Donald Trump on Hydroxychloroquine

“Now we're working with the states in almost all instances, but we have a great system. And the other thing that we bought a tremendous amount of is the hydroxy chloroquine]]. Hydroxy chloroquine, which I think is, you know, it's a great malaria drug. It's worked unbelievably. It's a powerful drug on malaria and there are signs that it works on this, some very strong signs and in the meantime it's been around a long time. It also works very powerfully on lupus, so there are some very strong powerful signs and we'll have to see because again, it's tested.”

“What do you have to lose? What do you have to lose? And a lot of people are saying that when … and are taking it, if you're a doctor, a nurse, a first responder, a medical person going into hospitals, they say taking it before the fact is good, but what do you have to lose? They say, take it, I'm not looking at it one way or the other, but we want to get out of this. If it does work, it would be a shame if we didn't do it early. But we have some very good signs. So that's hydroxy chloroquine and as azithromycin, and again, you have to go through your medical people get the approval. But I've seen things that I sort of like, so what do I know? I'm not a doctor, I'm not a doctor, but I have common sense.”

“I want them to try it. It may work, and it may not work. But if it doesn't work, it's nothing lost by doing it. Nothing. Because we know long-term what I want. I want to save lives, and I don't want it to be in a lab for the next year-and-a-half as people are dying all over the place. In France, they had a very good test. They're continuing. But we don't have time to go and say, gee, let's take a couple of years and test it out, and let's go and test with the test tubes and the laboratories. We don't have time. I'd love to do that, but we have people dying today. As we speak, there are people dying. If it works, that'd be great. If it doesn't work, we know for many years malaria, it's incredible what it's done for malaria. It's incredible what it's done for lupus, but it doesn't kill people.”

“The FDA feels good about it. They've, as you know, they've approved it. They gave it a rapid approved approval. And the reason because it's been out there for a long time and they know the side effects and they also know the potential. So based on that, we have sent it throughout the country. We have it stockpiled about 29 million doses, 29 million doses. We have a lot of it. We hope it works. Driven by the goal of the brightest minds in science. We have the brightest minds in science, but we were driven by the goal of getting rid of this plague, getting rid of this scourge, getting rid of this virus. These brilliant minds are working on the most effective antiviral therapies and vaccines. We are working very, very hard. I have met many of the doctors that are doing it. These are doctors that are working so hard on vanquishing the virus.”

“Now this is a new thing that just happened to as the invisible enemy we call it. And if you can, if you have a no signs of heart problems, the azithromycin, which will kill certain things that you don't want living within your body. It's a powerful drug. If you don't have a problem, a heart problem, we would say, let your doctor think about it, but as a combination, I think they're going to be, I think there's two things that should be looked at very strongly. Now, we have purchased and we have stockpiled 29 million pills of the hydroxy chloroquine, 29 million. A lot of drug stores have them by prescription and also, and they're not expensive. Also, we're sending them to various labs. Our military, we're sending them to the hospitals, we're sending them all over. I just think it's something, you know the expression, I've used it for certain reasons.”