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But now “Rage,” the new book by Watergate star journalist Bob Woodward, is once again bringing Trump into great anguish, probably weeks before the November 3 presidential election. According to Woodward, the president knew in early February how dangerous the virus is, which is transmitted through the air and causes a higher death rate than the flu.
During this time, Trump publicly referred to the low number of cases in the United States and repeatedly claimed that the virus would go away on its own. CNN released excerpts from Trump’s taped interviews that Woodward had conducted for the next book. Trump can be heard saying on March 19, “I always wanted to downplay it. I still like to downplay it because I don’t want to panic.”
In a conversation on February 7, according to the recordings, Trump said, “This is deadly.” People don’t have to touch contact surfaces to get infected: “You just breathe air and that’s how it spreads.”
In the United States, about 190,000 people died after contracting the coronavirus, in some cases because they did not take expert warnings and precautionary measures such as masks seriously.
A reaction from Trump’s camp immediately followed: “The president has never lied to the American public about Covid,” said his spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany. But she made sure the population stayed calm.
