President Donald Trump expressed optimism that there would be a coronavirus vaccine by the conclusion of 2020.  

‘We are very confident that we are going to have a vaccine by the end of the year,’ he said Sunday night.  

Trump made the comment to Fox News Channel hosts Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, who were hosting a virtual town hall Sunday night from the Lincoln Memorial.  

During the two-hour Q&A, where Americans asked Trump questions via video, he was joined by Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for the last 30 minutes. 

Hope Hicks, Trump’s longtime aide who recently rejoined the White House, and new Chief of Staff Mark Meadows were seen at the president’s side during commercial breaks.  The president’s new press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, was also on hand.  

Throughout the town hall, he came back to his claim that the coronavirus vaccine was coming in 2020.  

‘We think we’ll have a vaccine by the end of this year. And we’re pushing very hard. We’re building supply lines now and we don’t even have the final vaccine,’ Trump said. 

He pointed to Johnson & Johnson as one company making a dent. ‘Many companies, I think, are close,’ he told the Fox News Channel hosts. 

Admitting that it didn’t sound like his usual ‘America First’ rhetoric, Trump answered, ‘I don’t care,’ when asked how he would feel if another country developed a successful vaccine first. 

‘I really just want to get a vaccine that works,’ the president said.  

He added that the U.S. was working alongside Australia and also the United Kingdom, and brought up Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who became extremely ill from COVID-19. 

‘He thought it was over, it was vicious,’ Trump said. 

The president said he wasn’t worried about people volunteering for vaccine trials. 

‘No, because they’re volunteers,’ Trump said. ‘They know what they’re getting into,’ he added, calling those who sign up ‘good people.’   

The president said he’d like to see therapeutics, too, that would work to cure patients who have COVID-19. 

‘I would rather have therapeutics, something to make people better, not a cure, at least a therapeutic,’ Trump said.  

Most recently, the Federal Drug Administration authorized the use of the anti-viral drug Remdesivir for COVID-19 cases. 

The president also continue to tout the anti-Malaria drug hydroxychloroquine. 

He pushed back when Baier mentioned some of hydroxychloroquine’s side effects.  ‘They’re bragging about it,’ Trump said of the success doctors in other countries have seen using hydroxychloroquine. 

He then used that moment to attack his political opponents.   

‘Here’s what we’ve been reduced to in this country,’ Trump began. ‘The Democrats, the radical left, whatever you – would rather have people, I’m going to be very nice, I’m not going to say die – would rather see people not get well because they think I’m going to get credit, if hydroxychloroquine works.’

‘I have nothing to do with hydroxychloroquine,’ the president went on, mentioning how some media reports suggested he owned the company that makes the drug. ‘Other then, if it worked, it would be great.’  

Trump also used his time at the Lincoln Memorial to go after the press – and compare the two leaders’ shoddy press coverage, in the president’s view. 

The president was asked by a supporter, who said her family, prayed for him every day, about his ‘manner and presentation.’ 

‘Why do you use descriptive words that could be classified as bullying and why do you not directly answer the questions asked by the press and instead speak of past success and generally ramble?’ she asked, asking him to stop.  

Trump said he had to act this way because nearly 100 per cent of the White House press corps was ‘hostile.’ 

‘Look I am greeted with a hostile press the likes of which no president has ever seen. The closest would be that gentleman right up there,’ the president said, pointing to the massive Lincoln statue. ‘I believe I am treated worse,’ he added. 

The president described the questions asked by reporters in the briefing room as ‘disgraceful.’ 

‘And if I was kind to them, I would be walked off stage,’ he said. 

Trump mentioned how boaters in Florida were out earlier Sunday with all sorts of Trump signs. 

‘We have tremendous support, but the media, they might as well be in the Democrat Party,’ the president said.      

The president, again, showed support for the protesters that have shown up to state capitols, a number of them sporting Trump gear. 

‘And those are meaningful demonstrations,’ Trump pointed out to the Fox News Channel hosts. 

And at the top of the program, he talked about how ‘probably everybody’s scared.’ 

‘I’ve never seen death like this, I’ve never personally experienced anything like this,’ Trump said of COVID-19. 

He pointed out that he had known people who had gotten the flu all of his life. 

‘I was lucky I never had the flu, then I came here, and they wanted to give me a flu show, I said, “I don’t want to a flue shot,’ but they have to give it,’ he said, seemingly of a discussion he had with the White House doctor once he became president. 

‘I’ve known people that had the flu all my life, nobody ever died,’ Trump said. 

While drawing comparisons between the two viruses in the past, Trump did no such thing Sunday night.  

 ‘I’ve lost three friend,’ the president said. ‘One a very good friend, a very successful man, New York guy, employed a lot of people – they were all crying over his death, Staney Chera.’ 

Chera passed away from COVID-19 complications at the age of 78 in mid-April. 

He was a fellow New York real estate investor. 

‘He went to the hospital, he calls me up, he goes, “I tested positive,” I said what are you going to do? “I’m going to the hospital.” I’ll call you tomorrow,’ Trump said, recalling their conversation. 

‘I call the hospital, he’s in a coma,’ Trump said. ‘I know a lot of people who had the flu, they were never in a coma.’ 

Trump called it a ‘horrible thing’ that the country is fighting. 

‘This thing is vicious, it can take you out, it can take you out very strongly,’ the president said.