able to do that. it's pretty simple.

but they have tremendous capacity. and we hope to be able to help him out. we will work with him and all of the governors. similar to the situation with ventilators, states need to assess their complete inventory of available capacity. some states have far more capacity than they actually understand. and it is a complex subject, but some of the governors did not understand. to the governor as an example from illinois did not understand his capacity. not simply asking the federal government to provide support, i mean, you have to take the sport where you have it. but we are there to stand with the governors and to help the governors. and that's what we're doing. and they have a tremendous capacity that we have already built up. and you will see that as we introduce a couple of the folks in a little while to talk about it. i want to draw your attention to governor cuomo's remarks during his press conference today.

he said the president is right. to the state's testing is up to the states to do. which will implement the tests and to logistically coordinate the tests. we have about 300 labs in new york, and they do. they are great labs, actually. my job to coordinate to those 300 labs. to the president is right when he says that the state should lead. and the governor is really getting, they are getting it together in new york. a lot of good things are happening in new york. and i think that the governor will come into cs tomorrow. he is coming to the oval office tomorrow afternoon. andrew will be coming in with some of his people. we look forward to that. some of the articles had just recently come about, if you remember, i put out a statement today for a month that was all ventilators, ventilators, ventilators. that's all the people could talk about was ventilators. and we did a great job with

that. we built a lot of ventilators, we have so many now that at some point soon we are going to be helping mexico and italy and other countries. we will be sending them ventilators, which they desperately need. we are in a position, they were not in a position to build them themselves. but we have thousands that are being built every state has had, they have the ventilators. if they don't, we have almost 10,000 and in our federal reserve, our stockpile, as they call it. and we have done a great job with the ventilators. unfortunately, the press does not cover it other than the fair price. then you say, gee, they need ventilators. we don't need ventilators. and that is under pressure that we did that. nobody that needed a ventilator in this country did not get one. and a story that just came out, how the media completely blew the trump ventilator story. i'm sure that you would love to see that. that is by rich lowry, respected

journalist and person. how the media completely blew the trump ventilator story, which unfortunately, it did. and here's another one that came out. kyle smith, the ventilator shortage that was sent, the ventilator shortage that wasn't, because we got it fixed. and we are also going to help the states by the way, stockpiling ventilators. so if it should happen again, we have them. the stories on testing are all over the place. we are actually in good shape. i'm going to have the vice president speak to you about that, but we are in very good shape. and we are getting better all the time. you will see some interesting things. i thought before i went any further, i would like to have general who has done an incredible job tell you where we are. you know, we are still building beds and hospitals for people that need them. i guess the hospital business in

general is getting pretty much closed out now, but we are creating a lot of space for people just in case. and in some cases, they probably will be using them. but i thought that the general has been so impressive in doing such a great job, on behalf of the services and behalf of the federal government he could say a few words about what we're doing right now. thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. president. i want you to know that on behalf of all of us, our thoughts and prayers go out to all of those patients and victims that have been affected by this terrible virus. in the president and vice president talk all the time about the heroes. when i have been out there, i have seen the doctors and the nurses and all of those that have worked very, very hard. we are proud to be a part of the noble calling. for my team, i made a very, very simple. i said that there were three legs of the stool, and they all have ss. there are sites, we have to worry about supplies, and we have to worry about staff. so right when governor cuomo called the president.

about almost 30 days ago, i said i need some help worrying about what could be tens of thousands of hotel room, hospital room shortages. the president and the secretary of defense asked everybody to fly over with the team and on the way up we understood how complex of a challenge list was. and we knew that there was no way that you could solve a complex catastrophe with a complicated solution. we needed a very, very simple solution to be able to then work with hhs to be able to work with female appeared to be able to work with the vice president's task force and then to be able to power this down all the way down to the local level. to some of the governors asked us to try to build a hospital in a parking lot or a field in two or three weeks. you can't physically do that. so what we said was let's go to where there is an existing facility, and i'm going to make this an two big pods, those that are either hotel rooms or college dormitories, smaller rooms, or those that are in large areas like field houses or convention centers.

and we do sign those facilities that could either noncovid or covid-19 and got that approve. so we went to governor cuomo, i love the concept. i need you and javits center. i'm ready to have you working that afternoon. so when we flew back that day, we basically built the design and powered it down all the way through the rest of the team. so i just want to show you a couple of slides and we will let you know where we are at right now, mr. president. we had to do a bunch of assessments. so somewhere in the order, 1100 different locations that we went to, and we worked for fema, we work for the president, and we work for governors and mayors. and we said, what do you think your demand is going to be? and based on the lot of the modeling in this room here, we were able to understand when the peak curve was, but we also were able to understand where is the shortage. so these 1100 facility is right

now today, we are actually executing 32 different facilities that are on the order of merit of about 16,000 beds. eight of those are all done. we still have a lot more to complete. and in the next week and a half we will complete about 15 more facilities. we have some pending. some mayors and governors are still wondering if they have enough bed space. and what is important is we need a very agile plan. you can't do something three weeks ago and think that this is going to continue to stay. because this virus gets a vote. and the entire team come the federal government is trying to be as agile as they can supporting the states and governors. the beauty of the plan was that it does not have to be billed by the united states army corps of engineers. so we designed about an extra 52 facilities and gave those to the governors. i have to be very, very, a laudatory to the governors, they then imposed and put a lot of those on the ground and did those themselves. so i'm going to show you some really simple pictures, go to the next slide, if you don't mind. so this is an example of

javits center, you have heard the president talk about a quite a few times. about 2100 bed spaces, what you get is about an 11 or 12-foot square cubicle, there is lights, a nurse call, so if you need to call the nurse station, they are nurse stations throughout and pharmacy throughout. this one started as noncovid, but we wouldn't central oxygen so that everybody has oxygen right behind her bed to take care of those patients. and built this one about 1,000 patients treated. let's go to the next one. i was up in detroit, and the governor walked us through and told us or intent. you see all the cubicles that are laid out. this is right in the conventional floor where there might be a car show, and 970 different capabilities were built there. a lot of great work by my guys in the corps of engineers and the mayors and the cities team

pulling together. this is called the mccormick place. sitting us down and saying this is the intent of what you want to do. and walking us through going into a large convention center. this is actually 3,000 bed spaces. a very, very large build, got this one a relatively short time. here's another one that helps you understand that dynamic. go to the next one, please. this is in miami beach and i flew into see governor desantis. and he said, how long will it take to build this? and i said to the 27th of april, and he went to his health people and he said, how long do you need? and he said the day we needed is the 21st of april, and i said, figure out how to get it done by the 20th. this is where you don't get the build to be able to have the perfect solution. you have to get the mission essential done. lives are on the line and we have to get everything done to be able to save those lives. let's go to the last one.

this is one we are doing right now. colorado in denver, another gigantic convention center. you see all the different cubicles, being able to bring in the oxygen, 6-inch copper plate that comes in and is piped throughout the convention center, 6 miles of pipe to make that happen. and in closing, i want to be able to say that we are a very, very focused in the corps of engineers getting this done. but this is about the team. the federal team come in the state team, the local team. the vice president's task force, a lot of people sitting here have informed us about how fast we need to go and it goes back to the governors and the mayors that make this happen. i want to reiterate that president trump has called me three times. and secretary esper has been on the phone at least one of those times to say what else do we need to do does set you up for success? are there any other knobs to help you go? you think about the equation of the three ss, i think about the government and the cities, we have taken that first s out

of the equation. so i can't tell you about all of the things i have done in my career, this is a noble calling to step up and save american lives. so with that, thank you very much. >> does anybody have a question for the general while he is he here? otherwise it was pretty self-explanatory. a an incredible job. >> are there any other projects besides the one you just identified? >> we thought that we were capped at 26. i said that the virus gets a vote. we see some of the curve stretching out where we thought we would have only had five or six days and we have a couple of weeks now. other ones are seeing the opposite where we did not think there was some, and i'm not going to go into locations, but we are definitely getting requests them. we have six more requests in the last four or five days. they are little bit smaller and a more remote areas, but our job, still, if we have enough time to build, we want to do the assessment. we work for the mayor and the city and the governor here. and we can still get them done if the mayors and the elected officials make it fast enough

decision. >> president trump: the general is in charge of the wall on the southern border, and we want to build 450 miles of wall, that is under construction. that might give them an update, how are we doing with the wall? >> the most important thing, and you stress list and secretary esper stresses this, there are several different priorities. in the number one priority in the department of defense is to protect the team. protect the force, no matter what we do, we have to take care of our civilians and our service members out there. and so every single thing we are doing whether we are building for the va or we are building for civil works projects or the department of defense or on the southwest border, we are going out of our way. i talked to my commanders this morning we have over 4,000 contractors that are on the ground out there and no pauses as of this morning. knock on wood. same thing with my 400 employees. we are testing them, not with the stringent tests, but with temperatures to make sure that everybody is safe and goes out of their way to do things the

right way. construction is going very, very smooth. what we are seeing is the contractors are extremely focused. now that we have a quick clear path both on the cbp program as well as some of the dod program, we are well postured. it is a very, very aggressive bill, but we are well postured to make your expectations for 50 by the end of december 2020. >> president trump: 164 miles. we will have it done sometime next year. the quality of the wall in terms of its power for stopping people that shouldn't be coming into our country. >> if you have a standard design and it works very well, i've got a pat on the back, commissioner morgan, he was very adamant, tenuate to be able to make sure it supports his agents. we have a design that does that. we have a phenomenal contractor working for us, the corps of engineer employees, and it's

going in well. we don't see any significant problems. i think it's also important to point out that we want to do this the right way. we try to balance this with environmental considerations. we are trying to do due diligence when it comes to anything to do with any of the citizens affected. trying to make sure we are protecting all the things we need to protect and trying to find that balance where we can both meet the administration's directives while at the same time making sure we're doing this so that everybody gets a vote and everybody has a fair shake. >> reporter: may i ask what you're doing regarding the availability come at the recreation site, that the army corps of engineers operates. whether or not there are restrictions -- >> i am an engineer. when the president says turn on america, what we initially did, like many, many other governors, shut down beaches, shut down cities, i had a meeting with my

commanders this morning. as soon as we think it's safe, to turn it back on. parking at iraqi area where you are 500 feet away from everybody in that area, it's probably a low threat. when we get get green lights to let everybody go back out there and do things, we work for the administration, so i want to do it safe. but i don't want to be the last guy that turns things on, not at all. yes, ma'am. >> reporter: about whether or not there any specific efforts in areas that are hardest hit, black communities were latino communities, communities of color. is the army corps of engineers building any temporary facilities? >> we key off with the city asked for. the city and the governor. there are some specific areas that city mayors have asked us for. i'm not going to go into details. but if they say they are worried about a hot spot on this side of town or a specific community, we

will, and what the administration has charged us to do, whatever we can do to be most responsive. we don't ever want to have an ambulance pull up to the back of the hospital and someone says we are out of room, go to the next hospital. we are trying to make sure that bed space is available in so far everything we have build has been ahead of need. we are able to finish the building two or three days before it's needed. >> president trump: you can stand watch, watch these wonderful people ask it's really nice questions. >> sir, i've got a lot of building to do. thank you, sir. >> president trump: very impressive. impressive job. it's really great. thank you very much. he's a terrific gentleman. we have a lot of great people doing that kind of thing, they really have to get recognition for the incredible job they are doing because i don't think anybody else could do it. nothing like that. that's on top of thousa