Seriously?

This is from whitehouse.gov

Thursday’s White House press briefing transcript—capturing just one reporter’s question and Trump’s word-for-word response:
Q: “Mr. President, 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment last week. We haven’t heard you talk a lot today about what they’re going through. So what’s your message to them?”
THE PRESIDENT:
“I think they’re going through — I think it’s terrible.
So, look, four weeks ago, we had the greatest economy in the history of the world. The greatest in the world — greatest in the history of the world. We had the most jobs ever in the history of the United States. Almost 160 million jobs, right?
And then, one day, I get a call from Deborah, who’s fantastic, and from Dr. Fauci. And he said and she said, “Sir, we have a problem.” I said, “What’s the problem?” And they said, “We may have to close it up.” I said, “Close what up?” They said, “Close up the country.” And I said, “What’s that all about?” And we discussed today — and probably not since 1917; we came to that conclusion — and she is a fantastic person, a brilliant person, and this is what she knows. I said, “Has it ever been this bad?” And I think I can represent that you said “no.” And part of it — it’s a contagion. It’s so contagious.
It’s like, if you sneeze, I probably get it. Whoever heard of a thing like that? Okay? And this very talented reporter is bailing out. Okay? He’s out of here. I don’t blame you.
But it’s a very contagious thing, and — probably the likes of which we’ve never seen in terms of that.
But 1917 — so that’s over 100 years ago, but that was — you know, it’s been written about many, many times. That was a horrible — whether it was 75 or 100 million people — I’ve heard from 50 to 75, I’ve heard 75 to 100 — but it was tens of millions of people.
Now, we have the advantage of communication. This could have been just as bad. I mean, here we can read on the Internet. We can see what to do. We can have these meetings; they can watch on television, which they do. A lot of people are watching. A lot of people are watching. And they say, “Gee, social distancing.”
But in 1917, they didn’t have that option. You know, they didn’t know what to do. They just noticed people were dying all over the place. Think of it: 75- to 100 million people died. A lot of people in this country died.
I always — to me, it’s a great — it’s a great question: How come more people didn’t die in this country? And they say it actually started in this country and went to Europe. I mean, we lost a lot of people, but relatively, we lost very few compared to Europe. So this is a terrible thing that happened.
And what’s happening now, with people and jobs — so think of the position I’m in. We have built all together, everybody — not me, everybody — the greatest economy in history. And all of a sudden, people come in that we respect and we know. And here’s the thing: They were right. Everybody questioned it for a while. Not everybody, but a good portion questioned it. They said, “Let’s keep it open. Let’s ride it.” If we did that — you saw the other graph. And whether it’s true or almost true or maybe not true enough — the number was 2.2 million people would have died. 2.2 million people would have died in a short period of time. In fact, the graph could have been even shorter. I always noticed that that horrible one — where it goes high — it actually comes down a little bit faster. It might have been over faster and you would have lost 2.2 million people.
So they come in and they say, “We have to close up the country.” And I say, “You know what that does to this — to the fabric of this country, to people that had great jobs, great family, no problems with money?” Their 401(k) — everything is perfect, then all of a sudden, they go from that to having no job in one day. They never even thought of it. And then you see 6 million people unemployed. Unemployment numbers get released and you see 6 million people.
And it’s an artificial closing. It’s not like we have a massive recession or worse. It’s artificial because we turned it off. Think of all we’re doing. We’re saying, “Don’t go to work and we’ll pay you.” Everything is the opposite. It was always, “Go to work and make a lot of money and do well, and — the American Dream.” Because of a hidden enemy, we’re saying, “Don’t go to work and we’re going to pay you.”
Look at the money: $2 trillion. And we will probably do more. I think infrastructure would be a fantastic thing to do.
You want to get the restaurants back? You give deductibility. You understand what that is. You give deductibility for businesses where they go and they use the restaurants. The restaurants will be bigger and better than they were before. You know, people don’t know: A lot of restaurants closed when they ended deductibility. And then they started doing well, but they had fewer restaurants. But the boom of the restaurants is when they had deductibility, where corporations could use them. So — and entertainment. That was a great thing.
But they closed it, and then they closed it again. And it wasn’t the same. But if you want to get them back, you do that.
But infrastructure: We borrow our money now at zero. You know, if were paying 5 percent, 4 percent, 3 percent, it’s a different ballgame. We’re borrowing — we can borrow long term for zero — literally zero; you know that — because we’re considered the safe investment. All over the world, they want money in the United States. That’s where they want the money.
So I know better than anybody. I just — I know what they’re going through, and it’s horrible. But you know what I want to do? I want to be able to get them back fast. When this is over, it’s going to be a day we’re going to celebrate, because everyone is going to go to work and I think we’re going to have boom times. I think it’s going to be great.
And we’ve learned a lot. We’ve learned about borders. We’ve learned about reliance on other countries. We’ve learned so much — so much that I think we really have a chance to be bigger and better and stronger. And I think it’s going to come back very quickly, but first we have to defeat this enemy.
So we will see you tomorrow. Thank you very much.”