According to a new book from journalist Bob Woodward, President Donald Trump deliberately lied to the American people about the dangers of the Coronavirus. Now, almost 200,000 Americans have died, and Trump frequently seems most concerned with congratulating himself for a supposed job well done in responding to the crisis. As a new report from The Washington Post puts it, summarizing the contents of Woodward’s book, “Trump admitted to Woodward on March 19 that he deliberately minimized the danger” of the virus. Woodward recorded this conversation, and he has released the tape of the exchange in question.
Inarguably, the most important line from the WaPo report: "Trump admitted to Bob Woodward on March 19 that he deliberately minimized the danger of the coronavirus. 'I wanted to always play it down,' the president said."
And that quote is on tape.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 9, 2020
Trump told Woodward:
‘Now it’s turning out it’s not just old people… but just today, and yesterday, some startling facts came out — it’s not just old, older: young people too, plenty of young people… to be honest with you, I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.’
At a Wednesday press conference, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany claimed that the president was merely expressing “calm.” That’s a baselessly altruistic excuse for a deliberate lie. Watch a video featuring an audio clip from the conversation below:
This is President Trump on tape, on February 7, saying that the coronavirus is "more deadly than your – you know, your, even your strenuous flus." But he minimized the threat in public. On February 26, he told the public "I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away." pic.twitter.com/TOHTpqYtvZ
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 9, 2020
Trump sounds like he wanted to treat the Coronavirus as some kind of public relations issue. The pandemic was nothing of the sort, and now, large numbers of Americans have died from an illness that could have been avoided if Trump had simply taken the time to seriously handle the issues instead of obsessing over how things might look in the press and/or to his followers.
The White House press secretary: “The president never down played the virus.” Fact check: False. Trump told Woodward on tape: “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic."
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) September 9, 2020
In an earlier conversation between Trump and Woodward on February 7, Trump admitted:
‘You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flu. This is deadly stuff.’
And yet, as the Post notes, around “that time, Trump was telling the nation that the virus was no worse than a seasonal flu, predicting it would soon disappear, and insisting that the U.S. government had it totally under control.” Those claims from the president were all false. If he’d taken a simple step like encouraging nationwide mask-wearing in February or March, large swathes of the pandemic might have been avoided. Instead, he decided to politicize the situation and put American lives on the line in the process.
Headline in Politico Playbook: TRUMP KNOWINGLY MISLED AMERICA ABOUT COVID
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 9, 2020