Trump Admits He Knew the Threat of Covid-19 in February and Downplayed the Virus
President Donald Trump is facing public criticism after private comments about acknowledging the threat of coronavirus in February but deciding to downplay the threat to reporter Bob Woodward was released.
On Feb. 7th, President Trump told Woodward through a private phone interview that the coronavirus is an airborne disease.
“You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” Trump said, according to Woodward’s tapes of the interview. “And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flu.”
However, at this time in February, White House officials and the administration told the American public that they did not need to buy masks. Another call on Mar. 19th with Woodward based on Woodward audio clip on the Washington Post website shows that Trump intentionally did nothing about the pandemic to not cause panic to the public.
“I wanted to always play it down,” said Trump. “I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic.”
Trump believed his best move was to prevent public panic, despite warnings from the public health officials that educating the public on the virus would be the best strategy to prevent the spread and have the public adhere to safety guidelines. Based on his phone interviews with Trump, Woodward wrote his book, Rage, where he details his interviews from Dec. 2019 to Jul. 2020 and other interviews with unnamed aides. The book also claims that Trump was warned of the dire effects of the virus as early as January this year.
Democrats including the presidential nominee, Joe Biden have denounced Trump’s lack of leadership toward the pandemic and lying to the public for his own purpose, leading the United States to have the highest cases of Covid-19 in the world. On Wednesday, Biden delivered a speech in front of the United Auto Workers training facility in Warren, Mich. where he denounced the president.
“He knew and purposely played it down,” Biden said. “Worse, he lied to the American people. He knowingly and willingly lied about the threat it posed to the country for months.”
Trump rejected criticism on Wednesday and has continued to protest that his lack of action toward the pandemic helped to create a sense of security to prevent a panic.