Trump Reportedly Knew--And Concealed--How Dangerous COVID-19 Really Is
In the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump knew COVID-19 was deadly and the virus was highly contagious and airborne—yet said he decided to “play it down” publicly, according to excerpts and recordings from Bob Woodward's new book Rage.
The president knew that the coronavirus was deadly as early as February and in March admitted to downplaying the risks of the illness, according to a series of recordings obtained by the Washington Post and CNN between Trump and Woodward, who cowrote All the President's Men in 1974.
Instead of being up-front about the risks associated with COVID-19 over the next several months, Trump repeatedly said that the coronavirus would simply “go away” as the seasonal temperature changed or as Americans built up a herd immunity, as Rolling Stone reports. And just days after declaring a national emergency on March 13, he told Woodward that he “wanted to always play it down…. I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic.”
Even in early February, Trump knew details about the virus that could make it extremely contagious under certain circumstances. Woodward spoke to the president on February 7, when Trump explained that he had spoken to Chinese president Xi Jinping the night before about the coronavirus.
https://www.self.com/story/trump-woodward-recordings-covid
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