President Donald Trump continued to downplay the danger of the coronavirus in an interview Sunday with Chris Wallace of Fox News.
“Many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day.” Trump told Wallace, “They have the sniffles, and we put it down as a test.” He insisted that many people who get sick, “are going to get better very quickly.”
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“Many of those cases shouldn’t even be cases. No country has ever done what we have done on testing. We are the envy of the world. They call and they say the most incredible job anybody has ever done is on testing. We do, and I’m glad we do. But, it really skews the numbers.”
Wallace pressed the President about the increasing number of cases in the country. He said, “We have burning embers and we have flames. Florida became more flame-like, but it’s going to be under control.”
“Why don’t they talk about Mexico?” Trump said, related to the number of cases in that country. “All I can say is thank God I built most of the wall, because if I had not had most of the wall up, we would have a much bigger problem with Mexico.”
“We have the seventh-highest mortality rate in the world,” Wallace said.
“I think it’s the opposite, we have one of the lowest mortality rates in the world.” Trump said and Wallace replied, “That’s not true, Sir.”
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The president demanded to see the mortality rate numbers, which were different from the chart that Fox News used. Wallace clarified the chart stating that the one provided by the White House does not include numerous other countries, which skewed the data positively toward the United States.
“I take responsibility always for everything.” Trump said, “We have a surge in certain areas, in other areas, we are doing great.”
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