President Donald Trump said in March that he did not view the coronavirus pandemic as a once-in-a-lifetime leadership challenge, even as the country was going through historic shutdowns to combat the spread, according to a new interview shared by veteran journalist Bob. Woodward.
“Was there a time in all of this, the last two months, where you said to yourself, you know, are you waking up or whatever you’re doing and you say, ‘Ah, this is your leadership test? life?? ‘”Woodward asked Trump on March 19, in a new clip aired on CNN’s“ Anderson Cooper 360 ”Tuesday night.
“No,” Trump replied.
Woodward asked, “No?”
“I think it could be, but I don’t think so,” Trump said. “All I want to do is figure it out. There are a lot of people who told me that. They said, now you’re a president in times of war.”
The comments came more than seven weeks after Trump was warned by his national security adviser that the virus would be the “greatest threat to national security” of his presidency and after multiple interviews in which Trump had told him. Woodward his concerns about Covid-19.
In the March 19 interview, 265 deaths had been reported in the United States from the virus. To date, more than 195,000 Americans have died and more than 6.6 million have contracted Covid-19, and the disease has become the largest public health catastrophe in more than 100 years.
Woodward learned in early May of a top-secret intelligence briefing on Jan.28 during which national security adviser Robert O’Brien told Trump that the coronavirus would be “the greatest threat to national security” of his presidency. . O’Brien’s aide, Matthew Pottinger, warned Trump about the asymptomatic and person-to-person spread of the virus.
Woodward on Tuesday referenced how Trump barely mentioned the pandemic during his State of the Union address on February 4.
“This is the moment when a leader would say, ‘I got a warning: trouble is coming. There are things we can do,'” Woodward said. “But then he goes on and says, ‘Oh, I didn’t mean to tell the truth because it would make people panic. That’s not what people in this country do when they are told the truth.”
Woodward’s in-depth interviews with Trump for his new book, “Rage,” have revealed the president’s views on several hot topics, namely his handling of the national response to the coronavirus, which in some cases contradicted his message to the public at that time. moment. .
In the course of their conversations, Trump admitted to Woodward that he had learned weeks before the first confirmed death from coronavirus in the US that the virus was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and “more deadly even than his strenuous flu. “, and that he had played it repeatedly. down publicly.
“This is deadly,” Trump told Woodward on February 7.
However, a few weeks later, Trump falsely claimed at a February 26 news conference that death rates are higher from the flu than from the coronavirus.
The first known death in the US from Covid-19 was reported on February 29 in Washington state, nearly six weeks after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first. case in the US It would later be discovered that a death on February 6 was due to Covid-19.
In March, Trump admitted that he was downplaying the virus. He also told Woodward on March 19 that he had recently learned that “it’s not just older people” that are susceptible. Yet Trump repeatedly claimed that it was predominantly the elderly who had to worry.
Woodward also addressed Trump’s comments earlier Tuesday, denying that he has downplayed the virus and stating that he actually “played more in terms of action.”
“We live in an Orwellian world, and this is not just about a political or geopolitical issue,” Woodward said. “It’s about the lives of the people in this country, and they told you that you knew.”
CNN reported last week that after 18 interviews that formed a key component of the book, the men had a 19th conversation on August 14, by which time more than 168,000 Americans had died, with more than 1,300 deaths that day alone.
When Woodward told Trump that the election will be a contest between him, former Vice President Joe Biden “and the virus,” Trump insisted, “nothing more could have been done.”
He added: “I acted early.”
Woodward also spoke about how he had arrived at his book’s final statement that “Trump is the wrong man for the job.”
He said he had asked several advisers, “Is this pompous or is it true?”
“And everyone’s response was, ‘It’s true … The whole Trump thing is running from the truth. You can’t run from the truth here because you’ve seen it,'” he added.
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