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<\/p>\nRUSH: We are now joined by Vice President Mike Pence, have him for a few minutes here before the end of the hour. Great to have you back, sir! It\u2019s always a pleasure.<\/p>\n
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Rush Limbaugh, it\u2019s great to be back on the program, and when the president and I were catching up this morning, he wanted me to send his very best regards to you.<\/p>\n
RUSH: I appreciate that. Everybody\u2019s being so great. It\u2019s really… It\u2019s warming my heart. I need to ask you, we were watching a little bit of the president\u2019s Rose Garden ceremony today on the vaccine.<\/p>\n
THE VICE PRESIDENT: You bet.<\/p>\n
RUSH: How realistic is this, Mr. VP, a vaccine by the end of the year?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, we think it is very possible, and what the American people saw today with the announcement of Operation Warp Speed is, just as the president has done from the very beginning of the coronavirus, we\u2019re gonna continue to bring the full weight of the federal government but also the ingenuity and creativity of American researchers and our incredible pharmaceutical companies to bear on developing not just therapeutics but, most importantly — as we announced today — a vaccine.<\/p>\n
The big part of it, too, was not only did the president introduce Dr. Moncef Slaoui — who will be coordinating the public and private research that\u2019s done — but also General Gus Perna is going to oversee the development of these prospective vaccines, to scale them up, to do everything in our power to meet the president\u2019s objective to have 100 million doses by the fall and 300 million doses by the winter.<\/p>\n
But it is… Some of the early results from one vaccine continue to be encouraging, but I hope what the American people saw today is the president\u2019s just gonna continue to bring this whole of government, whole of America approach to bring these medicines forward.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, I have to tell you — if you permit me a brief moment of editorial analysis — this is phenomenal, for the president to put his presidency on the line here: A vaccine for a virus. We don\u2019t have many vaccines for many viruses. We don\u2019t have one for AIDS yet, for example. We\u2019ve got flu shots but no vaccine. To me, this is typical Donald Trump. What you say can\u2019t be done, he says it can, and then he sets out about trying to show you how.<\/p>\n
Somebody asked him today, “All of your health experts have said a vaccine, if we get one, is 12 to 18 months away.<\/p>\n
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Right.<\/p>\n
RUSH: “You\u2019re saying now the end of the year,” and he said, “Well, but we\u2019ve been working on it since January. People have been working on this for half a year already.” So I thought that was a great point about this as well.<\/p>\n
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yeah, it\u2019s a remarkable point, and the things that this administration under the president\u2019s leadership have done — from literally before the experts were telling us how serious the coronavirus was — ought to give great confidence to the American people. I mean, here the president in January shut down all travel from China.<\/p>\n
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He stood up the White House Coronavirus Task Force before there was a single case of community transmission in the United States. I mean, the only cases here at that time were people who had come back from China. But, to your point, Rush, as soon as our researchers had essentially what the genetic code of the coronavirus is, they immediately went to work on developing a vaccine and literally set a record.<\/p>\n
In 62 days, went from initiating research to the first clinical trial, and we\u2019re in phase 1 clinical trials now with other vaccines also being developed. You know, President Donald Trump\u2019s a leader that, when other people say, “You can\u2019t,” he says, “Stand back and we\u2019re gonna prove you wrong” (chuckles). And that\u2019s the approach that he\u2019s taken to this throughout.<\/p>\n
And the president\u2019s decisive leadership, the cooperation of the American people, I believe with all my heart, Rush — and I say this to your millions of listeners — because of what we\u2019ve all done together, we\u2019ve saved lives, we\u2019ve flattened the curve, and it\u2019s one of the reasons why 47 states today have already released formal reopening plans. We\u2019re seeing, you know, encouraging results among states that have already begun to open up.<\/p>\n
Thirty days ago, the president directed us to release the Open Up America Again plan because we understand that America works when America is working. But we are where we are today because of the tremendous cooperation of the American people, their care for their neighbors — especially the vulnerable — and the strong leadership of President Donald Trump, and that\u2019s, once again, the —<\/p>\n
RUSH: I want to ask you about these —<\/p>\n
THE VICE PRESIDENT: — (crosstalk) that we need.<\/p>\n
RUSH: — CDC guidelines, these new guidelines that were released yesterday —<\/p>\n
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yeah.<\/p>\n
RUSH: — and the reopening plans across the country. It\u2019s a… Look, I know you don\u2019t want to get political in the midst of this national fight to defeat this thing.<\/p>\n
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yeah.<\/p>\n
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RUSH: But for somebody like me, Mr. VP, you look at Florida with the job Governor DeSantis is doing. He\u2019s just doing a phenomenal job. Governor Kemp is doing a great job. You go to some of these blue states where these governors seem to have a political desire to inflict pain on your administration rather than get their states reopened. I\u2019m not asking you to comment on that, but how do you coordinate with this new guidance from the CDC to reopen when you have some states that aren\u2019t interested in it?<\/p>\n
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, look, we\u2019re coordinating with all the governors. As you point out, when we were only 30 days into 45 days to slow the spread, the president said, “Look, we want states to be ready — just as soon as they can safely do it — to open up America again,” and that\u2019s why a month ago we released those guidelines, the CDC guidelines that came out yesterday and we\u2019ll continue to produce in the future.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re gonna give confidence to businesses and communities to begin to go back to work. But I have to tell you that part of what we want to do is make sure the American people know what\u2019s going on. As I sit here today, even though we are dramatically increasing testing, Rush — because of the public-private partnership the president launched months ago — we just cleared 10 million tests that have been done in this country.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Phenomenal. It\u2019s phenomenal.<\/p>\n
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yeah, when the president tapped me to lead the Coronavirus Task Force, Rush, we had done 8,400 tests total because of the arcane, slow system at CDC and public labs. The president reinvented testing in America. We\u2019ve now done 10 million tests. We\u2019re averaging around the country about 300,000 tests a day, I\u2019m told. And even though we\u2019re increasing testing, the number of positive cases of coronavirus is still going down around the country —<\/p>\n
RUSH: Yeah, I was just talking about that. That\u2019s a great phenomenon that\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n
THE VICE PRESIDENT: It\u2019s an incredible phenomenon, and it\u2019s one that we\u2019re determined to make sure the American people understand. We\u2019re testing more, but it was about three weeks ago that we had about 40,000 cases in a single day. About ten days ago it was about 35,000. I don\u2019t have my charts in front of me, but it\u2019s been under 20,000 in recent days.<\/p>\n
I mean, what the American people have done at great sacrifice — and make no mistake about it, this has been tough on families and businesses large and small and communities of faith, that the American people did it and are doing it. And because of that, even though we\u2019re testing so much more, the actual cases are coming down, and, most importantly, fatalities continue to trend down around the country even while you have states across America that are opening up again.<\/p>\n
And I think every American should be encouraged by that. We continue to listen to state and local authorities about the way to practice social distancing and act in a safe and responsible way, but the president knows it, I know it, you know it. America works when America is working. The American people want to get back to work, and they want to do that in a safe and responsible way. And it\u2019s happening, Rush. It\u2019s happening all across America as we speak.<\/p>\n
RUSH: You are a former broadcast specialist, so when I tell you that we have three minutes, you know what that means. I need to ask you about —<\/p>\n
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yeah.<\/p>\n
RUSH: — school in the fall. There seems to be some confusion over whether we can, whether we will, not just high schools and middle schools but higher education as well. What can you tell us about the plans for education?<\/p>\n
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Rush, we just convened a conference call, middle of this week, with about a dozen of the top university and college presidents in America. And they all have plans to open up. We\u2019re gonna be meeting with them again in the coming weeks and producing their plans and making it available. But I want to tell you that, as we see the downward trend in cases, downward hospitalizations, and most especially downward trend in losses, one of the things that I think we can continue to move toward is not just reopening America this summer, but getting our schools back going again, higher education and getting our local schools back to work.<\/p>\n
And we\u2019re gonna continue to produce the kind of guidance that\u2019s necessary. But what I heard this week from these university and college presidents is that the plans are already underway. You know, we talked to University of Alabama, Florida, Carnegie Mellon, Purdue University, the leadership, Arizona State are all putting together plans to safely and responsibly get their campuses back open again and get the learning going again and with that, my fondest hope is that we get those teams competing again. But everybody\u2019s moving in that direction.<\/p>\n
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And, again, I just can\u2019t say it often enough. It\u2019s all a tribute to what the American people have been willing to do, to put the health of the most vulnerable among us first, and it\u2019s got us on a trajectory where we\u2019re gonna continue to partner with these schools to make sure they have the testing resources and everything that they need. But I truly do believe much of the country will be in a place where we\u2019ll be back to school come this fall, from elementary, to high school, to higher education.<\/p>\n
RUSH: It\u2019s a big deal because parents, if the schools aren\u2019t open, it\u2019s tougher for parents to go back to work and —<\/p>\n
THE VICE PRESIDENT: That\u2019s exactly right.<\/p>\n
RUSH: It\u2019s a very important thing to them.<\/p>\n
THE VICE PRESIDENT: And make no mistake about it, you know, these major universities oftentimes are the largest employer in their community.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Yeah.<\/p>\n
THE VICE PRESIDENT: They employ tens of thousands of people. They\u2019re a major part of the life of the community and of the state. But we\u2019re working with these universities. Now, is it possible, there are going to be some areas where your local school is not gonna be fully able to open because of the coronavirus continuing to be persistent? You know, that\u2019s certainly possible, but I have to tell you, the trend lines are all encouraging. And as we scale testing and as we continue to protect the most vulnerable among us, particularly seniors with serious underlying health conditions, that I think we\u2019re gonna be able to open up America again and open up our schools again.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Thank you, sir. I really appreciate you making time for us. It\u2019s always great to have you here. And continued success with the projects that you have in your portfolio to get everybody back up and running and have the jobs come back, the economy come back, it\u2019s what everybody wants and we couldn\u2019t have anybody better working on it than you, sir. Thank you very much.<\/p>\n
THE VICE PRESIDENT: You\u2019re very kind, Rush. Thank you very much. And I look forward to talking again soon.<\/p>\n
RUSH: It will be the case. That\u2019s Vice President Mike Pence. See, I told you he\u2019s a broadcast pro.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Even though we're increasing testing, the number of positive cases of coronavirus is
\n still going down around the country — it's an incredible phenomenon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":348917,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n