ricketts: we were recovering from floods from last year. agriculture took a hit from last year with the flooding and with the pandemic this year. your administration has been helpful. the phase one china deal helps us sell things. president trump: and they are buying a lot, aren't they? gov. ricketts: that makes such a difference. when people aren't driving, they aren't using ethanol. when our food processing facilities are down, ranchers don't have a place to take their animals. your administration has been great helping us work through it. thank you for having us. on behalf of oklahoma, we are so excited to have you. over one million people requested tickets to come to this event. oklahoma is ready for your visit. we are excited. during this covid crisis, your administration has been having calls toys a week. -- twice a week. you have been so helpful. it has been going great. we are one of the first states that safely and measurably reopen. three on junese 1. currently we have under 200 people in the hospital across oklahoma. in the numbe

so now i'd like to maybe start off with governor ricketts. and then we'll get to my friend over here. thank you very much. >> thank you very much, mr. president. to all of your team here, we really appreciate your effort and leadership and that of your teams to be able to help us through this pandemic and really give us the tools to be able to manage it. the ppp program has been tremendously successful in nebraska because of the great relationships our community bankers have with small businesses, we were able to take advantage of that and cover over 80% of the payroll. so it really was a fantastic way to be able to keep people working. we had the third lowest unemployment rate in april. we want to keep people in their jobs. we appreciate all the work you're doing. you may recall we're one of the few states that didn't issue a stay at home order or shelter in place order. what we did is try to take common sense steps and ask people to take responsibility to be able to follow the directives you were putting out with avoiding large groups, wash

right now, you can see that the governor of nebraska, governor ricketts, is speaking at the moment. we will also be watching for the governor of oklahoma. but the president really focusing on the reopening and how much of a major impact it could be on the jobs picture. but one thing that perhaps a lot of people thought about while they were stuck home under lockdown was that they might want to get into a different area of business where their skills would be better needed or if they didn't have those skills, they should get them. we've got this news this morning. for the 13th straight week, new unemployment claims topped one million. one million after another of people applying. last week it was 1.5 million who applied for first-time jobless claims. that according to the labor department. what can you glean from that? the layoffs are still happening. sights like these are heartbreaking but are becoming more common. this is the unemployment line in kentucky yesterday. it is seemingly never-ending, stretched for more than a mile and it just has so many people desperate to at least get

flatlining cases, and also the fourth lowest number of fatalities in the nation, nebraska's governor pete rickettsthe report card for your state, covid-19 report card appears pretty good. we have also got this going on in phase 3 so you're ahead of a lot of other states, managing to get ahead with reopening and keeping cases static. do you deserve the credit for that? is that why you are here with us? >> i don't deserve credit for that. the credit belongs to the nebraskans, a state that did not order a stay-at-home order but we asked nebraskans to take steps for social distancing, campaign for staying healthy and stay connected, got them to do social distancing in public, we ask them to wear masks, people who are not regularly around, they've done the right thing, to make sure we control the spread of the virus in the state. it is all about making sure we guarantee the hospital bed or icu bed to anybody who meets up when they need. >> we commend the state success managing the outbreak. you have been front and center in the debate about facemasks, you don't believe they should be mandated and busin

and governor pete ricketts, reopening his state, this is opening right now. indulge on the john bolton book and the judge saying effectively go out and enjoy, but i don't know about that $2 million advance. >> you know, this is way above my pay grade. i've been following the story, but not the law case and, you know, it's something that's going to have to play out and see where this all goes. what's actually in the book and whether it's actually violating the security clearances. neil: a lot of people are saying the latest tell-all book from a former staffer or high ranking official in the trump white house and that it could reverberate this in an election year. other books have not. do you think this goes anywhere? >> you know, again without having read the book it's tough to say. i think what the president needs to do is focus on his record. we've had the best economy we've had in this country a long, long time before the pandemic hit and now we're grappling with the coronavirus. i think these are things that the public is really going to care about. withou