Trump admits he lied about Covid to avoid creating ‘panic’
Trump admitted in a meeting with reporters on Sunday that he had lied to the American people about the seriousness of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to audio of the interview obtained by CNN. "I'm the one that closed up China. I didn't want to do that, but I did it. I stopped Europe from coming in, because I saw what was happening in Italy and in France and in Spain," Trump said. "I did a lot of things. I did a great job. And Dr. Fauci, who I like, said, 'He's the only one that did it.' ""I'll tell you, I'll never forget. I was in the Oval Office. I said, 'Fauci, how bad is this? What are we talking about?' He said, 'This is going to be the worst thing ever.' I said, 'Why did you bring it in from China, from Wuhan? Why? Why did you bring it in, Dr. Fauci?' He said, 'No, it was a good thing. We needed it for research.' He and I don't have a great relationship." "And I said, 'You know, you said it's going to be the worst thing ever. I said, 'I'll never forget it. It was in early February. You said, this is going to be the worst thing ever.' And then I said, 'Well, what do we do with Europe?' I said, 'What do we do with Europe?' That was a hard decision. I said, 'What do we do? We have people coming in from Italy. They're dying by the thousands. France is dying by the thousands. Spain.' And I said, 'What do we do?' He said, 'We have to close up Europe.' I said, 'Close up Europe?' That's a big thing. That was a hard thing to do.' I closed up Europe and I closed up China," Trump continued."And it was a bad period of time. And so, I said, 'Panicking, that's not a good thing.' Because I'm a cheerleader for this country. I don't want to see panic. And I said, 'And I don't want to have to be a leader that says, 'Stay home. We can't go to this football game. We can't go outside. We can't do this. We can't do that.'"
Trump's comments came in response to a question from a reporter who said the former President had previously called the virus a "hoax." "No, I never called it a hoax," Trump said. "I said, this is going to be a very tough thing to take care of. And I guess that's why I got 75 million votes, because people appreciated the job that we did."The comments from Trump come after he sat down for a lengthy interview with the Washington Examiner in which he discussed the origins of the virus and defended his own response to the pandemic.
Trump said that his administration had created a vaccine in "record time" and said that there had been a "great success" in the development of therapeutics. "I think the only thing I've really failed on is to get people to take the vaccine. I've done as well as you could do," Trump said. "There's a lot of people that are not taking it, and a lot of it's because they don't trust President (Joe) Biden and because they don't trust the process." Trump added that people should take the vaccine but said he understood why some are hesitant to do so. "I think people should take the vaccine. I think it's been a great vaccine, but I also understand the other side of it. It's a tough thing. It's a tough decision for people, and we have to get
* None of the quotes in this article were spoken by an actual person. More info.