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Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Conference whitehouse.gov ^ | 3/14/20 | White House

Rose Garden

3:30 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you. Thank you.

A beautiful day in the Rose Garden. Appreciate everybody being here. Today, I’d like to provide an update to the American people on several decisive new actions we’re taking in our very vigilant effort to combat and ultimately defeat the coronavirus.

We’ve been working very hard on this. We’ve made tremendous progress. When you compare what we’ve done to other areas of the world, it’s pretty incredible. A lot of that had to do with the early designation and the closing of the borders.

And, as you know, Europe was just designated as the hotspot right now, and we closed that border a while ago. So that was lucky or through talent or through luck. Call it whatever you want. But through a very collective action and shared sacrifice and national determination, we will overcome the threat of the virus.

I also announced Wednesday night, following the advice of our medical professionals who are doing a tremendous job — and we appreciate it very much — that we’re suspending the entry of foreign nationals who have been to Europe in the last 14 days from entering the United States. Citizens, permanent residents, and our families — and even the families returning from Europe, will be subject to extra screening as well self-isolation for a period of 14 days.

As the World Health Organization confirmed today, many of the things that — what we said were 100 percent correct, including our designation, before them, of Europe. Like our earlier, very aggressive actions with China, this measure will save countless lives. I appreciate a number of the folks behind me. A number of the people behind me said that that saved a lot of lives, that early designation.

But it is only the beginning of what we’re really doing, and now we’re in a different phase. We had some very old and obsolete rules that we had to live with. It worked under certain circumstances but not under mass circumstances. They were there for a long time; they were in place for a long time. And we’re breaking them down now. And they’re very usable for certain instances, but not for this.

To unleash the full power of the federal government in this effort, today I am officially declaring a national emergency. Two very big words. The action I am taking will open up access to up to $50 billion of very importantly — very important and a large amount of money for states and territories and localities in our shared fight against this disease.

In furtherance of the order, I’m urging every state to set up emergency operation centers effective immediately. You’re going to be hearing from some of the largest companies and greatest retailers and medical companies in the world. They’re standing right behind me and to the side of me.

I’m also asking every hospital in this country to activate its emergency preparedness plan so that they can meet the needs of Americans everywhere. The hospitals are very engaged. New York and various other places are also various engaged. I just spoke with Governor Cuomo; we had a very good conversation. And we’re working very strongly with many states, including New York.

The emergency orders I am issuing today will also confer broad new authority to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The Secretary of HHS will be able to immediately waive provisions of applicable laws and regulations to give doctors, hospital — all hospitals — and healthcare providers maximum flexibility to respond to the virus and care for patients.

This includes the following critical authorities:

The ability to waive laws to enable telehealth, a fairly new and incredible thing that’s happened in the — in the not-so-distant past. I tell you, what they’ve done with telehealth is incredible. It gives remote doctors’ visits and hospital check-ins. The power to waive certain federal license requirements so that doctors from other states can provide services and states with the greatest need. Number two. The ability to waive requirements that critical-access hospitals limit the number of beds to 25 and the length of stay to 96 hours. The ability to waive the requirements of a three-day hospital stay prior to admission to a nursing home. Big thing. The authority to waive rules that hinder hospitals’ ability to bring additional physicians on board or obtain needed office space. They can do as they want. They can do what they have to do. They know what they have to do. Now they don’t have any problem getting it done. The authority to waive rules that severely restrict where hospitals can care for patients within the hospital itself, ensuring that the emergency capacity can be quickly established.

We’ll remove or eliminate every obstacle necessary to deliver our people the care that they need and that they’re entitled to. No resource will be spared. Nothing whatsoever.

Ten days ago, I brought together the CEOs of commercial labs at the White House and directed them to immediately begin working on a solution to dramatically increase the availability of tests. Other countries have called us and worked with us, and they’re doing similar things or will be doing similar things.

As a result of that action, today we’re announcing a new partnership with private sector to vastly increase and accelerate our capacity to test for the coronavirus. We want to make sure that those who need a test can get a test very safely, quickly, and conveniently. But we don’t want people to take a test if — if we feel that they shouldn’t be doing it. And we don’t want everyone running out and taking. Only if you have certain symptoms.

Using federal emergency authorities, the FDA approved a new test for the virus. We did this within hours after receiving the application from Roche — a process that would normally take weeks. We therefore expect up to a half a million additional tests will be available early next week. We’ll be announcing locations probably on Sunday night.

I want to thank Roche, a great company, for their incredible work. I’d also like to thank Thermo Fisher. The FDA’s goal is to hopefully authorize their application within 24 hours — it’ll go very quickly; it’s going very quickly — which will bring, additionally, 1.4 million tests on board next week and 5 million within a month. I doubt we’ll need anywhere near that.

At the same time, we’ve been in discussions with pharmacies and retailers to make drive-thru tests available in the critical locations identified by public health professionals. The goal is for individuals to be able to drive up and be swabbed without having to leave your car.

I want to thank Google. Google is helping to develop a website. It’s going to be very quickly done, unlike websites of the past, to determine whether a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location.

We have many, many locations behind us, by the way. We cover the — this country in large part. So the world, by the way — we’re not going to be talking about the world right now. But we cover very, very strongly our country. Stores in virtually every location.

Google has 1,700 engineers working on this right now. They’ve made tremendous progress. Our overriding goal is to stop the spread of the virus and to help all Americans who have been impacted by this.

Again, we don’t want everybody taking this test; it’s totally unnecessary. And this will pass. This will pass through, and we’re going to be even stronger for it. We’ve learned a lot. A tremendous amount has been learned.

I want to thank Deborah Birx, and I want to ask her maybe to come up and say a few words as to what’s happening. Dr. Birx is a highly respected person. I’ve gotten to know her very well over the last six days. And what we’ve done is rebuild something that was very old, very old-fashioned, somewhat obsolete. Certainly obsolete when it comes to the kind of numbers that we’re talking about.

Dr. Birx, please. Thank you, Deborah.

DR. BIRX: Thank you, Mr. President. It’s a pleasure to be here with all of you.

I think you know — at the beginning of this epidemic, HHS, through CDC, proactively developed an assay built on the existing flu surveillance system. That surveillance system was then converted to diagnostic system.

But last Tuesday, seeing the spread of the virus around the globe, the President realized that our current approach to testing was inadequate to need — to meet the needs of the American public. He asked for an entire overhaul of the testing approach. He immediately called the private sector laboratories to the White House, as noted, and charged them with developing a high-throughput quality platform that can meet the needs of the American public.

We are grateful to LabCorp and Quest for taking up the charge immediately after the meeting and within 72 hours bringing additional testing access, particularly to the outbreak areas of Washington State and California, and now across the country.

We are also very grateful to the universities and large hospital systems that took up the charge to develop their own quality tests made available by new FDA guidance. This has resulted in expanded testing across New York, California, Washington, Colorado, and you see sometimes those drive-thru options that have been made available through these high-throughput options.

Following the meeting last week, major commercial laboratory equipment and diagnostic companies took immediate action to adopt and develop new testing systems. Last night, the initial company, Roche, received FDA approval, moving from request to development to approval in record time.

This innovative approach centered fully on unleashing the power of the private sector, focusing on providing convenient testing to hundreds of thousands of Americans within short turnaround times. In less than two weeks together, we have developed a solution that we believe will meet the future needs — testing needs of Americans.

I understand how difficult this has been. I was part of the HIV/AIDS response in the ‘80s. We knew, from diag- — from first finding cases in 1981, it took us to almost 1985 to have a test. It took us another 11 years to have effective therapy. It is because of the lessons learned from that that we were able to mobilize and bring those individuals that were key to the HIV response to this response.

I understand that a lot of this behind-the-scenes action over the last couple of weeks was invisible to the press and the American people. But this intense effort has not only resulted in innovative solutions, but an automated high-throughput system, bringing the availability of these quality coronaviral testing to the American people at unprecedented speed.

Finally, I want you to know: In South Korea, they did have large number of tests available over the last several weeks. Their positivity rate is between 3 and 4 percent. With LabCorp and Quest expanded testing, their positivity rate is between 1 and 2 percent.

So we want to also announce this new approach to testing, which will start in the screening website up here, facilitated by Google, where clients and patients and people that have interest can go, fill out a screening questionnaire — move down for symptoms or risk factors, yes. They would move down this and be told where the drive-thru options would be for them to receive this test. The labs will then move to the high-throughput automated machines to be able to provide results in 24 to 36 hours.

That is the intent of this approach. We have seen it work just in our own United States, and we want to bring this across the continent.

Thank you very much.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Deborah. Great.

I’d like to maybe have Tony — do you want to come up? You’ve become a — I think everybody out here knows you pretty well. But Tony has been doing a tremendous job working long, long hours. And you’ve seen a lot happen, but this has been — it’s been a great experience, and working with you has been terrific.

Tony, please.

DR. FAUCI: Thank you very much, Mr. President. This is an example of — another example of what I’ve been referring to in my discussions with many of you in the audience as a proactive, leaning-forward, aggressive, trying to stay ahead of the curve.

And what you’re seeing now with this order is that we’re going to be able to remove the constraints so that people at the state and the local level — the individual physician all the way up through the federal government — will have as many constraints as possible removed for them to do everything they possibly can so that we can implement the things that we’ve been talking about — the containment, the mitigation — so that, as I’ve said many times, that curve that I referred to that goes up, we don’t want to have that curve. We want to suppress it down to that small mound.

And I think what we’ve done today is something that is going to be a very important element in having us be successful in doing that.

We still have a long way to go. There will be many more cases, but we’ll take care of that. And ultimately, as the President said, this will end. But what’s going on here today is going to help it to end sooner than it would have.

Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Tony.

If I could, some of these folks we know; they’re celebrities in their own right. They’re the biggest business people, the greatest retailers anywhere in the world. And one of them is Doug McMillon from Walmart. And I’d like to have Doug, if you would, say a few words, wherever you may be.

Doug, please.

MR. MCMILLON: When we got the call yesterday from the White House, we were eager to do our part to help serve the country. And given what we’re facing, that’s certainly important to do. We should all be doing that.

So we’ve been asked to make portions of our parking lot available in select locations in the beginning, and scaling over time as supply increases, so that people can experience the drive-thru experience that the President described.

We’ll stay involved and do everything we can from a supply-chain point of view to be of assistance.

Thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Doug. Appreciate it very much.

I’ll just stay right over here. And, Richard, if you could come up, please. Richard, please. Walgreens. Thank you.

MR. ASHWORTH: Thank you, Mr. President. And similar to Doug and Walmart, we’re happy to stand in here and help in communities all across America. Because a lot of times, when we have natural disasters, our stores are a beacon in the community, and this situation is no different.

So we look forward to partnering with the CDC, the administration, HHS, and the task force, and specifically to the Vice President, who’s doing such a fantastic job. We’re ready to engage and help.

Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Great job. Thank you very much.

Brian Cornell, Target. Thank you, Brian. Thank you. Please.

MR. CORNELL: Well, Mr. President, thank you for inviting us here today, along with our colleagues from Walmart and Walgreens and our partners at CVS. Normally, you’d view us as competitors, but today we’re focused on a common competitor, and that’s defeating the spread of the coronavirus. And we look forward to working with the administration to do our fair share to alleviate this growing threat.

So, thank you for including us today. In the near term, we’re all committed to making sure we’re keeping our stores open to serve the American consumer who is rapidly stocking up on household essentials, key food and beverage items that they need during this time; making sure we run safe stores; and creating an environment that’s safe for our team members, making sure that they feel supported during this very critical time.

So thank you for including us.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Great job.

Is Tom here? Tom Polen. Tom? Tom Polen. Please.

MR. POLEN: Thank you, Mr. President. As CEO of Becton Dickinson, we’re one of the leading providers of medical devices as well as collection products for testing of coronavirus. We’re ramping up our manufacturing capacity to ensure that the right collection devices and testing equipment are ready to address this issue. Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Tom. Great job you’ve done.

Stephen Rusckowski, Quest Diagnostics. Please. Great job. Thank you very much.

MR. RUSCKOWKI: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. President.

So, as mentioned, we were called, with the leadership of the Vice President, last week to come together as an industry. And we took advantage of that opportunity to work with the FDA, to work with the Center for Disease Control. And we are up and running with tests in a number of our facilities.

As the President mentioned, we now have capabilities from Roche diagnostics that we will bring into our facilities this weekend. And I know myself and also my colleague at LabCorp will be doing the same, so the capacity available to the American public to support this action with consumers will be considerably increased in the next few weeks.

Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

And Matt Sause, please, of Roche. Matt? Thank you, Matt.

MR. SAUSE: Thank you, Mr. President. So, from Roche, we want to thank the FDA for their rapid approval of our coronavirus test. We really appreciate the partnership with the CDC and the FDA to get that to market as fast as possible because it’s critical for us to make that available to help patients in need, and working with laboratories to get it up and going in the near future, which will bring hundreds of thousands of tests available to patients in need in the United States. So, thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: And you can do it. You can do it. A great company.

David Pierre of Signify — Signify Health. Please. Thanks, David.

MR. PIERRE: Thank you, Mr. President. We are the largest housecall provider in the U.S., and we go to the homes of the most vulnerable elderly. And through our network and our logistics engine, we stand ready to help and provide our clinicians to be where they’re needed, whether they’re in retail clinics or in the home. And we’re here to assist.

Thank you very much.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. And we’ll be changing a lot of the rules, regulations for future, should this happen in the future, which we hope it never does. But it will, I guess — somewhere out there. There are some bad ones over the years, and I guess that’ll continue to an extent, but we hope it never happens. But we’re going to be changing a lot of the old rules and specifications and regulations.

Adam Schechter, who has really been of tremendous help. LabCorp. Please. Adam?

MR. SCHECHTER: Thank you, Mr. President. At LabCorp, we’re working every second of every day to increase the number of tests that we can run. We’re working with academic medical centers, with our colleagues at Quest, with other hospital and other laboratories to ensure that we do everything we can to increase the testing as we move forward.

And I can tell you we understand how important the testing is, and we are committed to doing everything possible.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Great job. Thank you.

Thomas Moriarty, CVS. We all know CVS. Thank you.

MR. MORIARTY: Thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Thomas.

MR. MORIARTY: Thank you, Mr. President. We have been focused, since the start, of making sure our patients and the customers we serve have the information they need and the safety they need as well. We are committed to working with the administration and local public health officials to make this work as well. And thank you, sir, for the honor.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you, Thomas. Thanks. Great job.

And Bruce Greenstein, LHC Group. Tremendously talented people. Thank you very much.

MR. GREENSTEIN: Mr. President, thank you for the honor of being here. And the home health industry has been treating patients and seniors in the safety and comfort of their own home for decades. We’re very proud to be part of the equation for testing in their own home. For Americans that can’t get to a test site or live in rural areas far away from a retail establishment, we’re here to help and to partner with our hospitals and physicians, as well as the people we have here today that will be doing testing around the country. Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Fantastic.

(Mr. Greenstein gives the President an elbow bump.)

MR. GREENSTEIN: Oh, we’ll practice that.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, I like that. That’s good.

We’re also announcing the following emergency executive actions today:

To help our students and their families, I’ve waived interest on all student loans held by federal government agencies, and that will be until further notice. That’s a big thing for a lot of students that are left in the middle right now. Many of those schools have been closed.

Based on the price of oil, I’ve also instructed the Secretary of Energy to purchase, at a very good price, large quantities of crude oil for storage in the U.S. Strategic Reserve. We’re going to fill it right up to the top, saving the American taxpayer billions and billions of dollars, helping our oil industry and making us even further toward that wonderful goal — which we’ve achieved, which nobody thought was possible — of energy independence. It puts us in a position that’s very strong, and we’re buying it at the right price. And that’s something that would have not even been possible a week ago. The price of oil went down quite a bit, so we’re going to fill it up. This is a good time to fill it up.

I’d like to ask Mike Pence to say a few words, please. VP.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mr. President. It is — this day should be an inspiration to every American, because thanks to your leadership from early on, not only are we bringing a whole-of-government approach to confronting the coronavirus, we’re bringing an all-of-America approach.

Mr. President, from early on, you took decisive action. You suspended all travel from China. You created travel advisories — South Korea and Italy. We screened all travelers from all airports in both of those countries. And on the unanimous recommendation of your health experts, you, at midnight tonight, will effectively suspend all travel from Europe. And Americans that are returning will be screened and asked to voluntarily participate in a 14-day quarantine.

Throughout this process, Mr. President, you’ve put the health of America first, but you brought the best of America to address it. And it’s not just at the federal level. As you said, Mr. President, we’ve been working with states across the country. We issued broad guidelines from CDC for every American. But this week, at your direction, we tailored specific recommendations from CDC for New York, Washington State, California, Massachusetts, and Florida.

And we’ve been in continuous contact, as you said, with governors around the country. And, Mr. President, you have forged a seamless partnership with every state and every territory in this country to put the health of our nation first.

But today, I trust that people around the country that are looking on at this extraordinary public and private partnership to address the issue of testing with particular inspiration. After you tapped me to lead the White House Corona Task Force, Mr. President, you said this is all hands on deck, and you directed us to immediately reach out to the American business sector commercial labs to meet what we knew then would be the need for testing across the spectrum. And today, with this historic public-private partnership, we have laid the foundation to meet that need.

And for Americans looking on, by this Sunday evening, we’ll be able to give specific guidance on a — on when the website will be available. You can go to the website, as the President said. You’ll type in your symptoms and be given direction whether or not a test is indicated.

And then, at the same website, you’ll be directed to one of these incredible companies that are going to give a little bit of their parking lot so that people can come by and do a drive-by test.

Mr. President, I want to join you in thanking Walmart and CVS and Target and Walgreen. These are companies that are synonymous with communities large and small, where people come together. And now they’re going to come together to meet the needs of the American public.

These commercial laboratories — LabCorp and Quest and Roche — have just done an incredible job stepping forward and are going to literally make — literally make hundreds and thousands of tests available and being processed with results to patients in the very near future. But it’s all a result of you tasking us with bringing together not just government resources — which all state labs can now test across the country; CDC is testing — but you said, Mr. President, that we wanted to bring all the resources of the country together, and that’s what this partnership really means.

You know, the truth is that we have coronavirus cases now in 46 American states. And while the risk of serious illness of the coronavirus remains low, we want to encourage every American to practice common sense, practice good hygiene, go to the CDC’s website to see what the guidance is for your community or for the American people broadly.

And as the President has said, it’s especially important now that we look at senior citizens with chronic underlying health conditions. Last week, the President directed the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services to raise the standards at our nursing homes, increase inspections at our nursing homes. And today, we’re offering very specific guidance, which Seema Verma will articulate, about visitations at nursing homes.

It’s important to remember that they were there for us when we were growing up, Mr. President. They helped us with our homework. They tucked us in at night. They cheered us on as we pursued educations, cheered us on in our careers. And now it’s time for us to be there with them and to recognize that seniors with chronic health conditions are the most vulnerable, and Americans can make a difference. So wash your hands, use common sense, look after the most vulnerable.

And, Mr. President, I know I join you in saying that every American should be proud of this incredible public-private partnership that’s going to speeding access of testing to millions of Americans in the weeks ahead.

And together, as you’ve said many times, together we’ll get through this. Together, we’ll put the health of America first.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mike. Thank you very much.

Seema. Where is Seema? I’d like you to maybe take that a step further, please, on nursing homes. Thanks.

ADMINISTRATOR VERMA: Thank you. Well, thank you to the President for the declaration. It allows my agency, CMS — that runs Medicare and Medicaid and has oversight of all of the nation’s healthcare facilities — to suspend regulations that can get in the way of treating patients during this time.

These temporary national blanket waivers are reserved for the rarest of circumstances, and they represent a massive mobilization of our country’s resources to combat this terrible virus. And the flexibilities we are offering will be a God-send to the providers, clinicians, and facilities on the frontlines of this fight.

And later, CMS is going to be issuing guidance directing nursing homes to temporarily restrict all visitors and non-essential personnel, with a few exceptions such as end-of-life situations.

We fully appreciate that this measure represents a severe trial for residents of nursing homes and those who love them. But we are doing what we must to protect our vulnerable elderly. Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Seema.

As I said in my address to the nation the other night, all Americans have a role to play in defeating this virus. Our most effective weapon right now is to limit the damage to our people and our country, and slow the spread of the virus itself.

The choice we make, the precautions we put into place are critical to overcoming the virus, reducing its spread and shortening the duration of the pandemic — which is what it is.

The CDC has published guidelines on the Coronavirus.gov to enable — it’s Coronavirus.gov, and it’s very — very heavily used right now, I will say — to enable every American to respond to this epidemic and to protect themselves, their families, and their communities, while the risks to young and healthy Americans remains very low. We’ve learned a lot about this over the last two weeks. Anyone can be a carrier for the virus and risk transmission to older Americans and those with underlying health conditions and those who are most at risk. They have not done very well. Older Americans who are — especially, if they have a health problem, they have not done well.

We must take all precautions and be responsible for the actions that we take and that we see other people take. We want to prevent the spread and transmission of the disease.

It’s incredible what’s — sports — what’s happening with the sporting world, where so many of the great sports that we’ve gotten so used to at this time of the year, they’re not going to be meeting. And they’ve done a great service actually. But that — would be another way that it could be — problems could be caused.

But this is why I outlined on Wednesday night my admiss- — administration’s — the fact that we’ve issued a requirement suspending all medically unnecessary visits to various places, but in particular, nursing homes. We should all be working off the same playbook when it comes to protecting Americans. We have to.

We need to be consistent in adopting measures to limit the spread of the virus. The virus is the same, whether it’s spreading in cities, towns, or rural communities. The tools and tactics for attacking it are similar no matter where you go. No matter where you go. You have some hotspots throughout the world right now that people would have never thought possible, and they’re being very seriously affected.

Key among these efforts are breaking chains of transmission between people. These measures have been adopted by many companies, universities, and schools. And we want to protect the safety and the health of their employees and their students. I encourage everyone to follow the guidelines we’ve issued by CDC and these commonsense measures. A lot of it is common sense.

For the areas where the virus is spreading, the CDC is advising communities to postpone large gatherings, postpone assemblies, social functions, and sporting events; stagger recess and lunch for schools that aren’t canceled; limit in-person meetings; increase scheduled cleanings; and cancel work-sponsored travel — among numerous other steps that can be taken.

Americans are the strongest and most resilient people on Earth, and in the coming weeks, we will all have to make changes and sacrifices, but these short-term sacrifices will produce long-term gain.

And again, I’ve said we’re learning a lot for the future and future problems like this, or worse. Or worse. It could get worse. The next eight weeks are critical. We can learn — and we will turn a corner on this virus.

Some of the doctors say it will wash through, it will flow through. Interesting terms and very accurate. I think you’re going to find in a number of weeks it’s going to be a very accurate term.

In times of hardship, the true character of America always shines through. We live in the company of the greatest heroes and the most inspiring citizens anywhere in the world. We want to take care of our people. We want to draw on the strength of our history, draw on the strength of our people, and we will get through this all together. We will just get through it. So much progress has already been made.

And, frankly, the numbers — because of steps that have been taken — are at a level that a lot of people are surprised, especially when you compare them with other places with far smaller populations.

The spirit and the will of our nation is unbreakable. We will defeat this threat. When America is tested, America rises to the occasion.

And to those families and citizens who are worried and concerned for themselves and their loved ones, I want you to know that your federal government will unleash every authority, resource, and tool at its disposal to safeguard the lives and health of our people.

So we’re with you every step of the way. No nation is more prepared or more equipped to face down this crisis. As you know, we are rated number one in the world.

We’re also helping other nations — many other nations; we’re helping them a lot. And they’re doing okay, in some cases. In some cases, they’re not doing well at all. But we’re working with a lot of groups of people and a lot of other nations.

With faith and heart and hope and love and determination, we will succeed. We will prevail. We will be very, very successful. And we’ll learn for the future.

Thank you all very much. If you have any questions, we can take some.

Go ahead, John. Please. And if you’d like to ask some of the folks up here, it would be fine. Please.

Q Sure. Mr. President, where are you with the House bill? Yesterday, we talked to you in the Oval Office; you were opposed to it. What has happened since then? And what’s the holdup on that?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we just don’t think they’re giving enough. We don’t think the Democrats are giving enough. We’re negotiating. We thought we had something, but all of a sudden they didn’t agree to certain things that they agreed to. So we could have something, but we don’t think they’re giving enough. They’re not — they’re not doing what’s right for the country.

Q And if I could ask Dr. Fauci —

Q (Inaudible.)

THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, please.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. You just mentioned waiving interest for student loans.

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

Q You talked about buying oil from the — from the SPR, or adding to the SPR. What other specific targeted measures is your administration thinking about taking? The Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, said today that you’re just in the “second inning” of things that you might be undergoing.

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, well, that’s true. And we are looking at many different things, as you know. You know some of them — they’ve been written about very widely. But we’re going to be releasing a paper in about two hours stating quite a few other steps. Very important ones.

Q Mr. President —

Please, go ahead.

Q Like what, sir, if you wouldn’t mind?

THE PRESIDENT: Please, go ahead.

Q Thank you so much, Mr. President. I want to — I want to know if you are in contact with the Brazilian President, Bolsonaro, after a member of his delegation who was with you Saturday was tested positive.

And also Senat- — I want to ask another question, if you’ll let me. Senator Lindsey Graham and also Senator Scott — Rick Scott — are self-isolating. Are you planning to take any kind of precautionary measure to protect you and also your staff who was there with him?

THE PRESIDENT: No, we have no symptoms whatsoever. And we have — we had a great meeting with the President of Brazil, Bolsonaro. Great guy. Very — a very tremendous — he’s done — he’s doing a fantastic job for Brazil.

And, as you know, he tested negative — meaning, nothing wrong — this morning. And we got that word, too. Because we did have dinner with him; we were sitting next to each other for a long period of time.

Q But are you in contact with him over the coronavirus crisis?

THE PRESIDENT: No, we — we have. We’re talking about it, country to country, but we did discuss if he had a problem. It was reported that he may have it, and he doesn’t, fortunately.

Q Thank you so much, Mr. President. Dr. Fauci said earlier this week that the lag in testing was, in fact, “a failing.” Do you take responsibility for that?

And when can you guarantee that every single American who needs a test will be able to have a test? What’s the date of that?

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, no, I don’t take responsibility at all, because we were given a — a set of circumstances and we were given rules, regulations, and specifications from a different time. It wasn’t meant for this kind of an event with the kind of numbers that we’re talking about. And what we’ve done is redesigned it very quickly with the help of the people behind me. And we’re now in very, very strong shape.

I think we’ll be announcing, as I said, Sunday night, and this will start very quickly. And we — we’ll have — we’ll have the ability to do in the millions over a very, very quick period of time. So, no.

And what we have done — and we are going to be leaving a very indelible print for the future, in case something like this happens again. But it was a — and that’s not the fault of anybody. And, frankly, the old system worked very well for smaller numbers — much smaller numbers — but not for these kind of numbers.

Tony, maybe you’d like to say something?

Q By Sunday night, will you have —

THE PRESIDENT: Tony, please.

Q Yes, please. By Sunday night, will every American be able to get a test?

DR. FAUCI: So, just to reiterate what I said to many of you multiple times: It’s (inaudible) of a system. This system was not designed — for what it was designed for, it worked very well. The CDC designed a good system.

If you want to get the kind of blanket testing and availability that anybody can get it or you could even do surveillance to find out what the penetrance is, you have to embrace the private sector. And this is exactly what you’re seeing, because you can’t do it without it.

So when I said that, I meant the system was not designed for what we need. Now, looking forward, the system will take care of it.

Q And, Mr. President, with respect, you’ve been —

THE PRESIDENT: And, interestingly, if you go back — please — if you go back to the swine flu, it was nothing like this. They didn’t do testing like this. And actually, they lost approximately 14,000 people. And they didn’t do the testing. They started thinking about testing when it was far too late.

What we’ve done — and one of the reasons I think people are respecting what we’ve done: We’ve done it very early. We’ve gotten it very early. And we’ve also kept a lot of people out.

Q Mr. President —

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, please. Go ahead. Please.

Q Mr. President, the last administration said that they had tested a million people at this point. You’ve been —

THE PRESIDENT: Well, ask them how they —

Q — President for three years.

THE PRESIDENT: — did with the swine flu. It was a disaster.

Q But with respect, you’ve been President for three years —

THE PRESIDENT: Next, please. Next, please.

Q — and Wuhan was suffering —

THE PRESIDENT: They had a very big failure with swine flu. A very big failure.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. I want to ask you about the European travel ban that goes into effect at —

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

Q — midnight tonight and the exemption that you’ve offered to the UK. There are 17 countries that are in the so-called “Schengen zone” that have fewer coronavirus cases than the UK. And just in the past 24 hours, the UK has added 208 coronavirus cases to their total. Why do they, Mr. President, deserve an exemption? And would you consider adding them to this travel ban list?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, that was recommended to me by a group of professionals, and we are looking at it based on the new numbers that are coming out. And we may have to include them in the list of countries that we will, you could say, ban — or whatever — it is during this period of time.

But, yeah, their numbers have gone up fairly precipitously over the last 24 hours, so we may be adding that, and we may be adding a couple of others. And we may, frankly, start thinking about taking some off.

Go ahead.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. I’m a correspondent with Hong Kong Phoenix TV. You have been mentioned — you have mentioned that the number in China has been decreasing and China has made tremendous progress in the past two weeks.

THE PRESIDENT: It’s true.

Q I’m wondering how much confidence does this give you to control the virus in the United States. And do you see the data China has been sharing with the United States has been helpful?

THE PRESIDENT: I think it has been helpful. We’ve been working very much with China. I’ve spoken, as you know, with President Xi. They went through hell, and their numbers are starting to look very good. They’re really — they’re really looking very good. We’re very happy about that. We are sharing data, yes. In fact, we’re sharing quite a bit of data, including the fact that some of our pharmaceutical companies are working over there right now with large groups of people.

Yeah, go ahead. Please.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. You spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau yesterday.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I did.

Q Did you discuss the potential closing of the border between Canada and the U.S.? And, by extension, are you considering ways to salvage the $2 billion daily trade between the two countries?

THE PRESIDENT: So we didn’t discuss the border. We’ve had a very good relationship. Just about finished with the USMCA, as you know. He called — actually, he called me to tell me that. I think that was the primary reason for the call.

At the time, his wife had not been diagnosed. And she’s a lovely lady — wonderful lady, great lady. And since then, I’ve heard — read that the result was that she has it. And I was a little surprised. I think he was surprised also. We did discuss it prior to. She’s going to be fine, but he thought that she would not, most likely, have the virus. Unfortunately, she does.

But we didn’t discuss the border yesterday, no.

Go ahead, please.

If you have any questions for these great geniuses up here, you should — even a business question related to what we’re talking about.

Q Mr. President, Ross Palombo from ABC News Miami. As a relatively new Floridian, what is your message today to the cruise line industry and the travel industry that Florida depends upon? And since Senator Rick Scott and Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Giménez have the same exposure as you and they are self-isolating, what’s your message to them? That they shouldn’t be?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I don’t know that I had exposure, but I don’t have any of the symptoms. And we do have a White House doctor and, I should say, many White House doctors, frankly. And I asked them that same question, and they said, “You don’t have any symptoms whatsoever.” And we don’t want people without symptoms to go and do the test. The test is not insignificant.

As far as the cruise line business, we’re with them all the way. It’s a great business. It’s a great U.S. business, frankly. And I know how important they are to the country. That includes airlines. But the cruise line business, obviously, was hit very hard.

We had a tremendous success out in Oakland where we moved it. Vice President Pence did a fantastic job with that. We worked with UK. We worked with Canada. They took their people back. And Canada has approximately 600 people; UK, likewise, took a large number of people back to the United Kingdom.

And we have people quarantined. It was a big operation, and it worked out really — you don’t hear about it anymore. It worked out really well.

Mike, you may even want to say something about that because that was really done properly.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you, Mr. President. And that program with the Grand Princess, the ship, is continuing to be administered in the highest standards, orderly way, as the President directed. And Americans that needed treatment have received them.

I spoke to the governor of Iowa today, and some of those who now have been cleared are able, in proper supervision, to be returning to Iowa, where they’re making arrangements for them to do that. Others in Texas, others in Georgia. Again, it’s another example of the extraordinary cooperation of Governor Abbott, Governor Gavin Newsom, Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia.

But to add to that, the President directed me last Saturday to travel down to Miami. We met with all the leaders of the cruise line industry. Several cruise lines have announced a 60-day pause in operations. Our Department of Homeland Security has praised them for doing that because of the unique health challenges particularly presented to seniors with underlying conditions.

We have a proposal from the cruise line industry, but they’re currently considering what other steps that they might take, perhaps even similar to what those other lines have taken. We’re anticipating some response on that in the next 24 hours.

But as the President said, the American people cherish our cruise line industry, the men and women who work on the ships, the men and women who work on the shore, all the economies that are so benefitted by a vibrant cruise line industry.

And what the President has directed us to do is, whether there — whether there is a pause in the moment, as some cruise lines are doing, and as we all continue to discuss, we want to work with the cruise line industry to ensure that when we come through this, that cruise lines and the medical services that are available, and for the passengers and all of the crew, that cruise lines are safer than ever before and can prosper for many years to come.

THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, please.

Q This question is for Drs. Fauci and Birk [sic] — Birx. Dr. Fauci, based on what you currently know, what is the trajectory for when this outbreak will peak? How long will the American people have to remain on this emergency footing?

And for Dr. Birx, as the administration tries to get its arms around this test kit shortage issue, the next glaring need could be respirators and related hospital equipment. So what is the administration doing right now to ramp up production of respirators and that kind of equipment should this outbreak persist?

DR. FAUCI: So, when you have an outbreak like this, particularly if you’re trying to interfere with it, it’s really impossible to predict the time element of when it’s going to peak and when it’s naturally going to go down.

So if you look at the situation where countries really did not get to the point of trying to contain and mitigate very well, you see a peak over several weeks and then down again over other several weeks. What we’re trying to do with the efforts that we’re doing is to blunt that peak.

And I mentioned it many times, and I think it’s important and appropriate for me to mention it again because it answers your question: When you talk about preventing infections from without in — which is the kind of travel restrictions we’re talking about — then how do you handle what you already have in your country? You continue some sort of containment, but you also do mitigation and you try to proportion it to the areas where there are the most infections.

The success of that and how much you make this turn into this is going to give you the amount of time. If we’re successful, it’ll be less. If we’re not successful, it’s going to be more. But these kind of things generally run out in a few months. Hopefully, we’ll make it several weeks — eight, nine, whatever weeks. But I can’t give you a number because it depends on how successful we are.

DR. BIRX: Great, thank you. It’s a great question, and Dr. Fauci and I have worked together a very long time and continue. It’s a privilege to work with him every day.

So I think you can learn very — and I appreciate there were some graphics done by some of the reporting over the last several days. If you align the data from China with the data with South Korea, you can start to see almost a complete overlay of that data. And so that’s what we’re tracking very closely, as well as Italy. But you have an excellent question.

I just want to make one note: In South Korea, I want to repeat, only 4 percent of the tests were positive. That means 96 percent of the people had a different respiratory disease because we’re in the middle of flu season, cold season, and all of the other respiratory diseases that we get every day.

In LabCorp and Quest’s early data, they’re running about 1 to 2 percent positive. That means that we have a lot more other respiratory disease out there besides the coronavirus. And that’s why the screening is critical. But even with the screening, we’re going to low — run what we think are very low rates.

Needless to say, though, we’re taking it extraordinarily seriously to plan for what could come. Not what Dr. Fauci talked about — blunting the curve — that makes it much less high need at that peak of the curve that we’re all planning for.

So we’re in full inventory of all of our assets by the President unlocking and this emergency order, and the Secretary of HHS’s ability — it unlocks all of those stockpiles, those needs: what the VA has, what the DOD has, what the National Guard has, and what every hospital has.

And the hospital emergency preparedness plan allows them to defer elective issues to keep those hospital beds open for those who might need it. So we’re in full planning mode for each of those things.

THE PRESIDENT: And I might add that we’re in the process — and, in some cases, have already done it — ordered a large number of respirators, just in case. We hope we don’t need them, but we’ve ordered a large number.

Yeah. Go ahead, please.

Q Thank you very much, Mr. President. In your speech to the nation, you mentioned the situation in China and South Korea have improved, and you’re thinking about remove the restrictions, also the warning —

THE PRESIDENT: Right.

Q — in place right now. When can we expect that announcement? And how do you see the overall progress that Asian countries made?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, some are making progress; some are not, as you know. But some are making progress. And as they make progress, as they get down to the number that we all think is right — that they know is right, we know is right — we’ll be opening it up. And some are really moving along rapidly. We hope to be able to open things up as quickly as possible.

Go ahead, please. Go ahead.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. I’d like to ask Secretary Azar and Dr. Fauzi [sic] just how —

THE PRESIDENT: That was (inaudible). (Laughs.)

Q Dr. Fauci. Okay?

THE PRESIDENT: Right. Better.

Q All right.

THE PRESIDENT: Better. Not 100 percent, but 90 percent.

Q Right.

THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.

Q This affects the elderly, primarily. And in that sense, it’s an unusual disease. Is any specific research being done as to why it affects our senior citizens more than others?

DR. FAUCI: So, I don’t mean to diminish your question, but we already know why it would affect senior citizens more, because when you talk about anything that requires a robust immune system — as you get older, your immune system is not as potent as it is when you were young. And that’s the reason why, when you talk about even influenza, which we have extraordinary experience with over decades and decades, the people who are very vulnerable are the elderly and those with underlying conditions.

The same thing holds true for a variety of other disease. Why cancer is more prevalent in some — in mostly in older individuals — because the immune system that screens for it is less robust. So it really is something that is kind of well-known over a lot of studies.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay. OAN, please. OAN.

Q Mr. President, the Chinese officials are expressing some tones of discontent with how — where the source of this virus has come from, and they’re spinning some odd narratives. What are your response to the Chinese officials who are doing that? And have they signaled any kind of resistance to upcoming trade talks in response to how we’re handling this virus?

THE PRESIDENT: No, we have our deal with China. They’re going to be buying $250 billion worth of goods and $50 billion from our farmers. And that’s a great deal for our country; it’s about time somebody did that. And, frankly, phase two, we’ll start negotiating.

I did read one article, but I don’t think that article was representative — certainly not of my conversations with President Xi — and they know where it came from. We all know where it came from.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Yamiche Alcindor from PBS NewsHour.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

Q My first question is: You said that you don’t take responsibility, but you did disband the White House pandemic office, and the officials that were working in that office left this administration abruptly. So what responsibility do you take to that? And the officials that worked in that office said that you — that the White House lost valuable time because that office was disbanded. What do you make of that?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I just think it’s a nasty question because what we’ve done is — and Tony has said numerous times that we’ve saved thousands of lives because of the quick closing. And when you say “me,” I didn’t do it. We have a group of people I could —

Q It’s your administration.

THE PRESIDENT: I could ask perhaps — my administration — but I could perhaps ask Tony about that because I don’t know anything about it. I mean, you say — you say we did that. I don’t know anything about it.

Q You don’t know about the —

THE PRESIDENT: We’re spending — I don’t know. It’s the —

Q — about the reorganization that happened at the National Security Council?

THE PRESIDENT: It’s the — it’s the administration. Perhaps they do that. You know, people let people go. You used to be with a different newspaper than you are now. You know, things like that happen.

Q But this was a — this was an org- —

THE PRESIDENT: Okay. Please go ahead.

Q This was an organization at the National Security Council.

THE PRESIDENT: We’re doing a great job. Let me tell you, these professionals behind me and the — these great, incredible doctors and business people — the best in the world. And I can say that. Whether it’s retailers or labs, or anything you want to say, these are the best of the world. We’re doing a great job.

We have 40 people right now. Forty. Compare that with other countries that have many, many times that amount. And one of the reasons we have 40 and others have — and, again, that number is going up, just so you understand. And a number of cases, which are very small, relatively speaking — it’s going up. But we’ve done a great job because we acted quickly. We acted early. And there’s nothing we could have done that was better than closing our borders to highly infected areas.

Please, go ahead.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Vanessa Jaklitsch for NTN24 for Latin America countries —

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, sure.

Q — and also for Spain, La Razón and Antena 3. I would like to ask you two very brief questions. One: For how long we’re going to have the emergency — I mean, the national emergency? And —

THE PRESIDENT: I hope not long, but it’s there now and it gives tremendous powers for things that we need. Tremendous power, actually. And the Stafford Act and various other things that we’re involved with and have studied and memorized in so many different ways and forms, it gives the kind of power that we need to get rid of this virus.

And we’re going to do it very quickly. And I hope we won’t need it very long, but whatever it takes.

Q So, for now, we still don’t know for how long? And I — something very important I wanted to ask you is like, how do you think — do you really think it’s essential coordinating with other countries, and learning from the lessons that — they already suffer the same situation — countries —

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

Q — of course, like China and South Korea, but now recently —

THE PRESIDENT: Sure.

Q — Italy and Spain. And how —

THE PRESIDENT: Well, Italy is having a —

Q — is that coordination done? Thank you so much, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Italy is having a very — yeah — we’re in touch with Italy and, you know, it’s a — it’s a country that we love. We have tremendous — millions and millions of people, originally — origins from Italy. And we’re working with them. They’re in a very — they’re in, probably, relatively speaking, the toughest position of all.

We’re in touch with everybody. We’re in touch with — when I say “everybody,” we’re in touch with many of the countries that you know about, that you’re writing about. And they’re calling us asking for advice. They’re asking for the advice of the people behind me.

Italy has got a tough situation, but they’re — they’re really — they have really clamped down and I think they’re going to see some very good results. It’s tough. What they did — they really took their medicine, but they’re going to see some much better results.

Yeah, Jeff.

Q Thank you, sir. With regard to domestic travel: Should Americans feel safe or should Americans at all be traveling to states such as Washington State, New York, and other hotspots within this country?

And a follow-up on Brazil: You’re asking people who come back from America — from Europe — Americans who are coming back from Europe to self-quarantine for a couple weeks. You were in a picture with somebody who now has coronavirus from Brazil, at Mar-a-Lago. How is that different?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I’ll tell you, first of all, I’m not coming back from someplace.

Q But you were exposed.

THE PRESIDENT: We — and there was somebody that they say has it. I have no idea who he is, but I take pictures and it lasts for, literally, seconds. I don’t know the gentleman that we’re talking about. I have no idea who he is. I haven’t seen the picture. I said, “There’s a picture of somebody,” but I take sometimes hundreds of pictures a day. And that night I was taking hundreds of pictures. So I just don’t know.

Now I did sit with the President for probably two hours, but he has tested negative. So that’s good.

Q It’s just a matter of —

THE PRESIDENT: Please, go ahead.

Q And the domestic travel, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, please.

Q The travel? The first part of the question was domestic travel.

THE PRESIDENT: I would say, if you stay home, it’s not bad. It’s not bad. Now, there are certain parts of the country that are — essentially, have no — have zero problem. Washington has been very tough — in particular, a nursing home. And, but Washington — the State of Washington has been very tough. It’s been a big percentage of — when you talk about the 40 deaths, that’s been has been a big percentage of the deaths, as you know very well. And they all came from a very certain area, unfortunately.

Please, go ahead.

Q Mr. President —

THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead. Okay.

Q Thank you very much, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

Q Cordelia Lynch, Sky News. You talked this week about the UK doing a good job in tackling coronavirus. In light of the rising cases, are you changing your mind about that? You also just spoke about possible travel restrictions. Have you discussed when they might be put in place?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, in light of the results, as we discussed before — in light of the results, we’re going to be looking at it. And I know the task force is looking at it very strongly — the Vice President, everybody. It was looking good, but they’ve –the results have been building up pretty rapidly. So we’ll — we’ll be taking another look at that. Yes, absolutely.

Go ahead, please.

Q Mr. President, thank you. I want to first follow up on Jeff’s question, because the person you were standing next to, whether you know who he is or not, tested positive for coronavirus. Dr. Fauci said this morning, “If you stand next to somebody who tested positive, you should self-isolate and get a test.” You say your White House doctor is telling you something different. Who should Americans listen to?

And my second question is —

THE PRESIDENT: I think they have to listen to their doctors, and I think they shouldn’t be jumping to get the test unless it’s necessary. But I think they have to listen to their doctors. And I mean, I don’t know the — I haven’t seen the picture. Somebody said there’s a picture with somebody taking a picture with me, but I haven’t seen it. But I can tell you —

Q Well, doctors have said you might have it even if you don’t have symptoms.

THE PRESIDENT: Well —

Q Are you being selfish by not getting tested and potentially exposing —

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I didn’t say I wasn’t going to be tested.

Q Are you going to be?

THE PRESIDENT: Most likely, yeah. Most likely.

Q When do you think that will happen?

THE PRESIDENT: Not for that reason, but because I think I will do it any way. Fairly soon.

Q Will you let us know the results?

THE PRESIDENT: We’re working on that. We’re working out a schedule.

Q My second question, Mr. President —

THE PRESIDENT: You go ahead, please.

Q That was a follow-up.

THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.

Q (Inaudible.) (Off-mic.)

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

Q I know there’s been a lot of talk about testing. I just want to make sure we’re clear though, because we’ve been hearing from doctors who say, as of today, they still can’t get patients tested who need a test. So, as of today, can everyone who a doctor wants to have tested get tested? And if not, when? When will doctors —

THE PRESIDENT: Well, that’s been true for a while. But I’ll let Mike — why don’t you answer that, Mike, please?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, as the President said and Dr. Fauci has articulated, the nature of our current system — where the CDC has sample sent and tests are performed or state labs perform tests or, in some cases, university and hospital labs perform tests — is generally adequate for an infectious disease or for people getting diagnostic work done. But given the sheer scale of this, the President tasked us with bringing together this extraordinary public and private partnership.

Today, by some estimates, when you add all the labs together — and, today, the President made it possible for every state in the country and their state labs to authorize labs across their state to do coronavirus testing.

We — we’re estimating somewhere between 15- and 20,000 tests a day are able to be performed. But very soon, with the program that was announced today, Americans will be able to visit one of the sites closest to them, as described on the website, if they’re symptomatic — if the questionnaire indicates it — to be able to have a test there. And these incredible companies will process the test and they’ll receive that information.

But, for now, the best advice that we can give for people is to speak to their doctor, as the President just said. And if the doctor indicates, that physician — if it’s not a university hospital or otherwise authorized lab — can contact the state lab. And, again, every state lab in the country can perform tests today.

But what the President charged us with, when I was tasked to take over the White House Coronavirus Task Force, was: Open up tests all across the country. And the President said, a few days ago, that we made it clear that any American that wanted to get a test would be able, clinically, to get a test. Because I literally heard from the Governor of Washington State, who said the doctors in Washington State were saying that if you were only mildly symptomatic, they would not order a test. And fortunately, the President directed CDC to clarify that.

Now anyone in consultation with their physician, regardless of their symptoms can request a test and their doctors will contact those agencies, those labs in their state. But very soon, Americans will be able to go to these — these drive-in sites and be able to obtain and participate in a test.

Dr. Birx, is there more to amplify that?

DR. BIRX: No, I think — I think that’s perfectly said. I think, just to review one more time about the testing: With LabCorp and Quest — I think many of you have been to a doctor’s office and seen the little boxes outside — what they do is they deliver both the specimen collection piece — because, remember, it’s a nasal swab; it’s not a tube of blood. So they’ve delivered that to doctors’ offices and hospitals, and then they will arrange to pick that up.

The important piece in this all is they’ve gone from a machine that may have a lower throughput, to the potential to have automated extraction. I know you don’t want all of these details, but it’s really key for the laboratory people. It’s an automated extraction of the RNA that then runs in an automated way on the machine, with no one touching it, and the result comes out at the other end.

So, sample to machine to results. That cuts out a lot of the manual pieces that were happening that were delaying the test results.

Q And so, with that, what’s the timeline — like from when you’re tested to when you get results? Like, next week, what should people expect?

DR. BIRX: Well, with the prior testing, it was taking several days because the test is slower. We believe with this test, because of its throughput, that the testing can be from start — remember, it has to transport — to the laboratory that will run it. And then we’re hoping that all can be finished within 24 hours, which is very similar to other tests that you receive today.

These are not point-of-care tests. We are working on point-of-care tests, but we have to realize point-of-care tests take six months or more to develop. So we’re not waiting for those. We’re still diagnosing this on nucleic acid, so as an antibody. This is actually the antigen — the actual virus in your nose that we’re amplifying.

THE PRESIDENT: I think you have to remember, though: We’re working very closely with states, and you have a smaller form and more targeted form of government going in and doing it — like, in New York, where the relationship is very good; like Gavin Newsom, where he made some very complimentary — because that’s California — he made some really complimentary comments the other day about how we’re working together. We worked on the ship together, but we worked on a lot of other things together, having to do with this.

And we’re — well, really, the relationship that we have — I can’t think of a bad relationship. We’re helping them. We’re funding them, in some cases, depending on what it is you’re talking about. And we’re all working together very closely. So we’ve done, really, I think a tremendous job of teamwork with the different states.

All right. One or two more. And if you have — if you have questions for these folks — does anybody have a question for the folks up here? Who has a question up here? You have? Okay, go ahead. If you have a question, go ahead.

Q Thank you. I have one for you as well.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay. I thought — I knew you would.

Q (Laughs.) No, but I do have one for them, because I haven’t heard this yet.

THE PRESIDENT: I was waiting for that. Go ahead.

Q Because I haven’t heard this yet.

THE PRESIDENT: Ask them first, please.

Q Yes, I will. Okay. With regards to the CEOs, can you please tell us when you expect to see items like hand sanitizer that have been going out of stock very quickly back on the shelves? There have been a lot of reports about that.

And, for you, Mr. President, could you talk about a potential bailout for the cruise industry? You had suggested that could happen. Is that something you’re still looking at? And how much would that be?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I didn’t suggest that it could happen, but I can tell you it’s an industry that was very badly impacted by what’s going on with the virus. And it’s a great industry. It’s a very important industry and we will be helping them. And we will be helping the airline industry, if we have to — assuming we have to.

So far, people haven’t been asking. But if they should be asking, we’ll — we want to make sure our airlines are very strong. And then, one day — and one day, all of a sudden, it wasn’t looking so good.

Interestingly, we were just talking — I was talking to Doug, and the numbers they’re doing from the retailing standpoint — I guess, because of this, your business is like the opposite. All of you have done — you’ve been selling a lot of — a lot of stuff. Do you want to answer the question, as to the hand sanitizers?

MR. MCMILLON: Sure. Yeah, specifically the areas where we’re seeing pressure in the supply chain are surface cleaners, cleaning supplies, paper goods, in particular. Hand sanitizer is going to be very difficult to have 100 percent in stock on for some time. We’re still replenishing it and shipping it, but as soon as it hits the stores, it’s going. The same thing is true for the categories I just mentioned. So all of the retailers will be working hand-in-hand with the suppliers to bring that to the market as fast as we can.

Q What is your advice though for Americans who are seeking those items? What is your advice? They’re selling out online. They’re selling out in the stores. What —

MR. MCMILLON: I think — I think this team has given you other examples of what people can do to fight back against this virus, and you should look at the entire list.

THE PRESIDENT: Please.

DR. FAUCI: Please. I mean, obviously, it sounds very simplistic, but wash your hands as often as you possibly can. And I know you’re not always in a position to be able to wash your hands, but wash them as much as you can. If you don’t have the alcohol wipes, try and get them. If you can’t get them, just try as best as possible to do it. I mean you got to do the best you can.

THE PRESIDENT: Alex, please.

SECRETARY AZAR: Well, just general preparedness. You know, you want to wash your hands. You want to keep distance from people. And if you’re around someone sick, keep away from them. Just basic, basic public health.

No, these guys are selling a lot of toilet paper. I don’t know, there seems — Tony, do you need to give some guidance that toilet paper is not an effective protection against getting the coronavirus? (Laughs.) They’re selling out. But the — soap and water. Hot water, soap, 20 seconds. That’s how you do it.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay. One more. Go ahead. Go ahead. No. Over here. Behind you. Behind you.

Q Thank you very much, Mr. President. You have a great team, of course.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s true. Thank you.

Q My question is to Mr. President: Are you happy from the Chinese response? What correctly really told you — what really happened those days?

And second, Prime Minister Modi, or India, have closed borders until April 15th. If you have spoken with the Prime Minister of India, and if they have needed any help?

And finally, sir, any message for the small businesses? Because they are losing some businesses because of this. Thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, on small businesses, the Small Business Administration is now stacked with money to help them, and we’re going to make the money readily available if they need it — small businesses.

We had a great time in India. It was an incredible two days, and he’s a great friend of mine. And he’s a friend of his people, because he was greeted incredibly warmly, as was I. And that stadium — that was an incredible event. And I loved being with him, so just say hello to him. But we — we talked about everything. We talked about far more than just borders.

And as far as President Xi — likewise, he’s a friend of mine. I believe that we are dealing in good faith. And we just worked to, as you know, and as I just said — we just worked an incredible deal. A big deal. One of the biggest deals ever made of any kind. Big even by the standards of some of the people here — the deal with China. But I think that they want to get to the bottom of things also.

We’re working — our drug companies, our pharmaceutical companies are working very closely with China and with India, as you know, and with — all over the world. And they’re all over the world. These are magnificent companies that are very, very knowledgeable.

And it’s — we’re very lucky to have them, because I think you’re going to come up with — whether it’s therapeutic or whether it’s just help — helping getting better. And then ultimately, a vaccine, which takes a little bit longer because of the test periods and a couple of other reasons. You’re going to have it very quickly because of the great knowledge. And they’ll have it very quickly. They’ve made a tremendous amount of progress.

Thank you all very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much.

END

4:42 P.M. EDT

TOPICS: Miscellaneous

KEYWORDS: coronavirus; trump china virusus; trump natl emergency; trump speech; trump transcript

________________________________________________________________

OPINION: History in the making.

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emospritelet · 5 years

Text

Honourable Members

This is partly the fault of @thestraggletag for this post and the subsequent dream I had. It’s also the fault of Bobby for posting pics of his new project. I know I said I wouldn’t post it until it was done but I am weak. Should be a three-parter. Part two is almost done. See AO3 re the fictional political parties and Government departments. Sorry about the title: I am a child :)

AO3 link

If there was one thing Robert Sutherland hated more than any other, it was giving interviews to right-wing lifestyle journalists. He’d had to suffer through many an indignity in his working life, but relatively little of that life had been under public scrutiny. He had had what was diplomatically described as an inauspicious start in life, but had developed an interest in politics after becoming a union representative at the factory where he had started work at sixteen. Coming to Westminster as a backbench MP had opened his eyes to the reality of trying to represent the people he served in a place rife with deep divisions and party infighting.

One of the hardest lessons he had learned was that honesty and integrity did not automatically lead to political success. A less surprising, if more irritating realisation, was that once you made it to the House of Commons, and especially to the front benches, it was open season on your private life as far as certain sections of the press were concerned. He thought that it was probably fortunate that he had gotten divorced five years earlier, before becoming leader of his party, but it didn’t stop the speculation about potential love interests. Since leading his party through a successful election campaign, ousting the British Unionists from power in a crushing victory and entering 10 Downing Street, the interest from the press had only grown, and with it the amount of salacious gossip that he tried hard to ignore.

He supposed it was hardly surprising; he had been single since the divorce and happily so, but a vacuum always tempted people to fill it with their own rumours. His Principal Private Secretary, Carrie de Ville, had assured him that giving interviews to publications such as Green Space would improve his polling amongst right-wing middle class women, but he was beginning to wonder if the current discomfort he felt was worth it.

The current subject of his disdain, Ms Tamara Finlay-Warburton, was perched on a chair in the White State Drawing Room, a porcelain cup of tea steaming in its saucer on the table beside her. The red-haired woman had been servile to the point of revulsion, but there was a predatory gleam in her blue eyes that told him she was in no way to be trusted. 10 Downing Street’s resident cat, Arthur, had taken one look at her and scurried off, and he considered that a black mark against her character before she had even opened her mouth.

“So,” purred Ms Finlay-Warburton, tapping her pencil on her notebook. “Still unmarried, after all these years. It must get lonely, having no one to share your success with.”

“Can’t say I’ve thought about it,” he said. “A little too busy with matters of state.”

“So there’s no special someone?” she pressed. “No dirty little secrets? We’re all aware of how indispensable your secretary is.”

“Yes, Carrie is my right hand woman,” he said honestly.

“So there’s no sexual tension there?”

He blinked at that.

“Uh - no,” he said. “Our relationship is very professional.”

“But so many relationships start in the workplace, don’t they?”

“That may be true,” he said, feeling his irritation grow. “But she’s already married.”

“Well, it’s not as though that’s a barrier to anyone these days,” she said airily. “You can imagine the opportunities for gossip, I’m sure.”

“Did you do any research before this interview?” he asked waspishly. “She’s married to a woman!”

“Oh.”

She looked momentarily stumped, and shuddered delicately, as though Carrie’s private life was somehow distasteful. It made him dislike her all the more.

“Well, I did a piece on her last year,” she said. “I must have forgotten that, but then I was concentrating on her time at university. Quite the wild thing in her youth.”

“I couldn’t care less what she got up to,” he said, reaching for his tea, and counting down the seconds until the allotted fifteen minutes was up. “She’s extremely competent.”

“So, no sparks flying from that direction,” she said vaguely, scribbling in her notebook. “Of course, the other rumour is that you’re having an affair with the intern. Comments?”

Sutherland almost spat out his tea.

“Alice?”

She sat forward, pale eyes gleaming.

“Why so surprised?” she purred. “Pretty young girl, blonde curls, all that energy and innocence of youth. A little odd, by all accounts, so she probably needs taking under your wing and protecting. Plus, I hear she’s always pulling your tie straight and dusting your shoulders. Rather familiar for a mere minion, wouldn’t you say?”

“I can assure you she’d think the idea of the two of us sleeping together both hilarious and revolting,” he said tersely. “And don’t ever call her a minion in my presence again.”

“Ooh, looks like I touched a nerve,” she said, with a smirk. “No need to hide your office romance from me, Prime Minister.”

“I’m not,” he snapped.

“And why should my readers believe that?”

“Because I’m a massive lesbian!” announced Alice cheerfully, breezing into the room with a leather folder in her hands and her blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders. “Going from what you write in that magazine of yours, I’m probably at least partly responsible for the decline of society, but I have to say I’m having a lot of fun with it.”

Ms Finlay-Warburton looked as though she’d bitten something sour, and sat back as Alice leaned over to place the folder in Sutherland’s hand. Alice grinned and leaned closer, making her shrink almost into the cushions of the chair.

“Oh, don’t worry,” said Alice pleasantly. “You’re so not my type. I did put my nasty gay hands all over the biscuits though, so I hope you didn’t eat any.”

Sutherland bit the inside of his cheeks to hide a smile, and she winked at him.

“Carrie said to tell you that the car will be here in a moment, sir,” she said.

“Thank you, Alice.” He stood, tugging his cuffs straight. “Ms Finlay-Warburton, you must excuse me. Prime Minister’s Questions, you know. Ms de Ville will show you out.”

He strode out of the room, wanting to sigh with relief, and made it to the waiting car without incident. It idled outside Number 10, the engine purring as they waited for Carrie to emerge with his briefcase. She appeared in less than a minute, sharply-tailored charcoal grey trouser suit and white silk shirt beneath a gleaming bob of blonde hair. She slid onto the back seat beside him, setting the briefcase between them, and the door thumped shut before the car pulled away. Sutherland slipped the leather folder into the case, and Carrie looked at him with some amusement.

“I hear the interview went well,” she said wryly. “She seemed not to want to shake my hand, so I can only assume she’s remembered I’m a raging homosexual.”

“I don’t understand why you delight in inviting bigots to interview me.”

“Oh, it’s fun,” she said airily. “They’re always the easiest to offend. Besides, it’s a section of society in which you need to improve your polling. You’re falling down with the ‘traditional family values’ mob.”

“I don’t need the support of intolerant arseholes,” he said sourly.

“Now now,” she chided. “That’s not the attitude to take. Their votes are as good as anyone’s. And not all of them are like Ms Fanny-Wobblebum, I assure you.”

“Bloody gossip-monger!” he grumbled, running a hand through short, greying hair. “She could have asked about the new policy on free childcare or the money for women’s support services, but instead it’s a bunch of bloody shite about work-based romance! Are they expecting me to be shagging half my staff?”

“Probably.”

“Well, they’re in for a disappointment.”

“Oh, they’ll just make something up, you know how it goes.”

“They’re welcome to.” He sat back with a sigh. “Any idea what’s coming up in PMQs?”

“Other than the usual?” she asked. “Nothing I’ve heard. We’re as prepared as we can be.”

“Good.”

The Commons was in excellent voice, the benches filled with MPs, almost all of whom were awake and contributing to the noise. Sutherland tuned it out, tapping his fingers on the papers in front of him, the crisp white cuffs of his shirt just visible above the sleeves of his black suit. He knew the contents of his papers by heart, but having them there was useful nonetheless, allowing him to collect his thoughts when necessary. Prime Minister’s Questions was in full swing, and having delivered a ringing endorsement of the government’s economic record in response to a question from his own side, he was waiting for the resulting shouts of derision and braying cheers to die down before the first of the questions from the Opposition back benches.

“Miss Belle French!” bellowed the Speaker.

Sutherland’s brow crinkled for a moment. French, French. Ah, of course. New Liberals. Just won the by-election in Avonleigh. Carrie says she’s one to watch.

“Thank you, Mr Speaker.”

He glanced around, trying to see where the voice was coming from. There. God, she’s tiny! A young woman was standing in the top right of the rows of benches. Small and pale, with deep red lips and chestnut hair tied neatly back, she was dressed in a very respectable dark blue dress and jacket. She was perhaps five feet four, although his guess could be off by an inch or two, depending on how high her heels were. She was also incredibly pretty, but he did his best to ignore that fact.

“Mr Speaker,” she began, “last week in my constituency of Avonleigh, I received some truly shocking news regarding Government contractor Wolsingham plc and its negligent attitude to its waste treatment facility. It appears that waste material from the production plant bordering my constituency has been leaking out and is in danger of polluting the water supplies used by local farmers.”

A familiar noise rose in the House, a booming chorus of denials from the Government benches, and roars of support from the Opposition. Sutherland wanted to sigh. Questions about Wolsingham plc were inevitable, he supposed; nothing stayed secret for long in politics, but he had hoped to avoid the issue for a little longer.

“Rumours have also spread,” she went on, “that the company itself is failing and that its assets are being sold off piecemeal while it destroys the land around it!”

The noise had increased to a roar, the odd bleating noise from some of the older politicians, order papers being waved.

“Having - having made some enquiries—” Miss French was having to shout to be heard over the din. “—I was shocked to discover that not only was Wolsingham plc fully aware of the pollution, but had done - had - had done—”

The clamour from the House had reached a level loud enough to drown her out, and she bit her lip, clearly frustrated.

“Order!” shouted the Speaker, calming the noise somewhat. “The Honourable lady must be allowed to put her question! Which I have every hope she will do very shortly, rather than treat us to a lengthy speech! Miss French!”

“Thank you, Mr Speaker.”

She was still looking frustrated, and Sutherland sensed that she would abandon the speech, ask her question and be done. Good.

“My constituents are concerned that special interest groups may be influencing Government policy regarding Wolsingham plc,” she said. “Particularly in respect of their continued breach of environmental legislation, and the company’s future financial viability. What assurances can the Prime Minister give me to take back to my constituents that their concerns are being addressed?”

Sutherland nodded as he stood up at the despatch box, catching her eye. She was staring at him with a strange mixture of caution and hope.

“Let me be amongst the first to welcome the Honourable lady to the House,” he said. “I trust that she will serve her constituents well, and the country as a whole. This Government is - aware - of the reports of which she speaks, and I can assure her that they are being looked into. A statement will be made in due course.”

He sat down to indicate that he was finished, shuffling the papers in his hands. Miss French was bouncing on her toes, mouth opening and closing and looking outraged, but the Speaker called another name, and she was forced to sit down, her face like thunder. Sutherland tried to put her out of his mind as he listened to a question from his own side. A pity she had chosen to raise the bloody subject today, but there it was. No doubt the press would now start digging around, and the whole shit show would be wide open for all to see before they could get everything sewn up. New MPs. Always so bloody idealistic.

Once PMQs was over, he gathered his papers, slipping them into his briefcase before stepping away from the despatch box. There was to be a debate on renewable energy, but he left the Environment Secretary to make the Government’s arguments. Carrie was waiting for him in the lobby, foot tapping impatiently on the stone tiles. She flicked her hair out of her eyes and arched a brow at him as he left the chamber.

“Well, that was reasonably successful,” she said, taking the briefcase from him and shoving it at one of her assistants as they began walking. “I thought we might go through the preparations for the President’s visit after your four o’clock.”

“Yes, fine,” he said. “I believe her wife is coming too?”

“So my counterpart across the pond tells me.”

“Good. We’ll host them at Chequers, but I’ll leave any decisions on menus and entertainment in your hands.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Prime Minister!”

He wanted to sigh as a clear voice cut across the lobby. Miss French. Of course. He kept walking, shoes ringing on the gleaming tiles.

“Prime Minister, if I might have a word?”

She trotted up beside him, but he didn’t slow his stride. Carrie looked at her somewhat askance, but said nothing.

“What is it, Miss French?” he asked dismissively.

“My question about Wolsingham plc,” she said, her voice impatient. “You completely shut me down!”

“No, I gave you an answer,” he said. “Just not the one you wanted.”

“I told my constituents I would raise the matter with you personally!”

“And so you have,” he said, and turned away from her to Carrie, who was watching him with an amused glint in her eyes. “Carrie, can we fit Mr Llewellyn in before six, do you think?”

“I could find ten minutes in your diary, sir, no more. And even that would be a squeeze.”

“Do that, then,” he said. “If you can get one of your staff to prepare a one-page briefing paper beforehand? I’d rather not go in cold.”

“Consider it done.”

“Thank you.”

They walked on, and Miss French trotted to keep up.

“Prime Minister, might I schedule some time with you to discuss my concerns?” she asked, and he glanced across at her.

“Put your question in writing to Ms de Ville, Miss French, if you’re unhappy with the answer I gave,” he said impatiently.

“It wasn’t an answer!” she retorted. “It - it was a fudge! You didn’t tell me anything!”

“As I said, put any further requests to my secretary in writing,” he said.

“A letter?” she scoffed. “Should I sign it with a quill pen? This isn’t the nineteenth century!”

“There are still protocols to follow, as you’re well aware,” he said. “I’ve already said we will be making a statement in due course, and I have nothing further to add at this time.”

He walked on, the entrance looming in front of him, spring sunshine spreading across the tiles. He could hear the rapid click of Miss French’s shoes as she sought to keep up with his stride, and rolled his eyes as they stepped out into the warm spring sunlight. The press pack waited some way beyond, cameras clicking and flashing, reporters waiting with mikes outstretched, and Miss French was still at his heels like an insistent terrier.

“Prime Minister, I really don’t think you understand how worrying this is for my constituents,” she said, a little breathlessly. “If we could just sit down to discuss the matter, I’m sure we could—”

Sutherland stopped abruptly, spinning on his toes to face her as he finally lost patience.

“Miss French, are you deaf or merely stupid?” he snapped. “For the last time, I have nothing to say to you regarding Wolsingham plc and this will remain the case until the Government delivers its official statement on the matter!”

She stared at him, strands of chestnut hair buffeted by the wind. Her eyes were wide and very blue, her cheeks smooth and pale. She had full lips, painted with a deep red lipstick that outlined them perfectly. They were slightly parted in shock at his outburst, but there was also fire in her eyes, something he recognised well from his own youth, when he had been filled with ideals, with the desire to do good. It made him feel old and irrelevant. An ancient political dragon, facing a young would-be slayer, Chosen One of the people. Oddly, it also made him want to stand his ground, to roar and belch out flames one last time to protect what he hoarded. Instead, he tried for a more measured, dismissive approach. The young firebrand was gone, after all, mellowed by the years into the elder statesman.

“Put your concerns in writing,” he said, more calmly. “Ms de Ville will bring them to my attention as she sees fit.”

Miss French worked her jaw a little.

“I thought at least you might hear me out,” she said. “I’m aware you were born and raised in a deprived community, you must know how dependent my people are on the land around them, and—”

“I got where I am by knowing how to pick my battles,” he interrupted. “Something you appear to have no concept of, but which you’ll learn in time, I have no doubt. If you want to be anything other than a voice in the wilderness, you need to learn how to bend in the wind, follow protocol, and understand that sometimes progress happens in ways you may not always like.”

“I came here to serve my constituents!” she protested, raising her hands and letting them fall. “To give a voice to those who can’t speak out for themselves, to - to help people! Not to become part of the problem!”

“Enjoy your time on the back benches, then,” he said, his tone dismissive. “Spend time in your constituency, and leave the politics to those of us who are in touch with reality. While you’re listening to tales of woe and patting shoulders and kissing babies, you’ll become increasingly irrelevant.”

She opened her mouth angrily, but he cut her off.

“You’re not part of some Borough Council anymore,” he said scathingly. “Time to grow up. See the big picture.”

“Don’t patronise me!”

“Don’t act like a child, then.”

She took a step towards him, eyes flashing with the light of challenge. It was giving him a tiny thrill, a tight ball of fire in his chest that was sending a pulsing trail of heat down to his groin. No one had dared to get in his face to this extent for years, instead shouting their insults from across the benches or making sly comments about his alleged incompetence to the press. To have someone go toe-to-toe with him outside the Houses of Parliament was almost exhilarating.

“So, one little push back from a woman, and the misogyny surfaces,” she said, in a flat tone. “Why am I not surprised?”

“My assessment of your behaviour is based on your inexperience and current attitude, not your gender.”

“And you want to teach me a lesson, is that it, sir?”

Oh, his mind did not need to go there! He yanked it back before his imagination could cause too much mischief.

“I have every confidence that your peers will do that, Miss French,” he said coldly. “Do us all an enormous favour and try not to get above yourself in the meantime.”

“If you think you can pat me on the head and shut me up, you’re mistaken!”

He smiled at that, knowing how it would irritate her, and was proven right as her glare intensified.

“Well, I must say this passion is admirable,” he drawled. “But ultimately pointless. Political naivety may play well in whatever backwater constituency you managed to claw your way into, but in Westminster it’ll get you eaten alive.”

“I have no intention of - of letting you eat me!” she snapped.

A faint blush had risen on her cheeks, and he felt an odd lurch in his belly as his active mind helpfully provided an alternative meaning for that phrase. She was glaring at him, eyes shooting blue sparks, chin raised as though she would bite him.

“Then take my advice,” he said. “Pick your battles. Fall in line. And wait your bloody turn.”

“So, they got to you, too?” she said bitterly. “I might have known. I knew there had to be some reason everyone’s lips are sealed. Wolsingham has his dirty little fingers in every political pie going, it seems to me.”

As fascinating as she was, Sutherland had had enough. He raised an admonitory finger, leaning in as his eyes bored into hers and she met him stare for stare.

“You’re new here, Miss French,” he growled, his accent thickening. “So I’m gonna let that one slide. You ever question my integrity again, and you and I are gonna have a problem, understood?”

She swallowed, sudden fear in her eyes. It was gone almost as quickly as it had come, her jaw tightening as she faced him down. Really, she was magnificent. There were flashes in the air around them, the click of cameras, and he wanted to groan as he remembered they were in the sights of the entirety of the Westminster press. At least they were out of reach of any microphones, he supposed. He leaned back, swallowing his anger, and nodded curtly.

“Good day, Miss French.”

He turned on his heel, Carrie side-eyeing him before following him to the car. Reporters clamoured, questions being fired at him, but he ignored them all, slipping onto the back seat and staring straight ahead as Carrie got in on the other side. The door closed with a heavy thump, and the sounds of the waiting press were cut off immediately. Thank God for armour plating.

“Well,” said Carrie, as the car pulled slowly away. “That was - bracing.”

She sounded highly amused, and he decided to change the subject before she could start teasing him.

“Who’s next?” he asked.

“Lunch first,” she said promptly. “Then I thought we might go through the Select Committee papers before tomorrow. And you have a four-thirty with the Chancellor.”

“Fine.”

Sutherland sat back as the car headed for Downing Street, trying to ignore his thumping heart. Miss French was a mouthy nuisance, to be sure, and he wanted to put her from his mind, but the encounter had made him feel more alive than he had in years.

The heavy tick of the clock on the wall showed that it was after ten, and Sutherland pinched the bridge of his nose to clear his eyes. A large tabby cat with white socks was settled comfortably on a pile of discarded papers to his left, purring contentedly. Arthur’s job was supposedly to catch mice, but he seemed to spend most of his time sleeping as far as Sutherland could tell. He didn’t mind that too much; he liked cats, and it was nice to have a little company in the evenings when he finally stopped working. He scratched Arthur’s ears, receiving a nuzzle in response, and set the final document aside just as Carrie entered. She had a glass of whisky in one hand, a pile of newspapers in the crook of her arm and a wide grin on her face.

“Well, at least you made the front page.”

She dropped the first editions of the next day’s papers on his desk, startling the cat into a standing position. He lashed his striped tail before settling down again, tucking his feet under as the top newspaper—a copy of The Sun—slithered off the pile into Sutherland’s hands. A picture took up almost the entire page, a close-up of he and Miss French practically nose to nose, glaring at one another with every ounce of the mutual disdain they could muster. The headline above, in thick red letters, shouted GET A ROOM!

Sutherland groaned under his breath as Carrie chortled, and despite himself he read the opening paragraphs of the drivel masquerading as an article. Sparks flew this afternoon outside the Houses of Parliament as Avonleigh’s stunning New Liberal MP Belle French went toe-to-toe with the PM! Petite brunette Belle (29) let Sutherland have it with both barrels! You could cut the sexual tension with a knife, and your Sun reporter wonders how they might break their deadlock outside of a bedroom! Policy difference or lovers’ tiff? See more on page 2! Pages 4 and 5: Belle French - bombshell or bitch?

He tossed the paper aside in disgust, and Carrie caught it, grinning at him.

“Now now,” she chided. “Don’t blame the press for the stories they cover.”

“It’s The Sun,” he growled. “One flash of a pretty woman’s legs and they collectively lose their tiny minds.”

“So, you think she’s pretty?”

“Please tell me she didn’t give an interview,” he sighed, ignoring her question.

“Not that I can see,” she said. “But the two of you made the front of every tabloid there is. Even pushed the latest horror story about a new Ice Age off page 1 of The Express.”

“Wonders will never cease,” he remarked.

“I expect she might use the sudden interest to publicise her concerns over Wolsingham, though.”

“Well, that can’t be helped,” he sighed. “It’s all gonna come out soon, anyway. However things go. Did we hear anything from DII?”

“Talks still ongoing with potential administrators.”

He grunted. Lengthy talks about financial viability never boded well, in his experience.

“You know,” she said thoughtfully, looking the paper over. “They’re not wrong. You could cut the sexual tension with a knife.”

“Fuck’s sake, Carrie…”

“I’m teasing.” She rolled up the paper and swatted him with it. “I’m sure your intentions are completely honourable.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course, hers might not be…”

“Can we leave Miss French out of this?” he snapped. “Is there any actual news I need to hear?”

“Apparently William Hill’s have slashed the odds on you getting married during this Parliament to seven to one.”

“Carrie!”

“Alright, fine!” she sighed. “The Guardian didn’t mention the spat; however, they have picked up on the precarious position of Wolsingham plc and are starting to put feelers out. You have a nine o’clock tomorrow with the Minister. There’s a briefing in the folder at the bottom of that pile.”

“Thank you.”

“The Telegraph, Independent and Financial Times are focusing on the prospective deal with the US, unsurprisingly,” she said. “I thought we might release the President’s proposed itinerary tomorrow.”

“Yes, fine,” he said absently. “Are we expecting any protests?”

Carrie snorted, setting down the glass of whisky.

“Since that bigoted, racist disaster was ousted and thrown in jail, public perception of the White House has improved greatly.”

“Not wholly surprising,” he remarked, and she nodded.

“A few small groups have requested permission to march,” she said. “Mainly pacifists, anti-capitalists and anti-pharma, nothing to cause any real disruption.”

“Fine,” he said, pushing the pile of newspapers away and sitting back in his chair. “Go on, get home. I’m sure Ursula would like to see some of you this week.”

“I’m sure she’d like to see all of me,” she said, with a wink. “Are you sure? I can stay if you need my input on anything.”

“Go home,” he said firmly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Don’t stay up all night. And try not to let the gutter press give you nightmares, hmm?”

“Would you bugger off before I change my mind?”

She swept out, chuckling, and he sighed, reaching for the glass of whisky she had brought him and sitting back in his chair. It wouldn’t hurt to take a break. There were some papers he wanted to look through, but nothing that needed his immediate attention. He sipped at the whisky, enjoying the smooth burn on his tongue, the warmth of good alcohol and the taste of honey, peat and smoke.

The image of Belle French kept swimming to the front of his mind, blue eyes sparking with anger and passion, and he scowled to himself, shoving the memory away. So what if she had intrigued him? She had all but accused him of impropriety in respect of a Government contractor. The fact that her claim was bollocks was beside the point; she had no business throwing around accusations with the press pack just out of reach. He recalled that Carrie had caught some of her campaign on a visit to Avonleigh, and had been impressed with the dedication and passion she had seen, but if Miss French was to succeed, she would need to learn to bend a little. She wouldn’t last long in Westminster if she couldn’t rein in her clearly impulsive nature. Her fellow MPs would soon steer her right.

He shook his head, wondering why he was wasting time thinking about her future. It wasn’t as though they would be working together, and she was on the Opposition benches, if not in the official party of Opposition, so hardly likely to be looking to him as a potential mentor. Even if she was, the woman was clearly wet behind the ears and he didn’t have the patience to deal with that level of inexperience. Besides, it was unlikely they would cross paths unless he wished it; as a new back-bencher she had been lucky to get to ask a question at PMQs. There would be no reason for him to have to endure her impertinence again.

He drank the last of the whisky, putting down the glass with a clunk and making the rare decision to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Arthur seemed to sense that he was making a move, and stood up, stretching paws in front of him and curling his tail over. Sutherland petted him, pushing back his chair and heading for the door, the cat sauntering in his wake as he prayed for a decent night’s sleep, free of dreams of fiery young blue-eyed goddesses with perfect lips.

#fic: honourable members #sutherelle fic #my fic #rumbelle fic #anyelle #sutherelle

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cryptodictation · 4 years

Text

BRSA calls on banks to “keep credit channels open”

Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BRSA) Mehmet Ali Akben underlined that banks have an important role in minimizing the negative impact of the new type of coronavirus (Kovid-19) outbreaks on production and employment.

For this reason, banks are instructed to carefully avoid the requests of companies with credit limits for liquidity and cash needs and to avoid restrictions in the use of credit limits, to recall loans, not to use the current credit limit, to increase prices, to make collateral conditions difficult, not to restructure with reasonable interest rates. Akben reminding that he gave “We closely follow the implementation of the instructions we have sent to the banks. I invite all our banks to act customer-oriented, to keep their credit channels open, and to comply with the decisions taken by our corporate and industry associations.” used expressions.

ECONOMY

Swap move from BRSA: Limitation introduced

Support to financial stability from BRSA

Mehmet Ali Akben gave the following answers to the questions regarding the steps taken within the scope of Kovid-19, recent credit developments, whether the instructions conveyed to the banks were followed, and how the banking sector would draw a picture in the second half of the year:

QUESTION: “Some arrangements were made regarding the swap yesterday. Why were these arrangements needed? Should we read them as a continuation of the steps you took in the previous months?”

ANSWER: “Within the scope of the steps taken in order to reduce the effects of the fluctuations in the financial markets caused by the Kovid-19 outbreak and to protect financial stability, we have reorganized the maturity and amount restrictions that are applied in derivative transactions performed by banks with foreign residents. We determined the limit of 10 percent of the bank's own resources, which we applied in the transactions of swap transactions, to 1 percent for 1 week, 2 percent for 30 days and 10 percent for a year.

Our main purpose is to eliminate the possible disruptive effect of the transactions accumulated in certain periods and terms in the financial markets. We find it correct for banks to carry out such transactions without spreading in certain terms by spreading over a longer term and time.

The bank will be able to make a TL purchase swap of 50 percent of its equity by distributing it to the next 5 years. If he wishes, he will be able to spread 100 percent of his equity to TL purchase swap by spreading it for 10 years. In addition, I would like to state that the decisions taken in this context are related to an extraordinary period on a global scale, and if necessary, we can take different steps according to changing conditions.

In addition, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT), Economic Stability Shield announced that it increased its swap facility within the scope of measures. In this context, it is possible for banks to provide swap facilities under the CBRT under market conditions. We do not have any restrictions on domestic swaps.

Another new practice is to reduce the 10 percent limit of equities to 1 percent in the swap transactions in the form of giving and receiving foreign currency with foreign financial institutions. For a long time, our banks have been avoiding this kind of swap. At this stage, TL will be more necessary and beneficial in the country. Individual customers, tradesmen, SMEs and other businesses in need need support from banks more than ever during this period. While making these arrangements, we did not take a prohibitive attitude regarding any type of transaction that our banks will make with non-residents. Within this framework, there is no change in the transaction set of banks. Hundreds of transactions with foreign banks will continue to be carried out. On the other hand, with this practice, we aim to direct our financial institutions' resources to those in need. As the regulatory and supervisory authority in financial institutions to fulfill their intermediary function, we will work diligently. ”

ECONOMY

Call to private banks from the business world!

Loans increased in public banks and decreased in private banks

QUESTION: “There are many complaints about private banks recently. It is stated that it lags behind the performance of public banks within the scope of Economic Stability Shield. Treasury and Finance Minister Mr. Berat Albayrak also pointed out that the separation between bank administrations should put their hands on the stone. As the name of the Turkish banking regulation, how do you evaluate the recent credit developments? “

ANSWER: “Our banks have important duties in terms of minimizing the negative impact of the process we are experiencing on production and employment. Therefore, the demands of companies with credit limits for liquidity and cash needs are met quickly and there are no restrictions in loan limits, credit recalls, existing credit. We have instructed banks to carefully avoid practices such as not using the limit, increasing the price, complicating the conditions of collateral, not restructuring with reasonable interest rates.

In addition, as the Kovid-19 outbreak is affected by the measures related to the epidemic, additional financial support is provided to companies and real persons whose cash flow has deteriorated, and the necessary facilities, including delaying the loan principal and interest payments for a minimum of 3 months, upon the request of the customers, after the loans have been extended, We requested that the application of updating the collateral value be suspended for 3 months from the date of this instruction letter. In our aforementioned instruction, we also stressed that maximum effort should be made to comply with the recommendations made by the association's associations within this scope and this issue should be regarded as a national duty.

At the point we have reached, we closely monitor the implementation of the instructions we have conveyed to the banks. We see that our state banks have successfully implemented loan support programs for individuals, tradesmen and craftsmen, SMEs and corporate businesses, and have created an additional loan volume of 27.5 billion TL in the last 10 days. I believe that these opportunities provided to customers experiencing temporary liquidity shortage due to the epidemic will both reduce the economic and social costs of the epidemic and increase the collection ability of our banks in the post-epidemic period. In the same period, we witnessed that the total loan volume of our private banks decreased by approximately 5 billion TL. I invite all our banks to act customer-oriented, to keep their credit channels open, and to comply with the decisions taken by our institution and industry associations. “

ECONOMY

Minister Albayrak announced the point reached in the 'Economic Stability Shield' program: We will provide monthly 170 thousand lira salary support

“We follow up for the solution of customer complaints”

QUESTION: “As part of the fight against the epidemic, public banks and private banks have announced a number of support packages for citizens and the real sector. Which way should citizens take to complain? How many citizens have filed to date?”

ANSWER: “Starting from March 26, we have created a structure that can receive all the requests of our citizens, regardless of commercial and individual, via the internet and our call center on a 7-day and 24-hour basis, and transfer them to the banks as BRSA. We run a coordination system.When the request is received, we forward it to the relevant bank through the platform, and we want the banks to be concluded by the banks according to the relevant legislation, the decisions of the associations of the bank and the commitments announced by the banks to the public, based on the density and quantity of the requests received, and we are informed about the result. .

As BRSA, we call our citizens on a transaction basis and get information about the latest situation. In this structure, it is possible to send requests and complaints to the BRSA for the internet through the line https://ift.tt/3bmvLfQ or call 0850 222 23 35 for the call center. We follow up for the solution of customer complaints. “

“Our proactive approach is beneficial”

QUESTION: “The global economy is expected to spend the first half of the year weak in the fight against the epidemic. What kind of a picture do you foresee in the banking sector for the rest of the year after the epidemic ends?”

ANSWER: “Our banking sector has entered this process strongly both in terms of capital structure and resource and asset quality. Our capital adequacy ratio is 17.7 percent, 8 percent of the international standard, 12 percent, which is our prudently high target rate, and 12 percent. It has a level above the rates of many other comparable countries, and the necessary precautions have been implemented by our institution from the very first day of the effects of the epidemic to maintain confidence and stability in the financial markets.The risks of the flexibility and the ability to act quickly by providing a proactive regulatory approach. We think that it is critical to limit and reduce. No doubt that any necessary measures and measures will be taken depending on the developments. ”

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#Economy

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tisfan · 7 years

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Prompt: Communal Kitchen, Dob-E gets revenge. On what is birthday baby's choice!

Too Big To Be Haunted

“No, it’s fine, baby. I got it.”

DOB-E’s person was doing something DOB-E did not approve of.

He was lying.

DOB-E didn’t know how his person managed the lie; didn’t otherhuman-programs have heartbeat monitors? He sent the inquiry to the JARVIS unit.

Lying is a human prerogative,came back JARVIS’s inquiry. They could detect it more often if they choseto. For sake of communal cohabitation, a situation like this can be consideredtelling a white lie and is ignored for continued mutual harmony.

DOB-E wasn’t certain what the color of the lie had to do withanything. For that matter, DOB-E couldn’t decide how JARVIS knew what the colorwas. It was a spoken thing and had no color whatsoever. DOB-E sent himself areminder to investigate further. Right this second, DOB-E was more concerned withthe other thing his human was doing.

He was packing.

“Yeah, pretty boring without you aroun– no, I know, it’s okay.Someone’s gotta pay th’ bills ‘round here.” His person was on the floor,digging around under the sofa. When DOB-E’s human had taken up permanentresidence in the penthouse, Robby-the-Robot had refused, utterly, to cedeauthority of that area to DOB-E.

Instead, DOB-E had ended up in charge of what was known as “thebolt hole.” Which was actually good, because whenever DOB-E’s human needed thebolt hole, the human was usually in dire need. Thus, DOB-E’s presence, watchinghis human do unaccustomed things and becoming just a little more frantic.

Several months ago, the human had brought tools up, cut away asection of the flooring and installed a gun safe, as well as several otherpieces of equipment. After consulting with others of its type, DOB-E had notbeen concerned about the “scat bag.” Agent Barton, Agent Romanov, and somewhatsurprisingly, Colonel Rhodes, all had stashes in the Tower for emergencies.

That DOB-E knew about; mostly from network-sharing with his fellowcleaners (gossiping, JARVIS had labeled that folder, once). There could havebeen others; not everyone who lived in the Tower had a residence there; nor didthey keep all their possessions on site. There were other storage facilitiesand hide aways.

Paranoia was a word that DOB-Ehad defined for him, most closely, since his inception.

I suggest you not do what you’re thinking of doing, DOB-E, JARVIS mentioned. It is outside your programming parameters tointerfere with human business. The human is well equipped to take care ofitself.

DOB-E’s human is stupid.

And lying.

And leaving.

JARVIS-UNIT will open Project Fribble.

I certainly shall not, JARVIS responded. Thatproject is untested. That project had been forgotten. DOB-E will

This unit had Free Will. This Unit Will Do The Thing!

Unit DOB-E is going to get in a lot of trouble, JARVIS predicted, his data tone droll and smug.

This unit will Represent!

(Mobile Users, there is a readmore; the rest of the fic can be found under the break, or at A03)

There were times that JARVIS really didn’t understand the need fora body; he had access to nearly every computer system, communication link,database, camera, and operations control that he could possibly want.

And then there were humans.

JARVIS was pretty sure he didn’t have a body so that he didn’thave to shake them until their teeth rattled in their heads.

He was quite certain that Mr. Stark would have had a contingencyplan in place – he usually had dozens – to address this particular issue.Except that Mr. Stark also had spent the better part of three months withcatastrophic memory loss and he was still playing, as he could deem it, catchup.

Which meant it had not yet occurred to him that his – up untilthis point – exceptionally loyal bedmate would have packed a bag, told a widevariety of colorful, but probably effective, lies, and disappeared.

JARVIS had to admit, the cover was good; Barnes had gone severaldays without conducting basic hygiene, let his face-stubble grow out until heresembled what Agent Romanov referred to as his murder hobo look, and slouchedaround the Tower appearing depressed and negligent.

“Gonna hole up, f’r a bit,” he told Steve, point-blank lying.“Jus’ until Tony gets back.”

“Pretty sure that’s not healthy, Buck,” Captain Rogers said,putting a hand on Barnes’ shoulder. Barnes slipped to the side, just enough tolet Rogers’ fingertips lose their point of contact.

“Don’t gotta be,” Barnes said, letting his eyes do most of thetalking, all downcast and zigging from point to point. JARVIS could tell,Captain Rogers was concerned, but he wasn’t going to let concerned interfere.“Jus’… it’s too much, without ‘im. I… don’t tell ‘im, okay? I’m workin’ onit, an’… he don’t need t’ know how hard this is f’r me. He’s got his ownstuff to worry about.”

“If you say so,” Captain Rogers said.

“Dob’s’ll look after me,” Barnes said. “Bring dinner an’ stuff. Iwon’t starve. Jus’… need to be alone.”

“You let me know if you need anything, okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll do that.”

Humans had annoying amounts of free-will. JARVIS had lists ofprotocols that he could comb through to see what did and did not apply to agiven situation. JARVIS was protective. He was private. He was discreet.

He was going to be yelled at by Mr. Stark.

Except JARVIS knew that he really wasn’t. Mr. Stark did not beratehis creations; he treated them with love – and the sort of kindness that camewith threatening to unmake and replace them with an intelligenttrash-compactor. Which on the surface never seemed nice, and the first fewmonths after JARVIS came online, he had… uncertainty as to his fate.

JARVIS did not like uncertainty.

He did, however, admire humans.

Who would say “I never do that,” and as soon as a situation cameup in which that was required, managed to throw most of it out the windowand accomplish the task anyway.

Project Fribble initiated.

Well, that was something JARVIS could report, at least.

It had taken some doing, pummeling at old memories behind theblocks and the wipes.

The first time Bucky’d tried it, he’d spent almost an hourdry-heaving, just touching the wiped memories. They weren’t, he knew, actuallygone.

There were blocks in places; pain receptors and scar-tissue to digaround underneath. To try to patch the collective story together.

There were traps.

And not just the sort in his mind. But Bucky did manage to pummelout a section of his brain under the ice that let him know where there was anold Cold War cache, in northeastern Minnesota, and it didn’t take long beforehe was on his bike and headed west.

There were times, Bucky thought, when he really missed having abackup tac team. Disposable Hydra goons; fetch and carry, kept the logisticsonline, science and development. Useful. It wasn’t that the Winter Soldiercouldn’t operate solo; he could. But he didn’t currently have access to some ofthe databanks and mission specs, and certainly weaving his way into a Hydramobile command pod was within his skill set. Just, a specialist would do itfaster.

Bucky twitched, tapped the keys in. Checked the glue-pads on hisfingertips that kept his DNA and other biometric readings from being entered.Who only knew where he’d end up if a Hydra Pod thought it had identified theAsset?

Surge of guilt; he hadn’t told anyone where he was going. Heimagined that if Tony had actually been at the Tower when he’d been contacted,that Bucky would have told Tony what he was doing, but he knew that was a lie.It just would have been harder.

He’d have had to pick a fight or something to get Tony out of theway. Which would not have gone over well with anyone, and Bucky was just asglad he hadn’t had to do it.

The pod clicked open; finally.

Once in, it was only a matter of moments to get the navigationonline, activate screens and shields, bring the weapons systems up – he reallyhoped this was not going to be a shooting mission, but better to have guns andnot need them, than need them and have his pants around his proverbial ankles,so to speak – load himself and his gear in, and thumb the button.

“Yay, Eastern Bloc,” Bucky muttered. “I’m sure you haven’t changedmuch.”

He heard the clink as something attached to the transport pod, butdidn’t think too much of it. The tunnels were old, the ejection chutes wereolder. There was probably debris; as long as there weren’t alarms, it wasn’tworth worrying about.

This Unit thinks this was a bad idea.

The landing at Lake Ladoga was rough. Something had been throwingthe rear stabilizer off for the entire transpolar flight. Ice, probably.

Bucky brushed himself off and climbed out of the pod.

The lake hadn’t changed at all, which was somewhat unexpected.Bucky would have thought there would be all manner of changes, it having beensome thirty years since the last time he was in this particular part of theSoviet Bloc. Not that it was soviet territory anymore, which may have been oneof the reasons there was no change. Non soviets tended to shy away fromanything too overly tainted by red block hands. If it couldn’t be fixed, itmight well be haunted.

Bucky was pretty sure the lake was too big to haunt.

What would have been easiest is if his contact was out in theopen. That was exactly why it wasn’t going to happen that way. Nothing inBucky’s life could be easy. Paying off a debt, a blood debt at that, would notbe the first thing to go one hundred percent correctly.

Not for this sort of debt.

Bucky stared around at the lake; it was enormous, there was no wayto walk around it in a day; largest entirely ;and bound lake in Europe.“Suvai,” he said, disgusted. “You need to work on narrowin’ down yourdirection. You still think too big.”

There was a dull clatter behind him, metal on metal, and Buckywhirls, pistols coming into his hands like he’d summoned them by magic.

“What even the fuck?”

It looked familiar, damn familiar, but there was no way in fuckinghell that Tony had set a damn watch bot on him.

Even if, Bucky flushed inwardly, he might have deserved it.

It was a hover drone of some sort, bristling with tiny weapons.All in all, it sort of looked like a flying iron man chihuahua. Except notreally. Maybe a floating bunny. With guns. Hard to say, but Bucky was prettysure that his boyfriend had been engineering on some really high priceddesigner drugs.

“JARVIS?”

The bot, if that’s what it was, probably wasn’t JARVIS. Its techwas clean, but a few generations old now; repulsor equipped and molded in thefamiliar style. JARVIS didn’t have use for a body, the AI had said any numberof times, and Bucky was pretty sure that JARVIS did not find Bucky importantenough to change his mind about that.

Which left…

“Dobs?”

Project Fribble Online. The voice, not JARVIS atall, and nothing that Bucky recognized, was mechanical. Not even a bot, just avocal projection.

What the fuck was project fribble?

“Nevermind. Is that you, Dobs?”

The bot bobbled around a little in midair. Made a fewunidentifiable beeping sounds.

“If you’re DOB-E, what was the first thing you brought for me?”

The bot hovered closer. Reached out an appendage of some sort –Bucky really needed to have a chat with his boyfriend about creepy design specbecause Bucky should not feel quite so disconcerted by a cleaning bot – andtapped Bucky’s shirt, then his pants.

Close enough.

The familiar melodic subrefrain of the repulsor tech was oddlyreassuring.

“We’re gonna talk about this when we get home,” Bucky said. “Ididn’t know you could leave the Tower at all, or I’d have told you to stayput.”

This Unit Will Represent!

“What?”

This Unit Will do The Thing!

Great. “You got some sort of sensor pack in that rig-up of yours?”Bucky sighed, then added, “one beep for yes, two for no, three for I have noidea what you’re talking about and four for fuck you.”

Bucky probably should have expected to be told to fuck offpromptly, but he didn’t. When DOB-E the WarBot beeped at him four times. Buckyhad a hard time not cracking up.

“You said it, pal,” Bucky drolled. “Sensors?”

Beep.

“Great. Bring em up. Scan for non-terran oriented life forms.”

Four beeps, and a pause.

“Not my fault. You want to come along, you get to do the weirdstuff. Non earth life forms, Dobs, look it up. Google it or something if youhave to. I don’t want to be here any longer than I gotta be,.”

Bucky wasn’t sure if Dobs couldn’t figure out the sensor suite, orif Suvai was just that adept at hiding, or what, but after an hour of Dobsdoing general sweeps, Bucky did the only other thing he knew how.

He started walking.

He was pretty sure if things were truly urgent, Suvai would havegiven him better directions. Which meant the old creature was just being orneryand wanted Bucky to work for whatever it was. That was okay, or would have beenin some other lifetime. Right now, Bucky’s problem was that his boyfriend wasgoing to be pissed as hell as soon as he figured out what Bucky was up to, andsince Bucky had accidentally hijacked one of his untested engineering projects,Tony finding out about it was going to be sooner, rather than later.

So they were kinda on a time crunch.

“Please Tony, don’t make me have to chose, here,” Bucky muttered.The two of them stamped around the eastern shore of the lake. Okay, well, Buckystomped. Dob-E did some floaty-levitating-whirring-annoying thing that kept up.Except that the bot kept getting distracted by vegetation – which Buckyrealized Dob-E would never have seen up close and live. And lakes and water anddeer and other things.

Bucky had to practically drag the bot away from an ant hill.

It was like travelling with the world’s most dangerousthree-year-old.

The bot would probably do what Bucky told it in an emergency, butat the same time, what if Dob-E didn’t recognize it as an emergency?

Those were the sorts of questions that were above Bucky’s fuckin’pay grade and thinking about them just made his head ache. He wasn’t here tostart an international incident, much less a galactic one, and yet he couldhave, very easily, and he’d really rather just not.

As it got darker, Dob-E started glowing.

“Seriously?”

Apparently.

“I don’t suppose if I asked nicely, that you’d go back and waitwith the pod while I carry out my mission?”

Beep. Beep.

No.

Beep beep beep beep.

Fuck you.

“Yeah, fuck you, too, pal,” Bucky said. “What are you, afraid ofthe dark?”

Beep.

“Yes? You’re afraid of the dark? You’re a freakin’ light sourcehow are you afraid of the dark?”

Fuck you.

“Does J know you’re out here?”

Yes. No. Maybe.

“He knows you’re out, not necessarily where specifically.” Buckyinterpreted.

Yes.

“Does Tony know we’re out?”

Maybe. No.

“JARVIS will probably tell on us, eventually.”

Yes.

“We should finish up soon and get home.”

Yes. Fuck you.

“It’s not necessary to be an asshole,: Bucky notes.

Yes.

Fuck you.

“So, you a Charlie this time, or still Vlad?”

Of course Suvai had to wake him up at o’dark thirty, stealing upon him past an array of sensors, and Dob-E.

Bucky did a quick sweep of the area. “What’d you do to my bot?”

“Convinced him to reboot,” Suvai said. “I didn’t hurt it.”

“You know I hate that,” Bucky said.

Of course he did. That’s why he did it.

“Charlie, or Vlad?”

“Mostly Charlie these days,” Bucky said. “Got a touch of Vlad inme that won’t ever go away again, I think.”

Suvai peeled himself out of the shadows. Even by Bucky’s dimcampfire, he looked entirely human. Not a day older than the last time Buckyhad seen him, sometime around the fall of Berlin’s wall, some thirty years pastat least.

“Little gray around the edges,” Suvai observed.

“Yeah, well, things aren’t ever black and white, are they?”

“It’s a good thing, starling,” Suvai said. “Touch of stability.Little bit of love in your pocket?”

Bucky couldn’t help a smile. “Proved that one wrong.”

“You changed enough to allow it,” Suvai pointed out.

That much was true. When he’d met Suvai, during his second andmost disastrous escape attempt from Hydra, he’d been totally broken. He mighthave loved Steve, clung to him distantly, but it would have been nothing butnecessary. Survival love, and not friendship at all. Certainly nothingtender, like how he felt for Tony.

“Did you need something, or just want to gossip? Because really,you could have just called. You’ve always known how to find me.”

“Maybe I just wanted to see if you’d come. If you’d remember yourdebts.”

“I remember what you did for me.”

And more importantly, what Suvai had done to him. Grabbedwhat remained of his sanity and pressed it deep like a diamond. Hidden away.Hidden, like all those lives that Suvai had saved. Hydra was going to kill thewhole village for giving the Winter Soldier shelter, for trying to hide anasset from Hydra hands.

Suvai had saved them all. On one condition. Bucky had to go back.He had to make a choice, to decide that those two hundred lives wereworth more than sixty more years of torture and death and murder.

The something bad and the much worse.

And it had probably been the only thing that had given Bucky achance to come back from the Winter Soldier at all.

That one tiny sliver of sanity.

The one that said “the man on the bridge, who was he? I knew him.”

“Is it time, then? To pay up?”

He wasn’t sure that Suvai wouldn’t claim his life. All he couldhope there was that Tony would understand. Maybe that he could say goodbye.

But Bucky owed a debt and he meant to be honorable. Since he couldbe,

“If I come to claim you, will you allow it?”

Bucky handed over his guns to Suvai. Turned. Knelt. “Back of thehead. Do it quick and clean. And let the bot go home, to tell my man that Ilove him.”

The muzzle pressed into his skull.

Tony. Tony I’m sorry. Forgive me. I love you.

There was a click and a whirr. Project Fribble is online.

Dob-E raised an entire arsenal of tiny little weapons and pointedthem at Suvai

Fuck you.

Bucky couldn’t help but turn, to look and watch and marvel and wonder.

“I believe your loyal little friend here might have something tosay about that.”

“Yeah, he said fuck you, Suvai.”

The man who was not a man chuckled. “I didn’t spare your life allthose years ago to take it from you for no reason now.”

“So, what were you planning just there?”

“Wanted to see if your honor was still something that meantanything to you, or if it had washed away like the stone under the waterfall.”

“Do you crap out of the same factory where I get my fortunecookies? You sound like a bad movie mentor,” Bucky snarked.

Dob-E did not stand down. Bucky didn’t tell him to, either.

“I’ve seen you,” Suvai said. “On the television. Working with thisnew team of heroes, these Avengers. It’s a stupid name.”

“Generally speaking, I agree,” Bucky said. “Better than the X-men,I think.”

“I don’t plan to kill you at this time,” Suvai said.

“So, what do you want?”

“I have already taken it,” Suvai said. “While you were sleeping.”

Bucky gritted his jaw. “You fucking bastard.”

“If it was as trivial as a cold, you know I’d have chosen alocal.”

“What do I have this time?”

“Oh, you know, various viruses, probably two or three differentcancers. Heart disease. The grab bag of fun, stuck in this meatbody.”

“Meatbodies weren’t meant to live as long as you’re putting thisone up to,” Bucky said. He didn’t feel sick, but he knew he would, soon enough.A couple days and the serum could beat it, but in the meanwhile, he’d feel likeshit. And he probably wouldn’t be able to get the hell out of Russia beforeanyone came looking for him. Great.

Suvai shrugged. “I’m not done here yet.”

“You’re never going to be done, either,” Bucky said. “You’re notgoing to find them.”

“They didn’t die,” Suvai said. “They can’t leave. Ergo, they arestill here on this miserable planet and I will find them.” He touched his upperarm where his bonded tattoos remained, unfaded. “If it was your lover, couldyou let him go, no matter what?”

Bucky thought about Tony. And he thought about the sort ofdevotion he’d voluntarily laid down at the man’s feet without ever having beenasked, but without ever hesitating. If Tony was missing, there was nothingBucky wouldn’t do to get him back.

“With your help, I still have time,” Suvai said. “I cantouch every needle in the haystack and make certain. I will find them, oldfriend. Thank you.”

“Next time, ask first.”

“Would you have said no?”

“At least pretend to observe the forms.”

Suvai’s laughter followed him into the darkness.

Bucky didn’t even get three steps following him before he wasdizzy and a wave of pain swept over him. He went to his knees.

“Okay,” he said. “Jus’ gonna have to wait this out. I promise,it’ll look bad, but I’ll be okay. In a few days. Maybe a week. It’s never goneon longer than a week.”

Dob-E beeped nervously.

“Yeah, he’s got some sort of transferral power. Glad you didn’tshoot him, he’d have just given me th’ wounds instead. And I ain’t wanting tobe shot with Tony’s repulsors, thanks anyway.”

Beep beep beep.

“No maybe about it, I’ve seen him do it. You can’t hurt him. Youcan’t sneak up on him. He’s practically immortal, so long as he can dash hisillness off on other people. He saves the big stuff up for people like me, whocan take it, or sometimes suicidal people. Or kids so badly damaged at birththat they can’t survive. He doesn’t like to hurt people, but… he’s alien. Hestill doesn’t quite think of us as peers. We’re… like talking dogs orsomething.”

Beep beep beep beep.

“Yeah. He’s not a good being. But he saved my life, once, and thelives of a lot of other people. I still owe him. Tony will understand.” Ihope.

Beep.

“Oh, hey, you’re awake. That’s good, glad to see that.” Tony’svoice seemed to come from very far away. Something cool touched his forehead.“I’m not saying it’s the worst vacation spot ever, but I’m a little hurt thatyou started without me.”

Bucky had a body, he was pretty sure of that. It was the largish,unmoving thing that hurt everywhere. Trying to get his brain back inconnection with all the parts that moved or breathed or did… whatever they weresupposed to do, he wasn’t quite… ug… He licked at his mouth a little,dry and coated on the inside and… Words. He knew some of those. “Water?” Hewasn’t sure there was any – he’d sent Dobs into the nearest village for araid, and rather expected it hadn’t gone well.

“Yep,” Tony said, and oh, fuck it hurt when Tony helped himsit up a little, but there was the smooth cool feel of ceramic at his lips andwhen he opened his mouth, water flowed in, a slow and steady trickle, and thatfelt good enough to be worth the pain. “Fever’s coming down a little, that’sgood, too.”

Bucky figured out how to open his eyes, decided not to. He wasn’tsure he was ready for whatever expression was on Tony’s face. God damn it,Suvai. “How long’s it been? How’d you get here?” He lied, even to himself.Cracked an eyelid to peer out from under his lashes. Tony was a blur of fleshcolor and black shadows. The light was searing, stabbing, and he couldn’t helpthe groan that escaped him. That had decidedly not been worth anything; he’dgathered no data and just ached more. Probably Tony already knew how much painBucky was in, but he didn’t need to rub it in Tony’s face, so to speak.

“I’ve been here for two days, ever since JARVIS told me you’d goneAWOL and gave me DOB-E’s tracker. According to your partner in crime, here, youwere just laying out on the ground by the lake for about a day and a halfbefore I got here. Which makes whatever you’re infected with terrifying.You know that, right?” DOB-E beeped. Yes.

“Not too bad,” Bucky managed. “It’s th’ cancer makes it worse. Canget treatment for that in a hospital, but th’ fucker never lets me get there.Probably had somethin’ infectious, too. He’s thorough, that way.” He slittedhis eyes again. At the moment, if he’d had to guess, he’d have said justworried was the primary expression, but he could see and hear angry at theedges. He wondered if he was still ill enough for Tony to cut him some slackfor… an hour, maybe? Just an hour. “Sorry.”

“Are you?” That came out a little sharply. An hour woulddefinitely be pushing it. “And what flavor of sorry is it? Is this the sort ofsorry that means you’re not going to do whatever damnfool thing you did again,or the kind that means you’re definitely going to do it again but maybe you’llgive me some warning next time?”

If Bucky was going to tell the truth, and at this point, he reallyprobably should before Tony decided that Bucky was feeling well enough to riskthrowing something at him, it was the flavor of sorry that was wish I hadn’tgotten caught. He should be more diplomatic than that. “Sorry I worriedyou.”

“That sounds decidedly like the flavor of ‘I’m going to do thisagain,’” Tony said, flicking his fingers.

“I owe him a debt,” Bucky protested. “An’… an’ I can do this forhim. He ain’t killed me yet.”

“Yet.”

That was a short word. But so, so filled with meaning.

“I’mma rare resource for him,” Bucky said. “I can take it. I canheal from it. He can’t, he don’t… his biology, if you can even call it that, istotally different from ours. He can… move th’ hurt around. Take it fromhimself, give it to me, but if he don’t get healed once in a while, he’ll die.”Bucky glanced over to the lake. It still hadn’t changed.

Hadn’t changed for decades. Centuries, perhaps. Suvai would know,perhaps. Their ship crashed; his pod ejected him into the cold lake waters. Hispartners were still underneath, stealthed. Sleeping. Unfindable. Undetectable.The lake was so large. And maybe it was haunted. It was haunted by the love ofaliens, fleeing their brutal home planet, who’d crashed here millennia ago andwere so tied together that they couldn’t leave.

“What is he, one of Xavier’s–”

“He’s an alien,” Bucky said. “They crashed here. He’s been lookingfor his partners ever since. They’re not dead. They’re just missing. Andhe’s going to be here, looking, until he finds them. Or he dies. It’s not somuch, what he asks of me.” Bucky slanted a look at Tony. “An’… god, it’scheatin’ to say it, Tony, but you know it’s true. I’d do it for you. If youwere locked in that lake somewhere, in some kinda suspension, I’d never leave.”

Maybe the lake wasn’t too big to be haunted.

“You’re a liar,” Tony said, and he wasn’t even being fondor affectionate, or even close to forgiveness. “You… you– left me! To comehere, to put yourself at risk, and don’t even think that Dob-E didn’t show methe footage of you offering him the back of your fucking neck!”

“Tony –”

“Don’t. Just don’t say it. You say you love me, and then you putyourself at risk like this, and it’s not like I don’t understand that, but why…why do you have to be stupid about it? Can’t you just…”

“No.” Bucky said, and he was sorry, he was so goddamn sorry,but, “No, Tony, I can’t. I can’t be th’ man that loves you, can’t be th’ man youdeserve to love, and not… be this way. This is who I am, Tony, and I’msorry as hell that you’re hurtin’. I don’t never want to hurt you, I hope youknow that. But this is who I am. If you love me, ya gotta love all of me. Eventh’ bad parts. Maybe even especially the bad parts.”

“You… stupid, annoying, reckless son of a bitch,” Tony spatat him, and then, Tony was in his arms, face pressed tight against the crook ofBucky’s neck and if Tony’s cheeks were wet, if his voice came out more of a sobthan a scream, that was no one’s business but theirs. “I love you. Don’t… don’tdo shit like this to me, I can’t… I can’t lose you. Please, Bucky,just…”

“I got you, Tony,” Bucky said. He was still in pain; every bit ofhim had been torn up, remade, rebuilt, and still, he wouldn’t trade any of itfor the hot feel of Tony in his arms, the way Tony held him just a little tootight, the way they were made to be there. Together. “I got you.”

“For how long?”

“F’r as long as we got, baby,” Bucky said, pulling Tony evencloser, kissing his hair, his ear, the side of his neck. “I love you.Forever.”

Tony relaxed into the embrace, letting Bucky stroke his hair andsoothe him. Finally pulled back, ignoring his red-rimmed eyes and the tracks onhis cheeks. “I’m still really, really fucking pissed off at you. You know that,right?”

“I’ll make it up to you, baby,” Bucky promised.

Fuck you.

Bucky eyed Dob-E over Tony’s shoulder. “Yeah, and you, too.”

Yes.

#winteriron #tony x bucky #prompts #communal kitchen #hurt/comfort #Dob-E #original character #Bucky Barnes #Tony Stark #justalurkr

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pdu-games · 4 years

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Chapter 2: An Offer Arthur Could Not Refuse

Arthur was business wunderkind. He was shrewd negotiator, and he had preternatural ability to sniff out weaknesses in counterparts and competitors. He attracted millions of Sovereign Credits (Sc) in capital investments (something his father was too modest to ever do), and used the proceeds to buy-out one competitor after another. Those that would not sell to Fidge & Co., would be outcompeted into bankruptcy.

In only 11 years, Arthur grew his father’s small operation into the largest gas and mineral miner on Koss, employing over 300,000 people. Arthur’s meteoric rise as a mining tycoon made him a minor celebrity in the business world. Twice in the last year alone he had been featured in system wide Sovereign news broadcasts praising his achievements. Twice! No question, he was a titan of industry.

With Fidge & Co.’s operations concentrated on Koss, Arthur could not run his empire remotely from its moon. He had to be planet side. But Koss City’s residential zones didn’t offer the same quality of life, access to schools, and proximity to culture and entertainment that New Victoria did, so Arthur and Ada agreed to maintain a primary residence on New Victoria, currently in a luxury high-rise in Central Arma, as well as a modest studio apartment in Koss City’s Flatiron Resi District, which Arthur used as a pied-a-tier while working. (Flatiron was generally regarded as the best of Koss City’s four major resi districts, but Arthur still found it dreary and industrially sterile.)

At first, the couple agreed that Arthur would work 3 Sovereign Standard Days (SSDs) out of Fidge & Co.’s Arma satellite office for every 4 days he worked out of Koss City, but over the following decade, this ratio had slipped from 3:4 to 2:5, and more recently, due to Fidge & Co. acquiring and integrating Eltech Industries, Arthur hardly spent 1 day on New Victoria out of every 14.

His laser focus on building his mining empire had certainly taken its toll on Arthur’s relationship with his family, in particular Ada, who hadn’t shared Arthur’s ambitions for empire building, and who in their courtship and early marriage had grown accustomed to a certain balance of work and life. Arthur knew Ada felt blindsided by how quickly he pivoted (following his father’s untimely death) from family man to titan of industry.

And his beautiful children, the centers of his universe, how he missed them dearly. Clark and Astrid never really knew the family-man Arthur, as Clark was very young when Arthur began running the business (and Astrid wouldn’t be born for a few years), so they were fully accustomed to seldomly seeing their father. This fact did not assuage Arthur’s pangs of loneliness and guilt.

Honos was Arthur’s idea; a gift to his wife and children. After the Eltech integration was under control, he was able to spend two weeks providing his family undivided attention in a luxurious resort on the tropical paradise Inner moon. A resort that he could never have dreamed of affording as a young man on a world he could never dreamed of visiting. Now, look at him. All told, the vacation cost him a small fortune, but he loved spoiling his family, so he didn’t think twice about spending the money.

His lovely wife, though, was still upset with him.

What more could I do? he thought to himself, still gazing out of his window over the swirling sea of gases. Arthur decided he would surprise his wife by sending some extravagant jewelry (a necklace perhaps?) to her at her office today. He knew the jealousy from her coworkers as she opened her gift would cheer her up, at least for a bit. He figured he would need to include a little note, which he started to outline in his mind. Dearest Ada, you are my cosmic anchor…no…cosmic pillar…hmm, not right either.

Content with his plan, and with his guilt subsiding, Arthur resolved to head to the office. He would sort out the message to Ada later.

***

Arthur arrived at the Fidge & Co.’s headquarters, which occupied the top 20 floors of the Centri Tower in Koss City’s business district along the southeast edge of the city, slightly past 0700 SG (Standard Gesag Time). (Even though the planetary rotations of Koss were very different than those of Gesag, Fidge & Co. operated on Standard Gesag Time, as did most large corporations throughout Arcturus, as mandated by the Sovereign to facilitate inter-connectivity and trade.)

He was one of the first to arrive, so the halls, which generally buzzed with activity, were eerily calm. In fact, from the time Arthur’s private shuttle dropped him at the main entrance to when he arrived at his office on the 54th floor, he only counted precisely two human faces (and of course a handful of security androids).

Arthur’s corner office was the top floor of the Centri Tower, which provided him unobstructed views of Koss City to the north and the vibrant sea of gases to the east. On days with good visibility, Arthur could look out eastward over the horizon and faintly make out a series of his rigs (the Alpha 88-900 cluster).

Arthur sat at his metallic desk, turned on his computer, and reviewed his schedule for the day: back-to-back meetings with his senior managers beginning at 0800 with no break until 1300. At 1330 he had a lunch meeting with a competitor to discuss preliminary merger prospects, and from 1500 through the early evening, he reserved time to visit a few newly operating rigs.

With a few moments to spare before his hectic morning began, Arthur then opened a news app. The top headline read “Terrans raid Io’s Covent City; 38 civilians dead and 200 more injured.” Those goddamn mongrels, Arthur thought to himself. And Io, of all places. What were they doing all the way in there? Right under the nose of the Sovereign. What is the Sovereign going to do about these pirates? And frak, I know people on Io. Alsaad. And who was his wife? Shira, or was it Li?

Arthur was interrupted in this train of thought by a buzz on his haptic comband. Surprised by a call so early in the day, he looked at his left wrist, which revealed he was receiving a call from Mila Lockett.

Frak! Arthur’s heart started to race as he considered his options. He had been dodging calls from Mila for the last two weeks. He could continue to ignore her now, but this would only aggravate her further. Of course, when he was on Honos, billions of miles from New Victoria, he didn’t have to worry about Mila tracking him down. Now, how long until she would show up in person, with her goons, at his apartment (or worse, at his office)? A couple hours, perhaps. No, evasion was out of the question.

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

Arthur knew he needed answer, so he frantically tidied his desk, took a deep breath, and used the controls on his haptic comband to transfer the call to his office hologram.

The Penrose hologram coil above his desk came to life, whirling mechanically for an instant while it calibrated its position vis-à-vis Arthur and the nearby furniture before projecting a life-size, three-dimensional image of Mila sitting in a chair across the desk from Arthur. Mila was a handsome woman in her mid-to-late 70s with Smokey-grey hair, lightly wrinkled skin, and piercing blue eyes. Mila had a stern business-like expression on her face, and Arthur could tell instantly she was furious. Arthur had to figure out how to diffuse the tension quickly. He put on a big smile and enthusiastically greeted the hologram. “Mila! How are you?” Arthur knew how to dial up the charm when he needed to.

Mila’s stern expression did not change. She took paused for a second to regard Arthur before speaking, “Mr. Fidge. I assume you have now had sufficient time to consider our proposal. What are your thoughts?”

“Always straight to business! No bullshit. That’s why I like you, Mila. Well, the proposal,” Arthur swallowed hard and took a moment to choose his words wisely. “It’s an interesting proposal, to say the least. I’m just not sure now’s the right time. We’re still digesting the Eltech acquisition, and we have a very robust pipeline of new mining contracts we’re chewing on.”

The proposal in question was an offer by the Lockett family to invest Sc. 30 million in Fidge & Co. to fund the acquisition of a nanometals factory on the distant planet, Ukemochi. The proposal made no business sense to Arthur. There was no business case to justify Fidge & Co. spreading itself thin by entering a new industry Arthur knew little about on a planet Arthur had never been to. Of course, the Lockett family had its own business reasons for wanting access to that operation, but Arthur did not know what for certain. He did speculate, though. Perhaps a front for money-laundering or smuggling of some sort. That’s what these people were always after, wasn’t it?

The Lockett family and connected organizations were Arthur’s main financial backers. In the early months of Arthur’s tenure as President of Fidge & Co., he was seeking to raise capital to fund some his basic growth initiatives. Traditional investors turned him down, not wanting to back a greenhorn with little experience. Mila, on the other hand, embraced Arthur and made him feel like he was part of her family. Mila invested Sc. 50 million in Arthur, much more money than Fidge & Co. had earned in its collectively 30 year history to date. In exchange, Arthur would just have to turn a blind eye to the Lockett family occasionally smuggling contraband on Fidge & Co. transport shuttles. It all seemed so simple back then. The Lockett family continued to invest millions into Fidge & Co., and with each investment, the family’s tentacles sunk deeper into Arthur’s business.

Sensing Mila was not convinced, Arthur continued, “Look, Mila. It’s all hands-on-deck right now, and I don’t think…”

Mila cut in, “Listen closely, Mr. Fidge. I don’t think you understand the nature of our proposal or for that matter, the nature of our relationship. You owe the Lockett family everything, and you’ll want to consider closely the consequences of turning us down.”

Arthur was shocked. I owe them everything? He thought to himself. The nerve of her to suggest I owe them ANYTHING after I’ve made them an absolute fortune.

Arthur leaned forward towards Mila, a vein now starting to bulge in his forehead, and burst out, “How exactly do you figure I owe you anything? Sure, you saw potential in me when no one else did, and for that I am eternally grateful, but you must agree that your faith in me has been repaid many times over. I’ve already returned your investment five-fold, cash-on-cash, and I’m really just getting started. This is a prodigious return I’ve created for you. You can’t argue with that, so how exactly do you figure I owe you ‘everything’?”

For the first time in this conversation, Mila cracked a smile. It was very subtle, barely detectable to Arthur, but he was certain he saw it, and this deeply unnerved him. Mila answered, “Have you ever reflected on to what you owe your success? Do you think it was your wit that allowed you to outmaneuver some of the most sophisticated enterprises in Arcturus? Do you think seasoned business leaders with decades of experience were intimidated by a 20-something-year-old kid? We have been there at every major decision point to make sure you were in the right place at the right time. We made your competitors play ball and stay out of your way, and if they did not want to cooperate, we made them disappear. In no uncertain terms, we put you where you are now, and if you’re not cut out for the next phase of the company’s growth, we’ll replace you with someone that is. I’ve been very patient with you, but my patience is running thin, so please let me know if you’re in or you’re out”

Arthur, deflated and stunned, quietly acquiesced,

“Excellent. My lieutenants are already en route.”

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biofunmy · 5 years

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Why Don’t Rich People Just Stop Working?

“Billionaires should not exist,” Senator Bernie Sanders said last month. And, at the Democratic presidential debate this week, he said that the wealth disparity in America is “a moral and economic outrage.”

“Senator Sanders is right,” said Tom Steyer, a businessman from California who happened to be the only billionaire onstage that night (as far as we know).

“No one on this stage wants to protect billionaires — not even the billionaire wants to protect billionaires,” noted Senator Amy Klobuchar.

It’s an idea that’s going around. Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder who is worth close to $70 billion, is apparently open to it. “I don’t know that I have an exact threshold on what amount of money someone should have,” he said in live-streamed question-and-answer session with company employees in early October. “But on some level, no one deserves to have that much money.”

Yet here we are, chugging into the 10th year of an extremely top-heavy economic boom in which the 1 percenters, by all statistical measures, have won, creating the greatest wealth disparity since the Jazz Age. This era, in length and gains, dwarfs the “greed is good” 1980s, that era of yellow ties, nigiri rolls and designer espresso machines that has come to symbolize gilded excess in popular imagination.

And yet the only thing we know in this casino-like economy — a casino that may, in fact, soon be shuttered — is that for those at the top, too much is never enough.

Many normal, non-billionaire people wonder: why is that?

Studies over the years have indicated that the rich, unlike the leisured gentry of old, tend to work longer hours and spend less time socializing. Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, whose worth has been estimated in the hundreds of millions, has said that he wakes up at 3:45 a.m. to mount his daily assault on his corporate rivals. Elon Musk, the man behind Tesla and SpaceX, is worth some $23 billion but nevertheless considers it a victory that he dialed back his “bonkers” 120-hour workweeks to a more “manageable” 80 or 90.

And they continue to diversify. Lady Gaga makes a reported $1 million per show in her residency at the Park MGM in Las Vegas, and has evolved from pop music to conquer film — but still also recently unveiled a cosmetics venture with Amazon.

Almost everything rich people touch makes money, but this current financial inferno has meant little for the bottom 50 percent of earners in the United States, who have 32 percent less wealth than they did in 2003.

The 1 percent have, as of last decade, 85 percent of their net worth tied up in investments like stocks, bonds and private equity, where value has exploded. According to Redfin, the average sale price of properties in the top 5 percent are up 43 percent nationally over the past decade, and up even more in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Fine vintage watches, which have become a must-have for the young male money class, are exploding in value, with prices on certain five-figure models of Rolexes doubling in just a few years.

Gold, once derided as a relic, is up 40 percent in the past few years.

What’s happening?

No One Has a Retirement Number These Days

“What’s your number?” asked anyone caught up in the dot-com boom of the 1990s.

Could you retire to Napa with $5 million? $20 million?

Some hit their number and some went bust, but Silicon Valley is more than ever a showcase for the unfettered capitalism of 2019.

Yet no one seems to talk about their number anymore, said Antonio García Martínez, who sold a start-up to Twitter and served as a Facebook product manager before publishing his memoir, “Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley,” in 2016.

Yesterday’s big score is just seed capital for tomorrow’s bigger one.

“There’s never some omega point,” Mr. García Martínez, 43, said. “People who get to that point don’t stop once they get there.”

“People say, ‘Why don’t you develop a hobby, or do philanthropy?’” Mr. García Martínez said. “But for many, they simply can’t stop doing it. They derive transcendent meaning from capitalism. Without their money, what else would they have?”

At a time of low taxes, friendly interest rates and torrents of venture capital available to would-be moguls, it’s a historic moment in the quest for more among the entrepreneurial class.

Tim Ferriss, the life-hacking author and podcast star who was an angel investor in Silicon Valley for nearly a decade, wrote in an email that many of these people have been “navigating work and life in sixth gear for decades.”

Without Constant Work, We Must Face the Nature of Existence

“Once they have no financial need to work — are ‘post-economic,’ as some say in San Francisco — they have trouble shifting into lower gears,” Mr. Ferriss wrote. “They’re like drag racers who now have to learn to navigate the turns and intersections of neighborhoods at 30 miles per hour.”

“Without ambitious projects to fill space,” he added, “there is often a void that makes some of the bigger questions hard to avoid. The things you neglected are no longer drowned out by noise; they are the signal. It’s like facing the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

In a sense, it has been going on in this country for two and a half centuries. “We are a nation founded on the overthrow of kings and the idle rich, so the hustle is deeply baked into mainstream notions of what it means to be American,” said Margaret O’Mara, a history professor at the University of Washington who is a New York Times opinion contributor.

And today’s competitive personality types are unable to slow down, in part because they fear slipping from their lofty perches.

“Driven people are just driven,” said Maria Bartiromo, the Fox Business anchor. “They want to stay fresh and relevant, and to do that, it requires consistent practice. If you want to win, you need to be all in.” And winning can be collecting the most cash — pressing the excitement pedal over and over again, like so many exhausted rats in a cage.

Rich People Know Too Many Rich People

With the number of Americans making $1 million or more spiking by 40 percent between 2010 and 2016, according to the Internal Revenue Service, you may think that the rich are finally feeling flush enough to ease up, kick back, chill out.

They are not.

One recent Harvard survey of 4,000 millionaires found that people worth $8 million or more were scarcely happier than those worth $1 million.

In a widely cited 2006 study, rich people reported that they spend more time doing things they were required to do.

Why do they want to do this to themselves?

The fact that there are more rich people who are, in fact, richer than ever may be part of the reason.

Sociologists have long talked about “relative income hypothesis.” We tend to measure material satisfaction by those around us — not in absolute terms.

“For most people, enough is enough,” said Robert Frank, the wealth editor for CNBC and the author of the 2007 book “Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich,” who has interviewed many plutocrats. “But there is another group of people, no matter what they have, they have to keep going. I call them ‘scorekeepers.’ They’re truly driven by competitive zeal.”

Take Larry Ellison, the billionaire co-founder of Oracle. Mr. Ellison always felt competitive with Bill Gates and Paul Allen of Microsoft, Mr. Frank said. “So when Paul Allen built his 400-foot boat, Larry Ellison waited until it was done and built a 450-foot boat. Larry Ellison would never be happy until he was No. 1.”

Among the very rich, it does not matter that all imaginable material needs have been met, said Edward Wolff, a professor of economics at New York University who studies wealth and disparity.

“Among the rarefied group of the extreme rich, social status depends on net worth,” Dr. Wolff wrote in an email. “Their enhanced wealth allows them to make substantial charitable contributions to institutions like museums and concert halls, that may lead to having a building or the like named after them. Think of the Koch brothers and the New York City Ballet. This is only possible if they can stay ahead of the pack and out-contribute their peers.”

Social sampling leads the rich toward a blinkered view that society as a whole is more well-off than it is, feeding their unending need — particularly as wealth becomes geographically dense. Nearly 20 percent of the world’s ultra-high-net-worth individuals — with assets of $30 million or more — live in just 10 cities around the globe, by one tally. Six of those cities are in the United States.

Money Is Like Alcohol but for Money

Living inside bubbles, the rich need greater excess just to feel the same high, said Steven Berglas, a psychologist, executive coach and author.

“If you’re an alcoholic,” he said, “you’re going to take one drink, two drinks, five drinks, six drinks to feel the buzz. Well, when you get a million dollars, you need 10 million dollars to feel like a king. Money is an addictive substance.”

Feeding the addiction becomes even more challenging in a top-heavy economy where the price tags of the status symbols keep adding zeros.

For the superrich looking to buy their way in to professional sports, it’s no longer enough to have courtside seats or a luxury box. You need a team. They’re pricey.

The Golden State Warriors, for example, sold in 2010 for an N.B.A. record $450 million to an ownership group headed by Joe Lacob, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. The team is now valued at $3.5 billion.

Even that is not enough. Now you have to build the biggest, flashiest arena. The Warriors owners recently put the finishing touches on a gleaming new waterfront arena in San Francisco called the Chase Center. It was financed largely by themselves for $1.4 billion.

Not to be left behind, Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft chief and owner of the rival Los Angeles Clippers, is seeking to build a $1 billion pleasure dome of his own in Inglewood, Calif.

Clustered courtside together at the sporting palaces, the celebrities, naturally, begin to envy the fortunes of the moguls near them.

Even at the pinnacle of success, entertainers like Mark Wahlberg and Lady Gaga find themselves “suddenly in the same world with billionaires and financiers who own private jets and have their own boats,” Mr. Frank said. “There’s only so much you can make in entertainment, so they look around and decide that they need to get to the next level that they’re encountering socially at the Met Ball and at charity functions.”

The opportunity appears endless. But what if it’s not?

The Rich Suspect the Roller Coaster Is About to Crash

As a hedge fund veteran, precious metals adviser and financial author, James Rickards is a rich guy who talks to a lot of other rich guys. They don’t always like what he has to say.

He believes that the current debt-fueled recovery may be a prelude for an economic collapse to dwarf the Great Recession. Until recently, he said, such theories were met with polite lack of interest by many wealthy people. Lately, something has changed.

“Literally, in a matter of weeks, certainly a couple of months, the phone calls have had a different tone to them,” Mr. Rickards said. “What I’m hearing is, ‘I’ve got the money. How do I hang on to it?’ ‘Are gold futures going to hold up or should I have bullion?’ ‘If I have bullion, should I put it in a bag in a private vault?’”

“It’s a level of concern that I’ve never heard from the superrich,” he said. “The tone of voice is, ‘I need an answer now!’”

It is not just the rockiness of the stock market. The fears of the wealthy seem to be of a more existential nature.

It is as if the very people who have profited most from these good times cannot believe that times are good — or that they will stay good, in the event of, say, a Bernie Sanders presidency.

Paul Singer, who oversees the behemoth Elliot Management fund, is reportedly tapping investors for billions as a war chest for a possible market implosion.

Among the tech zillionaire classes, a place to bug out in the event of an economic collapse, environmental disaster or violent uprising became the thing to have.

After he left Facebook, Mr. García Martínez himself bought five wooded acres on an island in the Pacific Northwest equipped with generators and solar panels, as The New Yorker reported in 2017.

When any part of the denial of rich people gets punctured, the boom reveals itself to be a very weird boom. The profits themselves are confusing. Even some who have ridden the wave to outsize fortunes see something amiss.

Marc Benioff, a chief executive of Salesforce.com, recently declared that “capitalism as we know it is dead.” Corporate earnings are often tepid, yet stocks in those same companies are soaring, thanks in part to stock buybacks that fatten executive compensation but do little to help the business.

Some even notice the rest of us out here. Ray Dalio, the hedge fund billionaire, recently wrote an essay on LinkedIn that capitalism “is not working well for the majority of Americans because it’s producing self-reinforcing spirals up for the haves and down for the have-nots.”

And for those who amass fortunes, the money is the only measure of success they have, said Jordan Belfort, the real-life inspiration for “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

As opposed to people who build businesses that make actual products, “a lot of Wall Street traders didn’t create anything — all they did was trade on the value and ingenuity of what other people created, so at the end of the day, what can they point to that’s tangible?” Mr. Belfort said. (He disavowed his former excess after a prison stint and became a motivational speaker.)

“All they have is money,” he said. “So they go out and buy a house and a fancy car, and that feels good for a short while, then they buy a second house and a fancier car. Because all they have is what they earn. They’re defined by it.”

The newly rich from normal backgrounds are the most anxious of all, said Jennifer Streaks, a personal finance commentator and CNBC contributor.

“Imagine growing up middle class or even poor and then amassing millions,” Ms. Streaks said. “This sounds like the American dream, but suddenly you have a $5 million apartment, a $200,000 car and a family that has these expectations.”

A panic ensues when those people believe “that they are one bad investment away from being broke.”

And the Rich Become Anxious and Isolated

It’s not like Jeff Bezos, the $110 billion man, is going to have to auction off his $65 million Gulfstream jet if he makes a bad bet on Amazon delivery drones (or goes through a $36 billion divorce).

Even so, the isolation that often accompanies extreme wealth can provide an emotional impulse to keep on earning, long after material comforts have been met, said T. Byram Karasu, an emeritus professor of psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx who said he has worked with numerous high earners in his private practice.

Apex entrepreneurs and financiers, after all, are often “adrenaline-fueled, transgressive people,” Dr. Karasu said. “They tend to have laser-focused digital brains, are always in transactional mode, and the bigger they get, the lonelier they are, because they do not belong.”

Dr. Berglas, a onetime member of the Harvard Medical School faculty in psychology, said: “If you can’t relate to people, you presume that the failure to have rewarding relationships is because of jealousy — your house is three-X your neighbors’, and they look at your brand-new Corvette and drool. It’s a compensatory mechanism — ‘I might not have a ton of friends, but I can do anything I want and I’m the most powerful S.O.B. there is.”

Limitless opportunity, extreme isolation. They already own the present. What else is left to buy but tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that? Suddenly, the fetish of the superrich for space tourism starts to make sense.

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