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President Donald Trump spoke privately about the deadly nature of the coronavirus in recorded interviews, even as he was publicly downplaying the severity of COVID-19 earlier this year, before the pandemic claimed nearly 200,000 American lives and counting.
The president shared his harsh assessment with Bob Woodward of the Washington Post in recorded telephone interviews in February as the virus spread from China to other parts of the world.
In taped interviews that were revealed Wednesday afternoon, Trump, who regularly speaks of his disdain for much of the ‘fake news’ media, spoke freely with Woodward about his internal thoughts on the virus and private conversations with Kim Jong. -a, despite calling an earlier Woodward book a “public scam.”
“This is deadly,” the president told the Watergate reporter, a Washington fellow and author who has interviewed US presidents since Nixon.
“This is a deadly thing,” President Donald Trump told Bob Woodward in a call on February 7 where they discussed the coronavirus.
“You just breathe the air and that’s how it happened,” Trump told him in a call on February 7. And that is very complicated. That is very delicate. It’s also more deadly than even his intense flu. ‘
Trump had been briefed on the virus in the Oval Office on January 28, as excerpts from the Washington Post describe.
National security adviser Robert O’Brien warned him: “This will be the biggest national security threat you will face in your presidency,” according to Woodward.
O’Brien’s deputy Matthew Pottinger warned that the threat was similar to the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed 50 million worldwide.
His grave language came as he told the nation that the virus would “go away” and that “everything would be fine.”
Trump told the nation on January 30: ‘We think we have it very well under control. We have very few problems in this country right now: five. And all those people are making a successful recovery. ‘
Bob Woodward interviewed the president while the virus was spreading
EMS workers carry a patient out of NYU Langone Health hospital during the coronavirus pandemic hospital on May 24, 2020 in New York City
The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) and Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) wearing personal protective equipment lift a man after transferring him from a nursing home to an ambulance during an ongoing outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the Brooklyn borough of New York, USA, April 16, 2020
Trump spoke with Woodward about his conversations with Chinese President Xi Jinping as the pandemic unfolded.
He told the nation on February 2, ‘Well, we pretty much shut it down coming from China.’
The February 7, the date of Woodward’s call, is the same date that Trump tweeted about China’s president: ‘Nothing is easy, but [Chinese President Xi Jinping] … will be successful, especially when the weather starts to warm up and the virus will hopefully weaken and then disappear. ‘
Trump continued: ‘Great discipline is taking place in China as President Xi is leading strongly in what will be a very successful operation. We are working closely with China to help! ‘
Trump later told Woodward in an interview on March 19 explaining his comments: “I always wanted to downplay it.”
“I still like to minimize it, because I don’t want to create a panic,” he said.
Woodward conducted 18 interviews with Trump between December and July, according to the Post.
As in his previous work, he relies on anonymous sources and “deep background” information.
“Trump never seemed willing to fully mobilize the federal government, and he continually seemed to push trouble to the states,” Woodward writes in the book, which follows decades-long expositions of the inner workings of administrations.
“There was no real case management theory or how to organize a massive company to deal with one of the most complex emergencies the United States has ever faced.”
The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, delivered a tough review of Trump’s actions in private, even as he tries to moderate comments in public.
Woodward quotes Fauci calling Trump “rudderless” and saying that his “attention span is like a negative number.”
“His sole purpose is to be re-elected,” Fauci told an associate, according to the book.
Trump, who has started calling COVID-19 the ‘China virus’, did not appear to share more personal regrets with Woodward than in public. ‘The virus has nothing to do with me. It’s not my fault, ” he told Woodward on July 21.
At the White House, where a scheduled briefing was delayed an hour amid the release of excerpts, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany dismissed repeated questions about how Trump might share dire warnings with Woodward while publicly saying the virus would go away.
‘The president was expressing calm. The president was hopeful that we could handle this and handle it in a way that we can make it go away as quickly as possible. The president seized the opportunity and did just that, ” he said.
He also made reference to financial markets. He took this seriously, but still expressed calm. Our food supply chains were at risk. We couldn’t have massive runs at the grocery stores. Markets – The economy was at stake here too. We didn’t want there to be a big shock and panic, ” he said.
