Cabinet Room
12:02 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much, everybody. This is a group of people who, in many cases, became quite famous because they went through a lot having to do with the coronavirus. A tremendous amount. And a lot of them were covered, and we know them from the media. They've all got very interesting and very different stories to tell.
And I thought what I'd do is I'd go around the room. It's an honor to have them at the White House. And they really are — they're very brave. Some were right at the edge; they thought it was over. This is a rough — a rough plague. I call it the "plague." I call it the "scourge." I call it whatever you want to call it. It's rough. It's bad.
And a woman that I've really found fascinating, and she's from a state that's a great state and a city that's been hit very hard — really, very, very hard — Detroit. Highly respected. She's a political person. She doesn't happen to be a Republican, and that's okay. When things aren't going good and you get a little help from a Republican, we'll take that too.
But your story was just a fa- — just a fantastic story. And we're going to go around the room, each of you. This man was an NFL football player for 10 years, a friend of Tom Brady. And he was hit hard.
MR. CAMPBELL: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: And you weren't so strong when you got hit by that. That literally —
MR. CAMPBELL: No, I didn't feel strong at all at that point.
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. You were — you were not — you were saying you were not — you didn't feel too powerful.
So, if we could, we'll go around the room. And if we could start with you, Representative. And congratulations. It's an incredible story. Thank you.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you, Mr. Vice President. It's such an honor to be here, and it's such an honor to be here amongst all of you survivors.
I just can't say how wonderful it is to see your face. And thank you for everything that you have done.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: I did not know that saying "thank you" had a political line. I didn't know that.
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: I thought just saying "thank you" meant "thank you." And I do. I sincerely appreciate that, because had you not brought this to the forefront of — the HQ — of being able to put this out here, I wouldn't be here today to even have this conversation with you and to be able to talk about the needs of Detroit and talk about the people who really need this. And they need help.
THE PRESIDENT: Right.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: And you're here to address that. And I sincerely appreciate that from the both of you, from the bottom of my heart, and from the people of my city.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you were so incredible, as a representative, both in terms of how you got better and what you went through. And your husband sounds like a great gentleman. He went down there and he took care of things, right?
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: Yes, he did.
MR. WHITSETT: Yes, I did. Yes, I did.
THE PRESIDENT: That means he loves you. Because some husbands would say, "Egh, let's not bother." (Laughter.)
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: Yeah. Got the great insurance policy. (Laughs.)
THE PRESIDENT: He will do whatever he has to do, right?
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: Yes, he did.
THE PRESIDENT: So that's — and that was late in the evening you did that, right?
MR. WHITSETT: Late in the evening.
THE PRESIDENT: And we had the drugstores stocked with the medicine, and that's fantastic.
Why don't you — why don't you say what got you to go late in the night to the drugstore?
MR. WHITSETT: What got me to go late at night — we were trying to do everything we could. She's real sick, so we kind of — kind of in a panic. And she's making phone calls. And once we got the doctor to put in the script —
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: Dr. Arsiwala.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I see.
MR. WHITSETT: That's when we — I went to get it around 10 o'clock.
THE PRESIDENT: The doctor did a good job?
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: Dr. Arsiwala is amazing. He is a world-renowned doctor in the state of Michigan.
THE PRESIDENT: Was he a doctor from a hospital or a local doctor? Or —
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: He's a doctor — a local doctor. But he is —
THE PRESIDENT: Great.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: — in charge of the AMA in Michigan. And he has nine urgent care clinics, and he has been on Fox with me as well.
THE PRESIDENT: That's fantastic.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: But Dr. Arsiwala is amazing.
THE PRESIDENT: That's fantastic.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: And he has taken care of my family as well. And I've lost several family members to COVID —
THE PRESIDENT: No kidding.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: — all in one household. My cousin, Cheryl Fowler, was in ICU. She lost her husband. He was turned away from numerous hospital, as was she, over four times. And within six hours, she lost her father-in-law, who was turned away numerous times. Her whole family had to be tested, which are seven family members.
THE PRESIDENT: Right.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: And of those seven family members, she's had three of those test positive, and that is her children that have tested positive.
THE PRESIDENT: How are they doing? How are they doing?
Q Thanks to Dr. Arsiwala and what you have done, they're doing great. But it can't be just —
THE PRESIDENT: So they took the hydroxy then?
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: Yes, they did. But it can't be just based on my name —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Right.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: — and your name.
THE PRESIDENT: Right. That's right.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: It needs to be something that's readily available to everyone in the city of Detroit.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I hear that the governor has gone all out for it, from being totally opposed to it. Now she's all out for it. So that's what I'm hearing. So that's a good thing. I think it's a good thing.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: It's a great thing.
THE PRESIDENT: So you might have said, when you started that walk or run, "What the hell do I have to lose?" Right?
MR. WHITSETT: Yeah.
THE PRESIDENT: You know my expression, "What do I have to lose?"
MR. WHITSETT: I thought about that — what you said. Yeah.
THE PRESIDENT: Because she was in bad shape. And I understand.
Congratulations.
MR. WHITSETT: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: It's an incredible story.
MR. WHITSETT: Thank you. Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: And I like Democrats. I especially like this Democrat, though, for just using her beautiful — you have a beautiful presence. And you're a beautiful couple. And thank you for coming.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: Thank you. Thank you for having us.
THE PRESIDENT: I have a feeling she's going to go very much up. She's a good representative right now, but I have a feeling, politically — do you have any further political ambitions, do you think?
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: I actually did not even aspire to be a state representative, to be perfectly honest. So —
THE PRESIDENT: I don't know, I may have to cross party lines. (Laughter.) I may have to work with her and cross party lines. Thank you very much.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: Thank you, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: A great honor to have you.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: Thank you. It's an honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you both.
Please, tell us your story.
MR. GOLDMAN: My story is, we were on the Diamond Princess, so ground zero. And I didn't get the virus there, although I tested positive there; didn't learn about it until later. We were flown back, thanks to you. We were flown back by the State Department to first —
THE PRESIDENT: That was a bad one. Nobody would take the Diamond Princess.
MR. GOLDMAN: Yeah.
THE PRESIDENT: No other country would take it. Nobody wanted it. It was like — you know, they called it a "ghost ship." Not good. So we took it.
MR. GOLDMAN: We were stuck there. It was like we were on a floating petri dish —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
MR. GOLDMAN: — and we were watching bodies get off daily, off into ambulances, taken out one by one. A total 750 of us over time were taken out. We were more than double the amount of outbreaks, if you added everyone in the world at the time, other than China — and China wasn't giving us any information. If you added all that up, we doubled the amount of people who had the virus.
THE PRESIDENT: How many people died, ultimately, on the ship?
MR. GOLDMAN: The ship was — 11 people have died from the Diamond Princess.
THE PRESIDENT: Eleven people. Incredible.
MR. GOLDMAN: And so, on the plane ride back, on the 747 military plane, I woke up with a high fever — over 103. They put me in a quarantine area next to — with about eight other people. We landed in Sacramento, at Travis Air Force Base. And then they saw me and saw I had a condition — a precondition of Guillain-Barré syndrome, 67 years old —
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, you did have a precondition.
MR. GOLDMAN: I had a precondition.
THE PRESIDENT: And that's a big one.
MR. GOLDMAN: So they flew me. They had three of us in quarantine. And my wife and two others, who never — who didn't have the virus — and my wife never got the virus. She should be the one studied right now. I was flown to —
THE PRESIDENT: So you were together? No six-foot thing, no nothing? You were together and you didn't catch it? Wow.
MRS. GOLDMAN: They just started taking, yesterday — Providence Health and Services, on the West Coast, just started to do a study.
THE PRESIDENT: A study on you?
MRS. GOLDMAN: Both. Well, they're using —
MR. GOLDMAN: Both of us.
THE PRESIDENT: Who needs him? We don't need him. We need you. (Laughter.)
MRS. GOLDMAN: They do. They're hoping to create a vaccination.
THE PRESIDENT: That's incredible. You think maybe you had it before and there's an immunity, without knowing it?
MRS. GOLDMAN: I don't think so. But we'll find out.
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. So you didn't see it at all. Wow, that's fantastic.
MR. GOLDMAN: I don't think she had a —
THE PRESIDENT: You know what they call that? A strong woman. Right?
MR. GOLDMAN: Oh, believe me, I know that.
THE PRESIDENT: No, it's amazing, to be together like that —
MR. GOLDMAN: Yeah.
THE PRESIDENT: — and to not catch it.
MR. GOLDMAN: Yeah. Not only that. We had two friends — so we were going back and forth in each of our cabins. They got exposed. They got the virus. We were stuck on —
THE PRESIDENT: How did they do? How did they do?
MR. GOLDMAN: They did great. They came out great. We were stuck on a bus for six and a half hours with people with the virus on the plane. People had the virus — she sat next to a husband of a couple who got married on the Diamond Princess. They were in their forties. And the wife was next to me in the special quarantined area on the plane, and the husband was next to her, coughing away when we —
THE PRESIDENT: How did you feel? Did you feel comfortable? (Laughter.)
MRS. GOLDMAN: I put a blanket over my head.
THE PRESIDENT: What did you do? Did you cover your head or something?
MRS. GOLDMAN: Well, I put a blanket over my head because we were so cold. And the smell from the toilets — the two portable toilets on the plane — was so bad.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh. And that was on a plane?
MRS. GOLDMAN: That was on the cargo planes that you guys had sent for us.
THE PRESIDENT: The cargo. And then you had the bus.
MRS. GOLDMAN: Well, the bus was first, so that was a very long process getting off the bus.
THE PRESIDENT: So that no pleasure either.
MR. GOLDMAN: No.
THE PRESIDENT: And these people had it —
MRS. GOLDMAN: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: — a lot of these people.
MR. GOLDMAN: Right.
THE PRESIDENT: That's amazing (inaudible).
MRS. GOLDMAN: And if they didn't — like, our friend from St. George who did not have it on the boat, but tested four days later at Fort Travis. So he either got it on the plane or on the bus.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you think it brought — you two, you two — do you think it brought you together, closer? Or —
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: Absolutely.
MR. WHITSETT: Yeah. Absolutely.
THE PRESIDENT: You could see — you could see it, you know?
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: Absolutely.
THE PRESIDENT: It brings you together. Does that make any sense?
MR. GOLDMAN: Absolutely.
MRS. GOLDMAN: We were separated for five weeks.
MR. GOLDMAN: In Omaha. That's right. Yeah, five weeks. Because I was in the biocontainment area in Omaha, and then to a lower level of containment.
THE PRESIDENT: And you were very sick at one point, right?
MR. GOLDMAN: Just — just the first day on the plane. I had the 103 fever. By the time I got to Omaha, I was okay. I still had symptoms. I still had a cough that stayed with me for about two and a half weeks. I had shortness of breath for about four or five days.
THE PRESIDENT: How bad was that shortness of breath? Was it — was it noticeable?
MR. GOLDMAN: It was not noticeable when I was lying in bed. But if I got up and walked around the room, if I walked around the room and talked on the phone at the same time, trying to multi-task, that was impossible to do.
THE PRESIDENT: Really?
How about you? You had shortness of breath too, I read. Right?
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: So how bad was that? The shortness.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: The shortenings of — the shortening of breath is what really got me afraid because I do have Lyme disease. And thank you for always mentioning about Lyme disease.
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Yeah. No, Lyme disease is a big deal.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: Thank you for always bringing that to the forefront.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you think you still have Lyme disease?
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: I do. I have chronic Lyme disease because I was never treated in time.
THE PRESIDENT: Can that be — can you get rid of it?
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: I'm hoping that we'll talk about that.
THE PRESIDENT: Lyme disease is a thing that people don't talk about. It is a brutal —
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: It is brutal.
THE PRESIDENT: And if you have a certain type of blood, you have no chance.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: It's brutal. It's brutal. And then, on top of having COVID-19 with it, it is a nightmare.
THE PRESIDENT: Incredible.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: But the breathing is what scared me the most. And it came — I went from 0 to 100. It was from getting tested that day on March 31st to trying to do a few things around the house, to just all of the sudden my breathing became labored.
THE PRESIDENT: So you actually had a hard time breathing.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: Oh, yeah. I was afraid — I was afraid for my life. And until anyone has been in that person's shoes, until you have walked that walk, and sitting there knowing that the hospitals near you are full — the very two hospitals that are near you, that you have access to, that you cannot get into.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you think, in retrospect, you were better staying home?
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: I was better.
THE PRESIDENT: You know, because those hospitals are — they can be crowded.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: And I — and I didn't know what my status was. So, can you imagine? You don't know what your status is, and if you could get into a hospital — and, in a way, I was filling up with fluid. My lungs — my breathing being labored. I felt, if I didn't get that medication — it was either the medication or die.
THE PRESIDENT: So you thought you were going to die.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: I honestly felt I was going to die. And like I tell people, I'm telling my story. I'm telling my truth. I'm not telling anyone else's story. I'm not telling anyone else what to do. I'm telling my story and my truth, and this is how I feel and these are my words.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I'm not going to speak for her, but I don't see her voting for Sleepy Joe Biden. (Laughter.) I don't — I'm not going to ask her that question. But if she votes for Sleepy Joe, I'd be surprised, okay?
Anyway, incredible story.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: Thank you, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: It's such a great story. Thank you. But your wife —
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: You're unbelievable.
THE PRESIDENT: We're going to keep your wife around, right? We'll keep her around and figure out what's —
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: She is unbelievable.
THE PRESIDENT: — what's in the veins, right?
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHITSETT: She is unbelievable.
THE PRESIDENT: That's fantastic. Great. Great stories. Thank you both very much.
Please, go ahead.
