Robert F. Kennedy (16:43):
… developing all kinds of weapons using AI and CRISPR technologies that are really devastating. Russia is deeply engaged in it, Iran and many other countries. It's a kind of weapon that always has blowback. There's always bad news. And the justification for this kind of weaponry and these kind of research, was always that we have to do this, develop vaccines to counter a future pandemic. In all of the history of gain-of-function research, we can't point to a single good thing that's come from it. And today I commend President Trump for his courage and his vision in ending US bioweapons research. And Jay, I'd love you to talk a little bit about it.
Donald Trump (17:34):
Jay, please.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Sure. This is a historic day, the conduct of this dangerous gain-of-function research, which aims at taking pathogens and making them more virulent, more transmissible in humans, many scientists believe is responsible for the COVID pandemic. The conduct of this research does not protect us against pandemics, as some people might say, it doesn't protect us against other nations. What it does is there's always a danger that in doing this research, it might leak out just by accident even and cause a pandemic. Any nation that engages in this research endangers their own population as well as the world as we saw during the COVID pandemic.
(18:19)
This proclamation makes it so that… Most sciences actually poses no threat to human populations. The vast majority of science will go on under this as normal, but the fraction of this research that has the risk of causing a pandemic, harming every single person on the face of the earth, this proclamation, this executive order puts in place a framework to make sure that the public has a say that if such a risk is being taken, that only scientists alone won't be able to decide that. That in fact, the public can say, "No, don't take this risk." And I'm really, really proud to be here with President Trump who signed this order, ending this research and for the first time putting in place a real regulatory framework to make it go away forever.
Donald Trump (19:04):
It can leak out, like from Wuhan. And a lot of people think that, I think I said that right from day one. It leaked out whether it was to the girlfriend or somebody else, but scientists walked outside to have lunch with the girlfriend or was together with a lot of people. But that's how it leaked out in my opinion, and I've never changed that opinion. It can leak out innocently, stupidly, and competently, but innocently and half destroy the world, right?
Speaker 3 (19:32):
That's right. That's right, Mr. President, it's a-
Robert F. Kennedy (19:35):
Mr. President there are, I think, three leaks, in BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs, our highest rated laboratories almost every week. There's no laboratory that does this right. There's no laboratory that's immune from leaks, and this is going to prevent those kinds of inadvertent leaks from happening in the future and endangering humanity. The COVID outbreak cost 20 million lives and cost the world at least $25 trillion. And this executive order is a precaution against us being involved in that kind of research in the future.
Donald Trump (20:15):
That's great. Very honored to do this. Marty, what do you have to say?
Speaker 4 (20:20):
It's unbelievable to think the entire nightmare of COVID was likely preventable and you had good instincts early on. Mr. President, in suggesting it came from the Wuhan lab. That is now the leading theory among scientists. It was five miles from the hospital where it first broke out. It's crazy to think that this entire nightmare was probably the result of some scientists messing with Mother Nature in a laboratory with technology exported from the United States that is inserting a furin cleavage site, so I hope this does some good in the world, Mr. President, thank you for doing it.
Donald Trump (20:55):
Anybody have any questions on that? Yes, please.
Speaker 5 (20:57):
On your proclamation designating this mental health awareness month, can you speak to concerns people are having regarding your administration cutting a billion dollars in mental health programs for schools?
Donald Trump (21:07):
Well, we're looking very closely at waste, fraud and abuse of which is tremendous amount people on that should be on, illegal immigrants on, people that came into the country illegally. We have many of them and we're looking for that, but for the population that's supposed to be there, it's perfecto. And they want us to do that. They don't want to have the waste, the fraud and the fraud is big, by the way, or the abuse. Question? Yeah, please.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
Thank you Mr. President. I actually have a question for Secretary Kennedy, if you don't mind.
Donald Trump (21:41):
Go ahead.
Speaker 6 (21:42):
You mentioned the anthrax attacks of 2001. At ZeroHedge we're working on a piece revisiting that, and I've heard you speak at length about how that was likely a conspiracy from the inside of the Bush administration. With your new current position, would you consider relooking into that, given the questions that I've heard you raise in the past?
Robert F. Kennedy (22:00):
Well, we're not at this moment going back. The FBI has already done an extensive investigation. They said that the anthrax was Ames Anthrax that came from a US lab. Their accusation was that it was released by a scientist called Bruce Ivins who subsequently committed suicide. There are many people who believe that Bruce Ivins was falsely accused and that it was somebody else in the lab. It's not something that we're currently investigating, but it's something that the FBI… The fact that it came from a US lab is something the FBI determined.
Donald Trump (22:44):
Please.
Speaker 7 (22:44):
There have been several MAHA aligned bills being proposed throughout the country, and I wanted to know what your thought was on that and the progress that Secretary Kennedy's making first and second when you… No, I'm sorry. Let's ask the question.
Donald Trump (23:04):
You want to go ahead with it.
Robert F. Kennedy (23:06):
We've had a wave, I think we have MAHA legislation now in 36 states. In the past two or three weeks I've been to Arizona, to Utah, to West Virginia, to Indiana, assigned SNAP waivers to get candy and soda off of SNAP. It changed the school lunch program so that we're feeding our kids food instead of food-like substances that are made in laboratories. And to do a number of other initiatives that are being driven by local MAHA movement, inspired by the President and that are being signed into law by various governors. And we're very, very grateful for that. Brooke Rollins and myself have invited the governors of all the states to apply for SNAP waivers, so we make sure that the supplemental nutrition assistance program is actually paying for nutrition and not sodas. 10% is now going to soda. There's no nutrition in a soda.
Speaker 7 (24:15):
And at the same time you have like 19 attorneys general suing you and the Trump administration. What do you make of that?
Donald Trump (24:22):
Who are they? Are they Democrats?
Speaker 7 (24:25):
Yeah, they're Democrats.
Donald Trump (24:26):
Like crooked Democrats, like really crooked Democrats, is that who's suing? They know what they're doing.
Speaker 7 (24:37):
What do you think brought this-
Donald Trump (24:37):
They're just hurting our country.
Speaker 7 (24:38):
What's your great-
Donald Trump (24:42):
These are very dishonest people. They've lost their way, they've lost their confidence. They have no confidence. They have no idea what they're doing. They don't even know what they're suing for, so it's just one of those things. Yeah, please.
Speaker 8 (24:54):
Mr. President on the pharmaceutical side, have you made any determination on what those tariff rates may look like and the timing of those tariffs?
Donald Trump (25:02):
I'll announce it over the next two weeks. Will, please.
Speaker 9 (25:07):
Oh, sorry, sir.
Donald Trump (25:08):
Do you have anything to say about this, Marty, what we just discussed?
Speaker 4 (25:12):
We have had this crazy system in the United States where American pharma manufacturers in the United States are put through the ringer with inspections. And the foreign sites get off easy with scheduled visits while we have surprise visits in the United States. Well, a scheduled visit is no inspection, so we are at the FDA delivering on this promise in the President's executive order and switching from announced to surprise inspections overseas. We're also not going to have our inspectors hanging out for three or four weeks. They're going to get in and out and we're going to do more inspections with the same resources as a result.
Donald Trump (25:50):
Good. Jay?
Speaker 3 (25:52):
I think it's very, very important that Americans have a drug supply, a pharmaceutical supply that they can count on. You saw during the COVID pandemic that the reliance on overseas production of pharmaceuticals led to shortages of essential medicines. And that's happened over and over again. Making America produce the drugs that it's long been able to produce is a huge priority. And this executive order the President just signed is going to make that possible.
Donald Trump (26:24):
Vince, you're a big policy person. You've been so great for me for so long. What do you think?
Speaker 11 (26:29):
Sir, you've always said it's vitally important that we have national self-sufficiency when it comes to critical pharmaceuticals. We learned that in 2020. It was a key campaign promise. We've seen shortages in the past of critical cancer drugs, people on chemotherapy. We have to produce those here at home and this is an important contribution to doing that.
Donald Trump (26:51):
Okay, thank you. Any questions of them?
Speaker 9 (26:56):
Just two more, sir. We have a slate of 39 Senate confirmed senior officials of your administration. This slate includes a significant number of new US attorneys. Those will be the top prosecutors in judicial districts around the country who will prosecute crime and help advance your agenda.
Donald Trump (27:15):
There's a lot of people and they're very good people. I hope. Who knows? But I hope so. Okay, thank you.
Speaker 9 (27:37):
And then lastly, sir, we have another proclamation. This week is National Hurricane Preparedness Week, this is an issue that's particularly important obviously to your home state of Florida. This is just a proclamation recognizing National Hurricane Preparedness Week 2025.
Donald Trump (28:06):
Thank you. Thank you very much. I want to thank you. We're going to be having some conferences next week. I'll also be going to Saudi Arabia and other places. We'll be going to UAE and Qatar and some of you will be going with us or have an interesting time, but I think we're going to have another conference next week, which will be very important, having to do with the world of the medical. And I think it'll be very productive. These are really very important that we signed today, and thank you very much for being here. Thank you very much.
Speaker 7 (28:46):
Thank you everybody. Don't mind me.
Donald Trump (28:46):
Thank you. You okay?
Speaker 12 (28:46):
Thank you sir.
Donald Trump (28:46):
She's stuck.
Speaker 13 (28:46):
Thank you guys.
Donald Trump (29:03):
Thank you very much. Here, take these.
