“I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic,” Trump said on the TV show Hannity on Wednesday.
What We Know:
- In his new book, Rage, out September 15th, a lauded journalist named Bob Woodward shares a series of interviews that he had with President Trump from December 2019 to July 2020. In said interviews, on February 7th, President Trump admitted that he knew the virus was airborne and “more deadly than even your strenuous flus”. At the time he believed it was 5 times as deadly as the common flu, even as he tried to quiet concerns from the public about the virus. “I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told Woodward on March 19th.
- Rage also shares damning assessments of President Trump’s tenure from national security officials including former Defense Secretary James Mattis, former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Mattis alone referred to Trump as “dangerous” and “unfit” to serve the office of the presidency and the American people.
- President Trump has defended his statements on Twitter, to reporters, on Fox News, and in a White House Press Conference. When speaking with Sean Hannity on Wednesday, Trump said he didn’t want to cause further panic about the virus.
“I’m a cheerleader for this country, and I don’t want to see panic. We would have lost 2 million-2.5 million lives instead of the number we’re talking about—anything above one is no good, it’s no good, we can’t have it, it was China’s fault. They sent this to us, and it’s no good.”
- President Trump went on to say that other Democratic leaders like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi were ‘way way late’ in recognizing the dangers of the virus. Though both leaders waited to acknowledge the danger of the virus, it’s unclear whether they had access to the same information as President Trump.
- Trump also clarified his hope that states will open up quickly. He listed North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Michigan as states who “don’t know what they’re doing, frankly,” because they are still experiencing shutdowns.
- The President took his the defense to Twitter.
Bob Woodward had my quotes for many months. If he thought they were so bad or dangerous, why didn’t he immediately report them in an effort to save lives? Didn’t he have an obligation to do so? No, because he knew they were good and proper answers. Calm, no panic!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 10, 2020
- Former Vice President Joe Biden reacted to the comments by saying the President’s actions were “disgusting” and a “life and death betrayal of the American people”. Mr. Biden focused on the numbers noting that experts believe if Trump had changed course just one week sooner 36,000 lives would have been saved and going on to say, “If he acted two weeks sooner, back in March, 54,000 lives would have been spared in March and April alone.”
- How are conservative thinkers reacting to the news? Greg Gutfield of Fox News shared his feelings on the matter with Fox and Friends saying that this is a democratic tactic to incite panic, “Trump told Woodward that information because to him, it was an obvious truth—that leaders know stuff they keep from the public they have to manage, because that’s their role as a leader so you don’t make it worse…There is the comfortable and well-known phrase, ‘Keep calm and carry on.’ It’s well-known for a reason. Experts I talk to, every time I talk to them, said the panic can be worse than the pandemonium.”
- The President is facing criticism from all sides for not embracing the reality of the virus earlier than he did, as well as for saying it was part of a Democratic hoax at a campaign rally in South Carolina in February of this year. He has also faced accusations of racism for blaming the virus on China and calling it the “Chinese virus”.
Coronavirus has taken the lives of over 191,000 Americans so far and rages on.
