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President Donald Trump admits that he tried to downplay the severity of the Covid-19 threat at the start of the pandemic in audio recordings released Wednesday of interviews with veteran American journalist Bob Woodward.
“I’ve always wanted to downplay it,” Trump said in an interview with Woodward on March 19, according to a CNN preview of the book “Rage,” due out Sept. 15.
“I still like to downplay it, because I don’t want to create a panic,” he said in the conversation with Woodward, which was recorded.
In another taped interview on February 7, he told Woodward that the virus “runs through the air,” despite repeatedly poking fun at people wearing masks in the weeks and months that follow. It was until July before he was seen publicly wearing a mask.
Coming eight weeks before the November 3 presidential election, the revelations add new pressure on Trump. Opinion polls show that around two-thirds of Americans disapprove of his handling of the virus, and he has often been accused of downplaying the crisis to try to increase his chances of re-election.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump denounced the book as “another successful political work” and said that if he had downplayed Covid-19 it was to avoid a “frenzy.”
“I don’t want people to freak out,” he said.
“I am not going to drive this country or the world into a frenzy,” he said. “We have to show leadership and the last thing you want to do is create panic.”
He criticized Woodward for doing “successful work with everyone” and said he “probably, almost definitely won’t read it because I don’t have time to read it.”
However, “Rage” will give new ammunition to Democrats who argue that Trump did not prepare Americans for the severity of the coronavirus outbreak or lead them to an adequate response.
In interviews with Woodward, Trump made it clear that he had understood all along that the virus was “a deadly thing,” far more dangerous than the common flu.
In public, however, Trump repeatedly told Americans during the first weeks in early 2020 that the virus was not dangerous and would “go away” on its own.
“I knew how deadly it was,” said Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden while campaigning in Michigan. “He lied to the American people. He consciously and willingly lied about the threat he posed to the country for months.”
“It was a life or death betrayal of the American people,” added Biden.
“It’s disgusting,” Biden later told CNN. “Think about it. Think about what she didn’t do.” Biden criticized Trump’s behavior as “almost criminal.”
But there was support for Trump from highly respected infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, who has consistently told the public that the coronavirus requires a tough response, even as the president seemed to be saying something different.
“I don’t remember anything that was a huge distortion in the things that I told you about,” he told Fox News.
Trump was eager to keep the country from “falling and going,” Fauci said.
The president has repeatedly insisted that he has successfully handled the Covid-19 pandemic, which is on track to claim 200,000 lives in the country.
It marks early decisions to ban travel from China, where the virus first appeared, and from access points in Europe.
Yet at the very least, Trump delivered mixed messages at a time when the country was seeking guidance.
He went from declaring himself the equivalent of a wartime president to contradicting government scientists and calling for an early reopening of the economy.
In February, long after advisers briefed him on the dangers posed by the new coronavirus, he said the virus could disappear in April “in the heat.”
In March, he described the government’s “tremendous control” over the situation, saying: “It will go away. Just keep calm.”
That same month, Trump compared the coronavirus to the common flu, which he noted that kills “between 27,000 and 70,000 per year”, but “nothing closes, life and the economy continue.”
In late March, a grim-faced president announced that a death toll of 100,000 was looming. Shortly before, he had been talking about the idea of people ending social distancing in time for Easter in mid-April.
At first, he also frequently praised the Chinese government’s response, then went on to fiercely blame Beijing for the global health crisis.
Should Woodward have released his information earlier and not withheld it until the publication of his book in September?
“This question, a good one, has come up a lot lately,” tweeted David Boardman, dean of the School of Media and Communication at Temple University.
“In the current life and death situation, is this traditional practice still ethical?”
Without giving a firm answer, he said it is “a serious and nuanced issue worth discussing, especially among journalists.”
sms-mlm-jca / ch / st / jh
