Recordings Show Trump Admitted Downplaying Coronavirus [Video]

• President Donald Trump reportedly admitted to publicly downplaying the coronavirus threat to avoid panic, according to recordings obtained by several media outlets.
• The recordings were of several interviews Bob Woodward conducted with Trump between December and July.
• In the interviews, Trump acknowledged that he knew of the severity of the virus, but that he “wanted to always play it down” and “still like playing it down” so as to avoid causing any panic.

Several media outlets have released recordings of President Donald Trump admitting to publicly downplaying the coronavirus threat despite his advisors’ warnings of the impending crisis.

The president reportedly made the statements in a series of interviews Bob Woodward conducted with Trump between December and July.

In one recording obtained by CNN, Trump can be heard telling Woodward in mid-March, “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.” 

Woodward claimed that national security advisor Robert O’Brien had warned Trump in late January that the coronavirus “will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency,” The Washington Post reported.

In a Feb. 7 phone call with Woodward, Trump reportedly acknowledged that the virus was “more deadly than even your strenuous flu.”

But the president continued to publicly state that the disease would simply “go away” or “disappear” in the months that followed.

On Feb. 28, Trump declared, “One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”

Less than three weeks later, Trump admitted to Woodward in the March 19 interview that he had been downplaying the coronavirus threat to avoid causing any panic.

The deadly virus has since infected more than 6.32 million and killed at least 189,600 in the U.S. — more than any other country in the world — according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany defended the president at a briefing on Wednesday.

Despite the recordings, McEnany declared that the president “never downplayed the virus.” She said that Trump was only “expressing calm” and “embodied the American spirit” of unity amid the crisis. “He has always taken it seriously,” she continued.

Woodward will be detailing the 18 interviews he conducted with Trump in his second book on Trump’s presidency, entitled “Rage,” which is set to be released on Sept. 15.

Woodward reportedly gathered additional information from “deep background” interviews with unnamed sources, just like he had for his previous tell-all book on Trump’s administration, “Fear.”

Source: CNBC