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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – US President Donald Trump acknowledged a journalist at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic who downplayed the danger of the health crisis despite having evidence to the contrary, according to a new book.
“I always wanted to downplay it,” Trump told author Bob Woodward on March 19, days after he declared a national emergency. “I still like to downplay it, because I don’t want to create panic.”
CNN on Wednesday aired Woodward’s interviews with Trump for his new book “Rage.” The book, which will go on sale next Tuesday, just weeks before the November 3 presidential election, comes amid criticism of Trump’s efforts to combat COVID-19.
The Republican president, attacked by his Democratic rival Joe Biden for the slow response of the United States government to the coronavirus, played down the crisis for months as it took hold and spread across the country.
In the March 19 conversation, Trump told Woodward that some “alarming facts” had emerged that showed the reach of people at risk: “It’s not just about old people, old people. Also young, many young people.”
Trump on Wednesday defended his handling of the virus, which has killed more than 190,000 people in the United States.
“The fact is, I’m a cheerleader for this country. I love our country and I don’t want people to freak out,” Trump said at the White House. “We have done well from any point of view.”
According to interviews, reported by CNN and The Washington Post, Trump knew the virus was dangerous in early February.
“It’s on the air,” Trump said in a recording of a Feb. 7 interview with Woodward. “That is always more difficult than touch. You don’t have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it happens.”
“And that is very complicated. It is very delicate. It is also more deadly than even her exhausting blush.”
A week after that interview, Trump told a briefing at the White House that the number of coronavirus cases in the US “In a couple of days it will drop almost to zero.”
Woodward, in an interview with the Associated Press, defended himself against critics online who questioned why he kept Trump’s comments to himself for months as the pandemic raged.
“He tells me this and I think, ‘Wow, that’s interesting, but is it true?’ Trump says things that are not understood, right? “The news agency quoted Woodward in a telephone interview.
Some fellow Republicans defended Trump’s response to the coronavirus on Wednesday.
“His actions to shut down the economy were the right actions,” said Senator Lindsey Graham. “And I think the tone during that time spoke for itself.”
Woodward conducted 18 interviews with Trump for the book. Other revelations include Trump’s derogatory comments about US military leaders. He received criticism this week after reports that he had denigrated fallen military personnel and veterans.
In Woodward’s book, an aide to former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis overheard Trump say at a meeting, “My fucking generals are a bunch of fags” because they cared more about alliances than trade deals. Mattis asked the aide to document the comment in an email, the Washington Post reported.
Regarding the Black Lives Matter movement, Woodward asked Trump for his views on the concept of white privilege and whether he felt isolated by that privilege from the plight of African Americans.
“No. You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn’t you? Just listen to it,” Trump responded, according to media reports about the book. “Wow. No, I don’t feel that at all.”
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu, Andrea Shalal, Joseph Ax, Jan Wolfe, Patricia Zengerle, David Morgan, and Alex Alper; Edited by Dan Grebler and Howard Goller)
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