{"articles":[{"reaction_config":[{"icon":"excited","color":"#EE4950","stance":"excited"},{"icon":"happy","color":"#EDB723","stance":"happy"},{"icon":"apathetic","color":"#3AB093","stance":"apathetic"},{"icon":"sad","color":"#5ACDED","stance":"sad"},{"icon":"angry","color":"#624960","stance":"angry"}],"id":46096,"title":"Trump Admits He Planned to ‘Play Down’ Coronavirus He Confessed Was ‘More Deadly’ Than the Flu","html_content":"\n

by Causes | 9.9.20

What's the story?

President Donald Trump told veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward on March 19th that he publicly minimized the danger of the coronavirus:

“I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because i don’t want to create a panic.”

Audio of the exchange can be found here.

Trump acknowledged to Woodward in an interview dated February 7 that the virus “goes through air\" and is “more deadly than even your strenuous flus.\"
The above remarks stand in contrast with public comments Trump made at the time. Three days after the above interview, for instance, Trump said:

\"Looks like, by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. I hope that's true.\"

Trump also told Woodward in March of “startling facts” about the COVID-19 virus, including that it's “not just old people\" catching it—even though the president claimed as recently as August that young people are “immune” to the virus.
Trump defended his remarks at a White House event naming potential future Supreme Court nominees:

\"The fact is, I'm a cheerleader for this country. I love our country. And I don't want people to be frightened. I don't want to create panic, as you say. And, certainly, I'm not going to drive this country or the world into a frenzy. We want to show confidence. We want to show strength. We want to show strength as a nation.\"

—Josh Herman

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