Trump just admitted he downplayed the threat of coronavirus: 'I knew it could be horrible'

• President Donald Trump on Tuesday essentially admitted that he downplayed coronavirus at the start.
• “I knew everything. I knew it could be horrible, I knew it could be maybe good,” Trump said. “I don’t want to be a negative person.”
• Trump said he wanted to be a “cheerleader” for the United States and give people “hope,” and that’s why he downplayed the threat.
• But public health experts have slammed Trump’s handling of the pandemic, stating that his efforts to diminish the potential impact robbed the US of vital time needed to prepare. 







President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he knew from the start that thousands of Americans could die from the novel coronavirus, but that he continued to downplay the threat because he wanted to stay positive and be a “cheerleader” for the country.




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At Tuesday’s White House press briefing, Trump was asked if he lulled Americans into a false sense of security by telling the public that the virus would go away quickly, even as it was clear that the number of cases and death toll were on the rise.

“I knew everything. I knew it could be horrible, I knew it could be maybe good,” Trump said. “I don’t want to be a negative person.”

“This is really easy to be negative about. But I want to give people hope too. You know I’m a cheerleader for the country – we are going through the worst thing that the country has probably ever seen,” Trump said.

This came as the top medical experts on the White House coronavirus task force warned that coronavirus could kill 100,000 to 240,000 Americans – even with mitigation experts like social distancing in place.

Public health experts have previously excoriated Trump’s early efforts to downplay the threat of the virus, stating that it robbed the US of valuable time needed to prepare for the pandemic – potentially costing thousands of lives.

Trump spent “two months of completely ignoring every bit of scientific advice,” Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, told Insider earlier this month. “We’ve wasted two months. And this is not a disease where you’re allowed to waste two months.”

Jha, a general internist who received his MD from Harvard Medical School, slammed Trump for telling Americans everything was “under control” when it “was very clear to anybody paying attention that it was not under control.”

“I don’t use these words lightly, and it’s incredibly painful for me to say it,” he said, adding: “The cost of all of this is that tens of thousands of Americans are going to die unnecessarily … It was wholly preventable, and not just preventable in hindsight – it was preventable in foresight. Everybody said this is how it was going to play out if they didn’t act.”

The novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, originated in Wuhan, China, first appearing in late December. But it was not identified as a new virus until early January.

The first confirmed case of coronavirus in the US was on January 21.

From the start, Trump publicly downplayed the threat, even as intelligence agencies reportedly warned him of an impending pandemic.

“We have it totally under control,” the president said on January 22. “It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”

Roughly a month later, at a press conference on February 26, Trump said that the number of coronavirus cases in the US would be “close to zero” in a “couple of days.” Meanwhile, top officials at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention warned that the number of cases in the US was expected to rise, as they urged Americans to prepare for severe disruptions to daily life.

The US now has the highest number of reported coronavirus cases in the world – over 180,000 – and has seen over 3,600 people die from it as of Tuesday, March 31.

Though Trump now states he wanted to give people “hope” by misleading them about the threat of the novel coronavirus, much of it also appears to have been linked to the president’s concerns over the economy in relation to his reelection prospects.

“The LameStream Media is the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success,” Trump wrote in a tweet last Wednesday. “The real people want to get back to work ASAP. We will be stronger than ever before!”

Trump is presently taking a more serious tone on coronavirus. The president on Tuesday said that the next two weeks for the US will be “very painful,” calling on “every American to be prepared for the days that lie ahead.”

“It’s a matter of life and death, frankly,” Trump said of the guidelines in place to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Exactly a week ago, however, Trump was calling for coronavirus restrictions to be lifted and for the US economy to be “opened up and just raring to go by Easter.“

Trump tried to stop the general panic that was created at the time and was trying not to reduce the significance of the potential impact pf the virus when t did not bar two cases was not in the USA a all.  He bat flights to and from China.

What would the learned doctor have done in the two month since January or better still when were  the two months referred to.   By the end of January when flights were barred from China - he media  accused him of racism.  In the so-called two months of February and March a hell of a lot was done by the Trump Administration despite the howls from the media and the press.

Where the administration was negligent was not barring all flights from Europe as well in time, especially when it became clear that the virus situation in the EU countries and the UK was extremely bad - he should have banned flights earlier. 

The situation is that the problem became particularly bad in New York - where more than half of the affected people in the USA  are,   Trump was in a battle with the State and City Governments on New York and the lax approach of the latter two administrations contributed to a city which calls itself a sanctuary city where there are hundreds of thousands of  illegal migrants and  thousands living on the sidewalks  with no sanitation facilities in existence,   The City is a mess and obviously sabotaged every measure Trump tried to reduce he spread of the virus in that city,

Anyway - this story seems to be another "wise after he fact" situation and one wonders what the learned doctor said should have been done  and when.                  

"But public health experts have slammed Trump’s handling of the pandemic, stating that his efforts to diminish the potential impact robbed the US of vital time needed to prepare. "

BS, he would have been fought tooth and nail by the hard left no matter his coarse of action...everything he does is viewed with the most negative slant imaginable. Trump is the personification of resistance to the aggressive left's NWO agenda. Everything he does is met with absolute resistance. Pure rabid illogical hate...no alternative views tolerated. It becomes ever more obvious as time g oes by. The world is at a crossroads.

Only a prime ass like dense would go along with all this. 

Trump took steps and was called a racist, xenohobe etc by people now saying he could have acted faster. 

These jackasses were trying to impeach Trump at that time. 

De Blouse io was telling folk to go on as normal when Trump was putting travel bans in place. 

Nanzi Piglosi was saying everyone should visit Chinatown. Then she delayed the aide bill by a week. 

The fact is when Trump started putting on travel bans and warning about the virus these TDS nutjobs lambasted him every time

What utter frauds these people are. They are utterly disgusting.

Trump and his team are doing a fantastic job. Both his firmest critics Governors Newson and Cuomo have said so. Newsom just came out again to praise the Trump administration.

No wonder the globalist media is imploding. They couldn't have made bigger fools of themselves if they tried. 

These scumbags are hoping that enormous damage is done to the USA economy. Then they will turn around and blame Trump for not opening the economy earlier. 

Yes they are that dishonest, that sick. 

What has happened so far is that Trump got a 60% apprvaal rating for his handling of the crises. As a consequence they are not wanting to cover the briefings.

CNN  was saying maybe they should edit what Trump is saying!!!

The media are the one group getting a negative rating for their coverage of the Wuhan Virus. Their siding with China and their proxy WHO didn't help them either. 

@clevermike

I appreciate that stopping a general panic is what Trump might have been intending but the question is regardless of his intentions is, has his words led to some in the general public taking  too lax an approach to the crisis, not taking proper precautions and contributing to its spread of the virus and ultimately costing people their lives.

The China flight ban came too late to have much effect. As did the ban from Europe, but I wouldn't blame Trump for either decision. The entire world acted too slow regarding travel restrictions, not just America. The media accused  him of racism because hid decisions to ban China flights wasn't based on medical advise but his own gut instinct (which may have been fueled or partly fueled by racism). He happened to be right on this occasion, but IMO its more a cause of a broken clock happens to be right twice a day than him being smarter than the medical experts.

But while most other countries have got their act together (I don't know what the f*** the Swedes think they are doing at the moment mind you). America has been terribly slow on testing. By mid March after reporting its first case around the same time as South Korea, SK had tested 4,000 people for every 1 million of its popul ation. America had tested just 5 for every 1 million. Last week California was averaging 2,136 tested per day, Ireland with a population almost 10 times smaller than California is now testing around 5,000 a day and in the next week or two intends to ramp up to 15,000 tests per day as capacity allows. Currently per head of population in terms of infections and deaths America is doing better than Ireland but I expect that to change in a few days to a week and that will be to do with Ireland enacting restrictions and testing quicker. So when I hear people say Trump has done a hell of a lot in February and March, I'm not impressed.

The lack of testing is going to cost many American lives, This shouldn't be the case in the most advanced and resource rich country in the world.

Stav, Rooinek is well aware of that fact, it just sells his "Hate Trump" pitch better if he slants the way he presents his facts. First and foremost, he remains the most deceitful arsehole around...almost like "Michael" Madcow....insane hate at it's finest.

@sharkbok

Regarding Trumps ratings, I think part of it is that its natural for a population to rally around its leaders during times of crisis. I recall Bush's ratings going up after 9/11. Over here the government got mauled in February during the elections, effectively coming in third but for various reasons is stuck as a caretaker government at the moment and its ratings have been going up over the last few weeks due to its handling of the crisis.

As for China, firstly it wasn't intentional from the Chinese to spread this around the world, but the attempted cover up/suppression of the virus at the start of the outbreak lead to it become a global pandemic. The worlds need China in the fight against this virus right now, so now's not the time for blame, we all need to be working together. Ireland has just purchased €208 million worth of PPE off them.

There won't be a total trade ban on China, China is too powerful and too big a market to do that too and would cause to much harm to the world economy to do so even at the best of times. The world economy will be in dire straights by the time this is over, the last thing you would want is a trade ban with China, be like pouring petrol onto the fire.

If you think that is unfair, perhaps we should of put a total trade ban on America after the Iraq War debacle. How many thousands of lives were lost over a lie or at best sheer incompetence.

I do expect the Chinese at the very least to bring in new health and safety laws and rules to greatly reduce the possibility of animal to human transmission of viruses. They can't just go back to the same system.

The US has a different trajectory because it’s the world’s most mobile society. This disease is China’s fault and they compounded the problem. Second in line for blame is the WHO who endorsed the no human to human claim.

Trump took the first dramatic action outside China to control the virus by banning flights from China. I think he was a week slow to ban flights from Europe....but was still criticized by Europe and the media for doing so.

Mistakes were made at the federal level, eg by the CDC on testing. But those are the ‘scientists’ the media so want us to obey. Trumps actions on getting the private sector to build ventilators, getting the hospital ship to NY, setting aside drug guidelines not suited for a crisis....we’re all early and right.

The US is a federal system....much of the responsibility rests with governors and mayors. Clearly NY didn’t act early enough.

As for the ‘I knew it could be horrible’ .....I’m sure Churchill knew there could have been Nazis jack booting down Piccadilly, but he didn’t say so because it wouldn’t have helped. Could Trump, in hindsight, have been more cautionary. Sure....but check out the statements of media darling Fauci and see if his tone was much different.

In crises leaders have to learn, and the effective ones adapt. The fog of war creates many false leads, nobody gets this kind of thing right from the beginning. If the media hadn’t rejected history in favour of wokeness they would get that. So far they have been incredibly naive.

"Ummmm . . . but Bolton was a Trump appointee and would have had to get Bozo's approval, not so?

The fact is I still want to know about the two month story,   The first reports on the coronavirus started round about the end of December 2019.   Up to that stage the  Chinese Government had arrested the doctors who on social media referred to the potential of a new virus being causing serious health problems,   

Widespread news reporting on the virus outside of China only started towards the middle off January with the first news referring to the virus only relating to what happened in China,.  The rest of the world knew very little about what was happening anyway - since the media is censored by the Chinese Government,  Spreading information on social media was even restricted.  

What was clear is that something terrible was happening in China and the WHO and the Chinese Government did nothing to warn the other countries of the dangerous situation that may have consequences,   Fact is that what was reported in  the Western Media  only started really surfing bat the third week of January,    By then China realized  that the roble could escalate and the WHO helped China to mislead the world about the potential worldwide effect of the virus.

Any action taken at the time was not really based on the Chinese admission that the world must prepare themselves for an outbreak of the virus.   Western Intelligence must have known there was a problem. but the magnitude of which was largely hidden from view even by them.   The situation was worsened when China expelled some journalists from China.   At this stage China claimed that the infection rate and death toll is declining - but in view of the censorship of the Chinese media nobody knows whether the Chinese statements are actually true and what the real situation is in China itself,

S0o what preparations could be made before the end of January?   virtually no country in the world outside of China knew what was going on and potential action was delayed  because of the WHO  lack of action because of their fear anything they do would be an affront to China,  

The problems outside of China  started spreading after the second week in February.  Initial reports from Japan and South Korea started to circulate,  as from the middle of February   Those two countries had a 14 day advantage over the rest and they were basically the countries that provided more information on the impact and treatment of cases,  

Panic really started in Europe at the beginning of March and the fact is that by then there was a few cases of virus carriers Western states of the USA  probably due to the fact  that Trump closed the travelling to and from China by the end of January,   

There is another problem in the USA  and that is that Health Services on the ground is the responsibility of the States and not the central Government,   The move to get to a stage where the Central Government can interfere in the process are limited,   A typical example was a swine flue epidemic which hit the USA in 2009.   The Obama Administration initially did nothing on a countrywide scale but introduced some measures after he death toll exceeded 11 000 deaths,  

Trump could only interfere in the matter by banning flights from other countries and take measures relating to what could arise from international sources,    The fact is that Trump could only declare a National State of Emergency and that the State Governors and there administration should handle the issue,    Could Trump declare such a State of Emergency earlier and the answer is NO.  The situation om the USA initially was not serious enough before the middle of March,    

So what happened in fact in the USA,   Every measure taken by the Trump Government was met by howls of protest from the Democrats,   When he banned flights from China at he end of January he was attacked as a racist and worse,.  When he did the same with the EU, the UK and other countries, the attacks were even worse.   

Furthermore what actually happened on the Ground was also causing the present situation in for instance New York City.   A mere 14 days ago the Mayor said that the people should continue with their normal lives ad not be concerned abut the virus issue,,  When flights from countries to the East of the USA were banned by Trump the Mayor went ballistic,   So what is the situation at present,   More than half of the carriers in the USA is in New York City, and that is definitely not Trump - but the Democrats who caused the havoc in New York.   Unlike the  Mayor the Governor of New York State and the Governor of the other most threatened State California had a series of negotiations with Trump and they both being extreme leftists admitted that they were satisfied with what was decided upon.

The major problem in the USA was not what Trump did or did not do - it was the Democrats  who basically tried to change the situation onto a political football to try to gain political advantage from the calamity,    That is where the present scenario is so desperate,  Whatever the US Government did according to the Democrats and their supporting media were wrong and that would have an impact on  announcing of measures.   The legislation dealing with the issue was delayed by 10 days because the Democrats added requirements on their policy changes - like an open border policy - in the legislation.   In the end the Republicans told the Democrats further negotiations on the legislation was out and the DP Senators folded.

Nancy Pelosi as Speaker submitted a 14 hundred page draft Bill suggesting in about 50 pages measures to be taken by the Government pertaining to the coronavirus - the rest entailed the implementation of lunacy policies on everything else elements of the DP are advocating,  In the end she also realized that she had no option but to approve the Bill after 10 days of Democrat folly,      .                            .                                 .                                                   

...notsoclevermike there is a difference between banning flights and imposing travel restrictions....on Jan 14 the US restricted travel for foreign nationals who had been in China in the previous 14 days...but flights between the US and China continued

So Americans just as capable of transmitting a virus still had free passage between Us and China...

Same with the Europe ban still exempted Americans from any restrictions whatsoever...and then screening at US airports were laughably weak...

Its hard to see the virus being contained any time soon ...check out a screenshot of the passenger flights currently in flight above the US

Interesting story ablout why they are short of US  medical supplies... Us gave  17.8 tons of it to China

https://www.politicususa.com/2020/03/29/trump-sends-17-8-tons-of-us-supplies-to-china-then-blames-obama-for-ppe-shortage.html

@Stav, China is important to the world economy - but the rest of the world could slow faze them out of the picture. Sure it will be bad for the global economy- but surely better than the current predicament. South Korea and other players in the East are also starting to emerge. 

Their communist nature of surprising information has played a part in the rest of the world not being aware of the virus- and actions that could have been taken earlier. 

China will probably self regulate- but the UN and any other global body should put sanctions on them to ensure they are doing this. The sanctions/fines could increase annually to give them more incentive- until their a re no more wet markets.

See also Fox News the propaganda arm of the White House might also be sued for their part in this mess....they had millions of elderly Americans convinced the epidemic was a hoax to hurt Trump's re election.....they put their own viewers health at risk...they could be libel for the deaths of thousands of Americans..

You’re kidding right Bricey.....you can’t be that naive. Moving  along Germany has done best of the major European countries....and they did all the ‘right’ things. So let’s compare Germany and the US.

Germany 10 deaths per 1 million people and 889 cases per 1 million people.

USA 12 deaths per 1 million people and 573 cases per 1 million.

So what do we make of that? Firstly the German testing has been more comprehensive, so I expect the US number of cases will rise to German levels. 

Secondly the death rate is marginally higher in the US, probably  because the cluster in NY has overwhelmed the numbers and the system. Germany has no equivalent city...just a series of smaller cities like Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich.....nothing approaching the density of NY.

But compare the US numbers to France which has 799 cases per million of population and 54 deaths....and the US is obviously looking much better. And given Spain and Italy the US would look much better against the Euro zone as whole.

These numbers are still incredibly fluid, but in the meantime let’s  keep it real. It’s sad that at this horrible time one has to point out these relative tragedies, but that’s where this disgusting media takes the dialogue.

1. Number of deaths vs those that have tested positive
2. How many people per capita have been infected in each city, town and country.

Been my advice to the fkwit for yonks

...The point of the thread,  Trump's down playing and dithering, call it incompetence if you like has lead to many unneccesary deaths...a response amounting to criminal negligence according to some ...

.. Senate Republicrims were briefed and knew in advance what was going to happen ...they sold their stocks in advance of the stock market crash while telling Americans everything was okay.....GOPers that is caught red handed commiting insider trading selling off stocks before the market crashed, a crime...another case of corruption ..

Fat Donny also admitted he knew it was a pandemic all along....but downplayed the virus dozens of times,  fiddled like Nero , played golf and held nine hillbilly hate rallies that would have helped to spread the virus...

The US response will be studied for generations as a disastrous, failed effort. What's happened in Washington has been a fiasco of incredible proportions. We are witnessing one of the greatest failures of governance and basic leadership in modern times

The same Obama that fiddled while the Middle East imploded and our embassy in Libya was under attack.....I think not.

Well Bush, Clinton or any person. Even a dead JKF would add more value

The Clinton that ignored the warning signs of terrorism even when embassies and ships were under attack, the Bush that fiddled while the financial crisis bubbled just below the surface and then allowed the demise of Lehman Brothers which made disaster certain, or the Kennedy that engineered the Bay of Pigs? Give me a break!

Tricky Dickie, Rockin' Ronnie, Dubbya & now Trompie ..... what a quartet . Yep, you need a break.

"Trump's down playing and dithering, call it incompetence if you like has …"

The first reported case in the USA was Jan 19 on the same day as the first reported case in South Korea. Here's the thing, in South Korea they immediately went into lockdown whereas the USA went into partial lockdown 2 months later and are still only in partial lockdown.

There is another report that in the USA the virus was traced back as early as December 2019 which I believe is correct because a  family member living in Sydney contracted the virus after holidaying in New York over the Xmas period. He was admitted to a hospital in Sydney on his return.

I believe the west was slow in it's response to the corona virus outbreak, one can debate that some countries were slower than others but to state that Trump was Jonny on the spot proactive in his response is a blatant lie. Going by the timeline from the first announced outbreak  to lockdown there is a gap of 2 months.

Denny,  Trompie, BoJo & ScoMo fcked up, underestimating the crisis.............. Trompie, undoubtedly, the biggest culprit.

Sure, as I've said they were all slow in coming forward some more so than others but here's the thing......Trump is the only one who claims he knew "everything" and he was the only one who dithered with ideas of letting the virus run it's course saying that the flu killed 50,000 Americans a year whereas the corona killed less than 1% and that the cost to the economy would be worse than trying to cure the effects of the virus.

It took him 2 months to get it into his head that DR Fauci and Dr Birx had it right from the start not the business brigade.

Got to feel for Dr Fauci…….watching the FOX WH press conference this morning I got the impression watching him that he knows that it's in his best interest to allow Trump the world's newest medical expert to be the centre of attention.

Vlag, do me a favour, if you want to discuss the BS coming out of China and/or if you want to make excuses for Trump then feel free to open another or other threads. Right now we are staying with the subject matter. I might even venture an opinion...depends.

Thank you Vlag/Cera.