Covid 19 coronavirus: Donald Trump says ‘a lot of people’ think masks ‘are not good’

Donald Trump faced unusual interrogation from ordinary American voters today while participating in a televised city hall forum.

The 90-minute event, broadcast on ABC News, gave undecided voters the opportunity to ask questions of the President of the United States in person.

Those questions covered a variety of topics, but the one that kept emerging was the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“I voted for you in 2016. I am conservative, pro-life and diabetic,” said the first voter to speak, Paul Tubiana.

“I had to dodge people who don’t care about social distancing and wearing face masks. I thought you were doing a good job responding to the pandemic until about May 1. Then you took your foot off the gas.

“Why did you throw vulnerable people like me under the bus?”

“Well, we really didn’t, Paul,” Trump responded.

He noted that the United States was only “three or four weeks” away from having a working vaccine.

“We are starting to get very good grades. If you look at what we have done compared to other countries with the excessive mortality rate, we have done very, very well,” he continued.

“I feel like we’ve done a tremendous job, actually. It’s something that – I don’t feel like it was recognized as it should.

“But when you look at our tests, when you look at our swabs, when you look at our ventilators, when you look at what we’ve done with hospitals. And we’ve made a lot of governors look really good.

“We are very proud of the work we have done and we have saved many lives. A large number of lives.”

The president repeated his claim that America’s excess death rate was “among the best in the world.”

According to Johns Hopkins University, the US has the 11th worst death rate per capita in the world. Its case fatality rate, the proportion of confirmed infections leading to death, is far more tolerable at just 51 in the world.

The gross death toll in the United States, around 200,000, is the highest in the world.

“We have 4 percent of the world’s population, more than 20 percent of the cases, more than 20 percent of the deaths,” said moderator George Stephanopoulos.

“Well, we have 20 percent of cases due to the fact that we do a lot more testing. If we didn’t do testing, you wouldn’t have cases,” Trump argued.

He also noted that the United States is “a very large country” by world standards.

Stephanopoulos mentioned one of the revelations in Watergate reporter Bob Woodward’s new book, published today.

Woodward recorded 18 interviews with the president. In one of them, in March, Trump said he had “downplayed” the threat of the virus in public because he did not want to create “panic.”

“Throughout January and February, you played down, by your own admission, the severity of the crisis. You didn’t want to scare people,” Stephanopoulos said.

“Without minimizing it,” Trump intervened.

“Not minding it. I don’t want to panic our nation. I’m a cheerleader for this nation. I’m the one who shut down our country. I shut it down long before any of the pundits thought I should. And it saved hundreds of thousands of lives “.

Trump has often claimed that each and every one of his advisers, including infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, told him not to impose a partial travel ban on people coming from China at the end of January.

In his book, Woodward reports that the move was recommended by at least five of the president’s advisers: Fauci, Health Secretary Alex Azar, CDC Director Robert Redfield, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien and the O’Brien’s deputy, Matthew Pottinger.

Another one of the swing voters, Julie Bart, asked Trump why he doesn’t support a national mandate that requires people to wear masks and why the president himself doesn’t wear one more often.

“Well, I use them when I have to, when I’m in hospitals and other places,” Trump said.

“But I’ll say this. They said at the Democratic convention that they were going to fulfill a national mandate. They never did. Because they’ve checked it and they didn’t.

“A good question is, you ask Joe Biden. They said they are going to do a national mandate on masks. They didn’t. He never did.”

He did not explain how he expected Biden to impose such a mandate before becoming president in January (should he win the election). The Democratic candidate does not currently hold any office.

“By the way, a lot of people don’t want to wear masks,” Trump continued.

“There are many people who think that masks are not good.”

“Who are these people?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“I’ll tell you who those people are. Waiters,” said the president.

“They come and serve you, and they have a mask. And I saw it the other day, where they were serving me. And they are playing with her mask.

“I don’t blame them. I’m just saying what happens. They’re playing with a mask, so the mask’s over and they’re touching it. And then they’re touching the plate. That can’t be good. There are a lot of people.”

Trump pointed out, correctly, that Fauci and other health experts initially told Americans they did not need to wear masks.

Stephanopoulos went back to the American death toll and asked Trump if, with the benefit of hindsight, he thought his administration should have done something different.

“I think we could have had two million deaths if we had not closed the country,” replied the president.

“So you don’t regret anything?” the host pressed.

“No, I think we did a great job,” Trump said.

He went on to repeat his claim that the virus will “go away” at some point.

“It’s going to disappear. It’s going to disappear. I’m still saying, it’s going to disappear George.

“We’re going back, we’re not going to have studios like this, where you have all this empty space.

“We’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. And it’s going to go away, and it will probably go away a lot faster now, because of the vaccine. It would go away without the vaccine, George.”

“Would he go without the vaccine?” Stephanopoulos intervened.

“Sure, over a period of time. Sure, over time it goes away. And you will develop as a herd mentality. It will develop as a herd, and that will happen. All of that will happen,” Trump said.

“But with a vaccine it will go away very quickly. But I really think we are just around the corner. And I strongly believe that.”