Donald Trump Jr., the son of the president of the United States, said on Fox News that deaths from COVID-19 are down to “almost nothing.”
“I went through the CDC data because I kept hearing about new infections,” he told Laura Ingraham, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “but I was like, ‘Well, why aren’t they talking about deaths?'”
“Oh, oh, because the number is almost nothing,” he continued. “Because we’ve gotten control of this thing. We understand how it works. They have the therapeutics to be able to deal with this.”
Trump Jr. made the statement Thursday on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle. That same day, almost 1,000 people died from COVID-19 in the United States.
Read More: Black, Latino voters bombarded with disinformation days before election
Donald Trump Jr. has no medical training. He also referred to the medical professionals expressing their concerns about coronavirus case increases as “truly morons.”
His father, President Donald Trump, has been tweeting that therapeutics are working and that pandemic deaths are “WAY DOWN.” Trump even said, inaccurately, that hospitals have “great additional capacity.”
The assertions by both Trumps are patently false.
Read More: Britain’s Prince William had coronavirus in April: report
The coronavirus is surging in many states, and with the onset of colder weather, it is likely that the rising in case counts and tragic deaths will continue into the winter.
President Trump, who spent three days at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center battling coronavirus, continues to assert that the media is inflating the concern of the COVID-19 pandemic in an effort to hurt his re-election chances.
“The Fake News is talking about CASES, CASES, CASES. This includes many low-risk people. Media is doing everything possible to create fear prior to November 3rd,” he tweeted on Oct. 24.
Read More: The most important swing voter of 2020 is not who you think it is
In an op-ed piece in The Washington Post, columnist Greg Sargent blasted the first son, saying, “We already know how Trump will handle the virus, and what it means for our country. We’re living through it right now. His course can only get worse, perhaps much worse.”
“And the president’s son,” Sargent writes, “just told us as clearly as we could ask for that if you re-elect his father, nothing will change.”
Have you subscribed to theGrio’s “Dear Culture” podcast? Download our newest episodes now!
TheGrio is now on Apple TV, Amazon Fire and Roku. Download theGrio.com today!