- President Trump and “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace discussed COVID-19 death rates in the United States, prompting Trump to accuse Wallace of being “fake news.”
- In the interview, Trump falsely claimed that the United States has “one of the lowest death rates in the world” of all countries and a “low death rate # 1”.
- Wallace, however, cited COVID-19 mortality data from Johns Hopkins University to show that of the 20 countries most affected by COVID-19, the US ranks seventh with a 3.8% death rate. .
- “I hope they show the stage because this is what the fake news is all about,” Trump said, to which Wallace replied, “I don’t think it’s fake news.”
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President Donald Trump and “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace discussed COVID-19 death rates in the United States, prompting Trump to accuse Wallace of being “fake news.”
In the interview, which aired Sunday morning, Wallace rejected Trump’s claims that the United States has some of the lowest COVID-19 death rates in the world.
Trump regretted why more attention was not being paid to the high case levels and death rates of COVID-19 in Mexico, and claimed, without evidence, that portions of walls and fences along the U.S.-Mexico border were helping to stop the spread of COVID-19.
“Sir, we have the seventh highest death rate in the world. Our death rate is higher than Brazil, it is higher than Russia, and the European Union has us on a travel ban,” Wallace said, citing mortality data. from Johns Hopkins University. .
“Yes. I think what we will do, well, we also have them under a travel ban, Chris. I closed them. If you remember, I was the one who did the European Union very early. When you talk about death rates, I think we … have one of the lowest death rates in the world, “Trump falsely claimed in the interview.
“Not true sir,” replied Wallace. “We had 900 deaths in a single day this week, you can see it.”
Trump then signaled to White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany to bring him a chart that allegedly showed the United States has a “low # 1 death rate.”
“I hope they show the stage because this is what fake news is all about,” Trump said.
“I don’t think it’s fake news,” replied Wallace.
“Yes, you are,” Trump replied. “You said we have the worst death rate in the world.” Wallace did not say that the United States had the highest death rate, but that the country had the seventh highest rate.
—Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) July 19, 2020
As Wallace explained, he cited COVID-19 mortality data from Johns Hopkins University showing that of the 20 countries “currently most affected by COVID-19 worldwide,” the United States ranks seventh where Johns Hopkins called the observed case-fatality with a mortality rate of 3.8%. The United States has lower mortality than countries like the United Kingdom and Mexico, but higher rates than Peru, Brazil, and Russia.
In terms of deaths per 100,000 people, the United States ranks third behind the United Kingdom and Chile with 42.8 deaths per 100,000.
However, the table presented by the White House used data from the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention that excluded countries with lower death rates, such as Russia, to make it appear that the United States has one of the death rates lowest in the world. .
