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President Donald Trump speaks during a Wednesday news conference in the briefing room of the White House.
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President Donald Trump, saying he needed to take a phone call, departed Wednesday’s coronavirus press briefing as a reporter asked him about protests in Louisville, Ky., after no police officer was charged directly over the shooting death of Breonna Taylor.
One officer was charged with wanton endangerment for firing shots into neighboring apartments. Trump applauded Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s response to the case.
“He’s handling it very well,” Trump said, after reading a statement from Cameron that said justice is beholden “only to the facts and to the law.”
“If we simply act on emotion or outrage, there is no justice,” said Cameron, a Republican, who is often described as a protégé of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“ ‘Get rid of the ballots, and you’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly, there’ll be a continuation.’ ”
Trump said he would soon speak with the Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, and supported Beshear’s decision to call up the National Guard in response to protests.
The president would not commit to a peaceful transfer of power in the event of his defeat on Nov. 3, referring to his complaints over mail-in ballots. The president has repeatedly railed against voting by mall, though there is little evidence it facilitates fraud.
“We’re going to have to see what happens,” Trump said. “The ballots are a disaster. Get rid of the ballots, and you’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly, there’ll be a continuation.”
Earlier in the briefing, Trump had touted the administration’s “Operation Warp Speed” program to accelerate the testing and rollout of vaccine candidates. Earlier Wednesday, Johnson & Johnson JNJ, +0.15% said its candidate had entered Phase 3 trials — a fourth U.S. candidate to enter that trial stage.
When asked about potentially stricter guidelines for vaccine emergency-use authorizations from the Food and Drug Administration, which would likely exclude any chance of a vaccine’s being available to any American by Election Day, Trump noted that such an FDA step would need to be approved by the White House — and that he might not allow it. He said he has “tremendous trust” in the companies conducting vaccine trials.
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“When [the drug companies] come back and say, ‘We have something that works and absolutely works,’ and they’re coming back with great numbers and statistics, and tests, and everything else that they have to come back with, I don’t see any reason why it should be delayed further,” he said. “If they delay it a week or two weeks or three weeks, that’s a lot of lives we’re talking about.”
Trump, formerly a public vaccine skeptic, asked Americans to get their annual influenza shot, noting that the flu season could cause confusion due to overlapping symptoms with COVID-19.
Trump said he would announce on Saturday his nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court left following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“But the person I’ll be putting up is highly qualified, totally brilliant, top-of- the-line academic student, the highest credentials — all of them have that– and you’ll see on Saturday who that is,” Trump said. “I can’t imagine why a Democrat wouldn’t vote for this person.”
Asked about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s recent endorsement of Joe Biden, Trump said, “I’m not a fan of hers. I would say this — and she’s probably has heard that — but I wish a lot of luck to Harry. Because he’s gonna need it.”
