Coronavirus Special Report

From his first day in office when he displayed skewed aerial photographic "evidence" that his Inaugural crowd was bigger than President Obama's, President Trump had difficulty dealing with reality and telling the American people the truth. The coronavirus crisis proved to be no different a challenge for the former president. This blog counts the times - (1) thru (144) - the former president misinformed, misled or misdirected the American public about the COVID-19 crisis sweeping the world, the USA and, in October, 2020 the White House and First Family. 

Also below:  

• President Donald J. Trump's COVID-19 Legacy  
• Index of Blame and Excuses
• President Trump's 16 Dumbest COVID quotes
• Ten Key Questions the Blog Answers

On 1/2/2020

Dr. Robert Redfield, the Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is first alerted to a public health event in Wuhan, China.

On 1/9

From Science Daily:  The Chinese health authorities and the World Health Organization announce the discovery of a novel coronavirus, known as 2019-nCoV, which was confirmed as the agent responsible for the pneumonia cases in China. Over the weekend of January 11-12, the Chinese authorities share the full sequence of the coronavirus genome, as detected in samples taken from the first patients.

ABC News: A "detailed explanation of the (virus sweeping China's Wuhan region) appeared in the President's Daily Brief of intelligence matters in early January," And from TIME: Neither the President, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo nor other top officials who get the briefs requested further information.

On 1/18

From the Washington Post:   Despite the flurry of (virus-related) activity at lower levels of his administration, Trump was not substantially briefed by health officials about the coronavirus until Jan.18, when, while spending the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, he took a call from (Health and Human Services Secretary Alex) Azar. 

According to a book released in June, 2021, "Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration's Response to the Pandemic That Changed History," by the Post's Damian Paletta and Yasmeen Abutaleb, President Trump blew off Azar's warning.

"Mr. President, I've got to tell you something," Azar told Trump during a mid-January 2020 phone call, before COVID-19 broke out across the country and forced officials to impose lockdowns. "There's this new virus out of China that could be extremely dangerous. It could be the kind of thing we have been preparing for and worried about."

Azar then relayed to Trump that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had started to screen travelers from China to the US but that additional safety measures probably needed to be taken to mitigate potential spread of the virus, per the book.

"Yeah, okay," Trump replied, seemingly unconvinced of the threat. Then he hung up the phone.

On 1/22

Cases of COVID-19 are breaking out in China, Vietnam, Canada, Scotland and other countries. Asked by a CNBC reporter whether there were "worries about a pandemic" a day after the United States announced its first confirmed case, President Trump says, "No, not at all. We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China. It's going to be just fine." (1) 

On 1/24

USA Today:  Trump tweets praise for China's handling of the epidemic, including the nation's "transparency," adding, "It will all work out well. (2) In particular, on behalf of the American people, I want to thank President Xi!"

On 1/28

From Bob Woodward's book "Rage" published in September: On Jan. 28 at the White House intelligence briefing, national security adviser Robert O'Brien told President Trump, "This (the COVID-19 outbreak) will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency. This is going to be the roughest thing you face."

From Mediaite: According to Woodward, Trump's head "popped up" at that comment and he began questioning his advisers. Some were more optimistic, thinking the impact might be like SARS was in 2003, with only eight known cases in the U.S., but Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger had a far more dire view. Pottinger had been a reporter in China and told the president that his unofficial Chinese contacts told him that the coronavirus pandemic would be like the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed more than 600,000 people in the United States. "It was a stunning moment in the Trump presidency," said Woodward, "and, I think, in American history. Because he then went on to publicly dismiss the virus. And he knew that this was a pandemic coming."

On 1/29

New York Times:  President Trump's trade adviser Peter Navarro warned his White House colleagues the novel coronavirus could take more than half a million American lives and cost close to $6 trillion. He also warned, "The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak on U.S. soil." Mr. Navarro's memo concluded, "This lack of protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans." (Note: On April 7, President Trump said he "didn't see" Navarro's 1/29 or 2/23 memos (see below). And then on April 8 he said he didn't "remember" seeing them. (62) But the New York Times reports on April 11, "Despite Mr. Trump's denial weeks later, he was told at the time about a Jan. 29 memo produced by his trade adviser.")

On 1/30

From NBC, Fox News and the New York Times:  President Trump says while in Michigan, "We think we have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment - five. And those people are all recuperating successfully. But we're working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it's going to have a very good ending for it. That I can assure you." (3) That same day, the World Health Organization declares coronavirus to be a "public-health emergency of international concern." Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar warns President Trump of the pandemic for the second time in two weeks.

1/31

From the New York Times:  Trump took his only early, aggressive action against the virus barring most foreigners who had recently visited China from entering the United States. It was a good move. But it was only one modest move, not the sweeping solution that Trump portrayed it to be. It didn't apply to Americans who had been traveling in China, for example. Two days later the number of cases in the world doubles to 15,000. (Note: See 3/31 below for information about the actual number of persons entering the U.S. from China after President Trump took this action. Also see 9/20.)

On 2/4

State of the Union address

"We are coordinating with the Chinese government and working closely together on the coronavirus outbreak in China. My administration will take all necessary steps to safeguard our citizens from this threat." (4)

On 2/5

The Washington Post reported, "With fewer than a dozen confirmed novel coronavirus cases in the United States but tens of thousands around the globe, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar asked OMB that morning for $2 billion to buy respirator masks and other supplies for a depleted federal stockpile of emergency medical equipment. The $2 billion request from HHS was cut to $500 million when the White House eventually sent Congress a supplemental budget request weeks later."

On 2/6

The Santa Clara County, California Medical Examiner-Coroner reported the first U.S. COVID-19 fatality.

On 2/7

From CNN:  On the same day the World Health Organization sounds alarm bells about "the limited stock of personal protective equipment," noting demand was 100 times higher than normal for this equipment, the Trump administration announced that it was transporting to China nearly 17.8 tons (more than 35,000 pounds) of "masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital materials." As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo noted in the press release announcing this shipment, "These donations are a testament to the generosity of the American people." Asked if he was "concerned that China is covering up the full extent of the coronavirus," President Trump responded, "No. Late last night I had a very good talk with President Xi, and we talked about - mostly about the coronavirus. They're working really hard, and I think they are doing a very professional job. They're in touch with World - the World - World Organization. CDC also. We're working together. But World Health is working with them."

From Bob Woodward's book "Rage" published in September: President Trump told Woodward privately on February 7: "You just breathe the air and that's how it's passed. And so that's a very tricky one. That's a very delicate one. It's also more deadly than even your strenuous flus. This is deadly stuff." 

Blog editor's note: See 2/26 below for an example of President Trump saying just the opposite.

On 2/10

President Trump tells Fox Business, "You know in April, supposedly, it dies with the hotter weather. And that's a beautiful date to look forward to." The president then tells governors, "You know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat - as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April." (5)  

On 2/23

From the New York Times:  On Feb. 23, the World Health Organization announces that the virus has spread to 30 countries, with 78,811 confirmed cases, a more than fivefold increase over the previous three weeks.

From Fox News: White House trade advisor Peter Navarro writes a second memo (see 1/29 above) warning President Trump of the "increasing probability of a full-blown COVID-19 pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million Americans."

On 2/24

Cloudy crystal balls

President Trump, the self-described "stable genius," tweets: "The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA." (6)

Rush Limbaugh, with talent on loan from God, joined the president, telling his listeners today: "Folks, this coronavirus thing, I want to try to put this in perspective for you. It looks like the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump. Now, I want to tell you the truth about the coronavirus. You think I'm wrong about this? You think I'm missing it by saying that's - Yeah, I'm dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold, folks."

On 2/25

New York Times and StatNews: In a conference call with reporters, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's top expert on viral respiratory diseases, spoke frankly about the pending threat. "As we've seen from recent countries with community spread, when it has hit those countries, it has moved quite rapidly. We want to make sure the American public is prepared." According to the New York Times, President Trump reportedly called Secretary Azar fuming that Messonnier had scared people unnecessarily and caused the stock market to plummet.

On 2/26

From Yahoo News and the Washington Post: Trump expresses confidence at a White House press conference in the government's response, insisting that with his guidance and thanks to the people he appointed, "We're very ready for it. We're really prepared. We have - as I said, we've had - we have the greatest people in the world. We're very ready for it. And again, we've had tremendous success - tremendous success - beyond what people would have thought. 

"Because of all we've done, the risk to the American people remains very low. (7)  We're ready to adapt and ready to do whatever we have to as the disease spreads, if it spreads." Trump says that only 15 people had contracted the virus in the U.S. and that all were expected to recover.

"I think every aspect of our society should be prepared. I don't think it's going to come to that, especially with the fact that we're going down, not up. We're going very substantially down, not up." (8) And he adds: "And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done." (9) Trump also says "This is a flu. This is like a flu...It's a little like the regular flu that we have flu shots for. And we'll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner." (10)  FACT CHECK:  On 2/7 - see above - President Trump told Bob Woodward COVID-19 is "deadly stuff."

The American Hospital Association hosts a webinar on COVID-19 at which Dr. James Lawler of the University of Nebraska Medical Center estimates 480,000 Americans will die in the pandemic.

On 2/28

From USA Today:  Speaking at the North Charleston Coliseum, Trump dismisses the complaints from Democrats about his handling of the virus crisis as "their new hoax" (11) and insisted "we are totally prepared." (12) Trump says it "starts in China, bleeds its way into various countries around the world, doesn't spread widely at all in the United States because of the early actions" of his administration. "It's going to disappear...like a miracle - it will disappear." (13)

From the Washington Post April 27:  U.S. intelligence agencies issued warnings about the novel coronavirus in more than a dozen classified briefings prepared for President Trump in January and February.

On 2/29

Senior advisers to President Trump privately discussed the government's "critical mistakes" in preparing for the pandemic, according to emails obtained by the House's select subcommittee on the pandemic in September, 2021.

"In truth we do not have a clue how many are infected in the USA. We are expecting the first wave to spread in the U.S. within the next 7 days," virologist Steven Hatfill wrote to Peter Navarro, Trump's trade director. "This will be accompanied by a massive loss of credibility and the Democratic accusations are just now beginning. This must be countered with frank honesty about the situation and decisive direct actions that are being taken and can be seen in the broadcast news."

Hatfill blamed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for rolling out flawed coronavirus tests and urged Navarro to begin purchasing additional tests and deploy. 

On 3/2

President Trump tells a campaign rally in North Carolina, "We had a great meeting today with a lot of great (pharmaceutical) companies and they're going to have vaccines. I think relatively soon and they're going to have something that makes you better and that's going to actually take place, we think, even sooner." (14)

What actually happened:  Twelve months later, vaccines were developed and distributed to millions of Americans. Unfortunately, after hundreds of thousands of Americans had died from COVID-10 in the interim.  Former President Trump claimed in March, 2021, "If I wasn't President, you wouldn't be getting that beautiful 'shot' for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn't be getting it at all." The Biden administration credited the scientists and drug companies. AARP reported it usually takes four to 20 years to create a new vaccine but research undertaken over the previous 10 years on how to make a protein that triggers a specific immune response allowed scientists to fast-track the COVID-19 vaccines.

On 3/4

Fox News Hannity

HANNITY: We have a report today the global death rate at 3.4%.

TRUMP: Well, I think the 3.4% is really a false number. Now, this is just my hunch, and -- but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of people will have this, and it's very mild. They will get better very rapidly. They don't even see a doctor. They don't even call a doctor.

But, you know, again, a lot of people don't report, because they get the coronavirus, and they get better relatively quickly.

It's not that severe. (15)  FACT CHECK: According to John Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, the U.S. death rate, as of September 12, is 3.0%. Also see 7/6 below.

On 3/5

From the New York Times:  President Donald Trump sought Wednesday to deflect criticism of his administration's response to the coronavirus onto his predecessor, complaining that a federal agency decision under President Barack Obama had made it harder to quickly enact widespread testing for the virus.

"The Obama administration made a decision on testing that turned out to be very detrimental to what we're doing, and we undid that decision a few days ago so that the testing can take place in a much more accurate and rapid fashion." (16) It was not entirely clear what he was referring to. Trump did not explain why his administration did not change the rules during its first three years in office. CNN reported: Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, who was principal deputy commissioner of the FDA under Obama and is now professor of the practice at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said, "There wasn't a policy that was put into place that inhibited them. There was no Obama policy they were reversing."

From USA Today:  The chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) explicitly beseeched world leaders to prepare, warning that the "epidemic can be pushed back, but only with a collective, coordinated and comprehensive approach that engages the entire machinery of government."

On 3/6

From The Guardian:  Some commentators are calling Trump's press conference at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today one of his "most frightening" and "disturbing" appearances in recent memory, given his political rants, misinformation, bizarre boasting and callousness. (President Trump) implied that the coronavirus test was available to anyone who needs it. "Anybody who wants a test, gets a test. And they're beautiful." (17) 

On 3/8

As the disease rapidly spreads across the United States and the world, President Trump tweets: "We have a perfectly coordinated and fine-tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus." (18) 

On 3/9

Tweet from President Trump:  "So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!" (19)

On 3/10

From CBS News and Fox News: The World Health Organization reported 113,702 cases of the virus in more than 100 countries. "It will go away, just stay calm," Trump says at a press conference today. He added, "Be calm. It's really working out. And a lot of good things are going to happen." (20)

On 3/11

On the day the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic, an alarming scientific report compiled by British researchers and shared with the Trump White House warns that, in the absence of drastic and coordinated government action, the novel coronavirus could kill as many as 2.2 million people in the United States.

From the Washington Post:  (President Trump) said in (tonight's nationally televised speech from the Oval Office) that his travel prohibitions affecting Europe "will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo but various other things ... Anything coming from Europe to the United States is what we are discussing." (21) After his speech, the president clarified that, no, he wasn't really suspending trade from Europe. In fact, "trade will in no way be affected," he tweeted.

Nor did his travel suspension apply to American citizens or legal permanent residents and their families, tweeted Ken Cuccinelli, acting deputy secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. (22) And the health insurance industry was not promising to "waive all co-payments for coronavirus treatments" as Trump promised in his speech. (23)  A spokeswoman for American Hospital Insurance Plans told Politico that the waiver applied only to testing, not treatment. 

(On March 31, President Trump claimed, "We stopped all of Europe. We started with certain parts of Italy, and then all of Italy. Then we saw Spain. Then I said, stop Europe, let's stop Europe. We have to stop them from coming here." (51)  CNN reported, "Trump did not issue a series of travel bans before restricting broader travel from Europe. Furthermore, the travel restrictions Trump did announce in a prime-time Oval Office address on March 11 did not apply to all European countries and contained multiple exemptions. The restrictions also did not apply to US citizens returning from Europe as well as permanent US residents and certain family members of both citizens and permanent residents.") Note: President Trump would repeatedly make false claims throughout the coming spring and summer that he shut down all travel from Europe. On July 16, the Independent (UK) reported, "By the time Donald Trump's administration imposed travel restrictions from Europe into the US at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the virus had been circulating widely in New York City, according to a new report from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The earliest strain detected was from 2 March."

On 3/12

From the Daily Caller:  Dr. Anthony Fauci told Congress that the U.S.'s ability to test for coronavirus has been "a failing," comments that are in stark contrast to President Donald Trump's assurances that testing for the virus "has been going very smooth."

"The system is not really geared to what we need right now," Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease, told Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz during a House Oversight Committee hearing.

Federal and state government agencies and the private sector have conducted around 11,000 tests for coronavirus in all. South Korea, by contrast, tests 10,000 potential coronavirus carriers each day.

President Trump, however, said at the White House, "Frankly, the testing has been going very smooth. If you go to the right agency, if you go to the right area you get the test." (24)

CNN also reported President Trump said, "But it'll be - it'll go very quickly" and "We'll be discussing some other moves that we're going to be making. And I think it's going to work out very well for everybody." (25)

On 3/13

President Trump signs a Proclamation on Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Outbreak, stating, "I have taken sweeping action to control the spread of the virus in the United States."

At a press conference in the Rose Garden with business leaders, President Trump announces that Google is developing a coronavirus testing website. "It is going to be very quickly done, unlike websites of the past, to determine whether a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location." (26) But the website being developed by Google sister company Verily ended up being much more limited in scope than what the White House promised. Verily says in a statement to NBC News that the site is in the "early stages of development" and only being tested in two California counties. Vice President Pence later clarified the site would be just for the San Francisco Bay Area. (The Washington Examiner reported April 17 that the website has expanded to three more states.)

The president also tells his Rose Garden audience, "We've been in discussions with pharmacies and retailers to make drive-through tests available in the critical locations identified by public health professionals." (27) (FACT CHECK: A month later, NPR contacted the retailers who were at the Rose Garden briefing and found that discussions have not led to any wide-scale implementation of drive-through tests. In the month since the announcement, Walmart has opened two testing sites - one in the Chicago area and another in Bentonville, Ark. Walgreens has opened two in Chicago; CVS has opened four sites.)

Continuing his press conference, President Trump, who has been in office more than three years, deflects blame for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) slow coronavirus testing process, saying former President Obama "made changes that only complicated things further." (28) (See 3/5 above and 4/1 below.)

President Trump also tells his Rose Garden audience he doesn't take responsibility for the delays and shortages of test kits. "I don't take responsibility at all," Trump tells reporters, "because we were given a set of circumstances and we were given rules, regulations, and specifications from a different time that wasn't meant for this kind of an event with the kind of numbers that we're talking about." But in May, 2018, the pandemic response team in the National Security Council - the Global Health Security and Biodefense - had been dismantled by NSC Director John Bolton. Responding to a question about the team's dismissal, Trump said Friday, "When you say me, I didn't do it...I don't know anything about it." (29)

But on March 17, the Independent (UK) reported: "A video has emerged of Donald Trump talking about cutting the US pandemic response team in 2018 - days after claiming that he knew nothing about the disbanded White House unit. Mr. Trump said of the pandemic team 'some of the people we've cut they haven't been used for many, many years and if we ever need them we can get them very quickly and rather than spending the money'."

(Blog editor's note: On March 20, the Washington Post Fact Checker asked the question: Did the Trump administration eliminate the Global Health Security and Biodefense team in the NSC? Their conclusion: "The office - as set up by Obama - was folded into another office. Thus, one could claim the office was eliminated. But the staff slots did not disappear and at least initially the key mission of team remained a priority. So one can also claim nothing changed." But in its March 30 issue, TIME reported: "Trump's first major error in the crisis came a year and a half before the novel coronavirus first emerged in Wuhan, China. In May, 2018, he authorized his then National Security Council Adviser, John Bolton, to eliminate the National Security Council's global health security unit and demote its pandemic experts.")

On 3/15

"Relax, we're doing great," Trump says in the White House briefing room Sunday, two days after declaring a national emergency. "It all will pass." Trump says the virus was "very contagious" but it's "something we have tremendous control of." (30)

From the Associated Press: A review of federal purchasing contracts shows federal agencies waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line health care workers. Hospitals in New York, Seattle and New Orleans were reporting a surge in sick patients. Doctors and nurses took to social media to express their alarm at dwindling supplies.

On 3/16

Seventy-four days after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was first alerted of the outbreak in China, the president finally acknowledges the gravity of the situation. "We have an invisible enemy," he tells a thinned-out, socially distanced room of reporters as he unveiled new guidance on avoiding restaurants, bars, and gatherings of more than 10 people for the next 15 days and practicing social distancing. "This is a very bad one. This is bad in the sense that it's so contagious."

President Trump also tells reporters: "We have a problem that, a month ago, nobody ever thought about." (31) (See 3/19 and 3/26 below for examples of the many times federal officials and scientists had previously thought about the possible threat.)

Asked how he would rate his administration's response to the health crisis, the president says, "I'd rate it a 10." (32)

On 3/17

From the New York Times:  For weeks, President Trump has minimized the coronavirus, mocked concern about it and treated the risk from it cavalierly. On Tuesday he took to the White House lectern and made a remarkable assertion: He knew it was a pandemic all along. "This is a pandemic," Mr. Trump told reporters. "I've always known this is a, this is a real, this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. All you had to do was look at other countries...no, I've always viewed it as very serious." (33)

Blog editor: See 1/28 above.

On 3/19

At today's White House press briefing, President Trump claims, "Where you have a problem with ventilators, we're working very hard trying to find - nobody in their wildest dreams would have ever thought that we'd need tens of thousands of ventilators. This is something that's very unique to this, to what happened." (34) But CNN reported, "In at least 10 government reports from 2003 to 2015, federal officials predicted the United States would experience a critical lack of ventilators and other lifesaving medical supplies if it faced a viral outbreak like the one currently sweeping the country." (See 3/26 below for more examples.)

From Bob Woodward's book, "Rage" published in September: Trump admitted to Woodward on March 19 that he deliberately minimized the danger. "I wanted to always play it down," the president said. "I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic."

From CNBC, Fox News and the Los Angeles Times:  At the briefing, President Trump directs the FDA to investigate whether existing drugs given to malaria patients can also be used to treat the novel coronavirus. Some scientists claim the anti-malaria drugs could be a potential treatment.

The World Health Organization, however, said last month there is "no proof."

Trump says at a White House press briefing that the drugs will be made available by prescription "almost immediately." (35)

Addressing potential safety concerns, Trump notes that the drugs had been used previously in treating malaria, "so we know if things don't go as planned, it's not going to kill anybody."

The FDA commissioner, Dr. Stephen Hahn, said trials are necessary to determine if the drugs provide effective treatment and in what dosage. "We may have the right drug, but it might not be in the appropriate dosage form right now, and it might do more harm than good." Hahn, standing next to the president, says he didn't want to give Americans "false hope" about an immediate panacea.

From CNN:  President Donald Trump claims during a White House briefing Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration had approved the "very powerful" drug chloroquine to treat coronavirus. (36) Chloroquine is used to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

"It's shown very encouraging -- very, very encouraging early results. And we're going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately. And that's where the FDA has been so great. They -- they've gone through the approval process; it's been approved. And they did it -- they took it down from many, many months to immediate. So we're going to be able to make that drug available by prescription or states."

FACT CHECK: Chloroquine has not been approved by the FDA to treat coronavirus. The FDA's post-briefing statement: "There are no FDA-approved therapeutics or drugs to treat, cure or prevent COVID-19."

From the Huffington Post:  Pressed by a reporter Thursday on the dire shortage of medical supplies and testing to deal with the coronavirus, President Donald Trump deflects responsibility for the crisis and instead put the burden on governors. "Governors are supposed to be doing a lot of this work," he says. "The federal government's not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. You know, we're not a shipping clerk." (37)  (Note: Two weeks later, President Trump changed his mind. See April 1 below.)

Headline at Drudge Report today: Testing Chaos Continues

On 3/21

From the Washington Post: Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was asked at the daily White House coronavirus briefing about an hours-earlier tweet by Trump that claimed the FDA was working on a combination of an anti-malaria drug and an antibiotic that could treat the infection.

President Trump's tweet: HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains - Thank You! Hopefully they will BOTH (H works better with A, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents) (38)

"I'm not totally sure what the president was referring to," Fauci says, but says he believes Trump was referring to one anecdotal study that showed that combination could be effective.

"There are those who lean to the point of giving hope and saying give that person the option of having access to that drug. And then you have the other group, which is my job as a scientist, to say my job is to ultimately prove without a doubt that a drug is not only safe, but that it actually works." (Note: See 4/5 and 7/6 below for findings regarding hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.)

From The Independent (UK), Science Magazine and the Washington Post: President Trump criticised China for what he described as a lack of transparency over its coronavirus outbreak, telling reporters, "I just wish they could've told us earlier" about the virus that is believed to have originated in a live animal market in Wuhan, China. "All of the people - the talent that we have - would have loved to have had three or four months of additional time," Mr. Trump said at the White House. "They didn't have that time. They read about it in the newspapers like everybody else." (39)

Dr. Anthony Fauci told Science Magazine: "The way it happened is that after (Trump) made that statement, I told the appropriate people, it doesn't comport, because two or three months earlier would have been September. (The coronavirus killed its first victim in December in China.) When Dr. Fauci was asked by Science about having to stand in front of the nation as "the representative of truth and facts" when "things are being said that aren't true and aren't factual," the 79-year-old said there is only so much he can do. "I can't jump in front of the microphone and push him down."

On 3/22

From The Hill, NBC, Business Insider and the New York Post:  President Trump on March 18 announced he had signed the Defense Production Act, but later said he would only invoke the law in a "worst-case scenario."

The president then offered conflicting messages about the issue on March 20: He said he invoked it the day previously to help states secure medical equipment like masks and ventilators, but later said he hadn't needed to use the authority to compel companies to increase production of those supplies before reversing again and saying he had directed "a lot" of companies to do so. (40)

Asked at the March 20 White House press briefing of the Coronavirus Task Force whether he had formally used the act, the president was equivocal. "When we need something, we order something. When we need something, we will use the act. Before we even go out, companies are willing to make product for us, medical product, that the states can't get," he said before adding that "I have" ordered companies to cooperate and that he would put the act "in gear." But on Sunday, March 22, President Trump rejected calls from governors, hospitals and others to direct companies to ramp up production of critical supplies. Trump argued that he has used the Defense Production Act as leverage in negotiations with companies to get them to produce supplies and equipment for the coronavirus fight. "The concept of nationalizing our business is not a good concept...Call a person over in Venezuela, ask them how did nationalization of their businesses work out? Not too well."

On 3/23

From the Associated Press:

TRUMP: "Ford, General Motors and Tesla are being given the go ahead to make ventilators and other metal products, FAST! @fema Go for it auto execs, lets see how good you are?" - tweet March 22.

TRUMP: "General Motors, Ford, so many companies - I had three calls yesterday directly, without having to institute like: `You will do this' - these companies are making them right now." (41) - at briefing on March 21.

UPDATE: The Trump administration was actually negotiating with GM when President Trump sent these tweets. But five days later, on March 27, the president grew frustrated with the negotiations and announced he had used, for the first time, the Defense Production Act to compel General Motors to produce ventilators. Reported Bloomberg, the change of heart is a "remarkable turnabout from the night before, when Trump told Fox News he wasn't invoking the Cold War-era Defense Production Act to compel manufacturers to make ventilators because companies including GM had already stepped up."

On 3/24

From Fox News and USA Today:  Trump said Tuesday that he would like to have the government restrictions on travel and social gatherings eased by Easter, which comes on Sunday, April 12.

"We're going to be opening relatively soon," Trump said during a Fox News town hall Tuesday. "I'd love to have it open by Easter ... It's such an important day for other reasons but I'll make an important date for this too. I would love to have the country, opened up and just raring to go by Easter. You'll have packed churches all over our country. I think it would be a beautiful time. And it's just about the timeline that I think is right." (42)  FACT CHECK: Five days later, on March 29, the president changed his mind and extended federal social distancing guidelines through April 30. On April 12, Easter Sunday, 1,761 Americans died of coronavirus. 

On 3/26

President Trump at the White House press conference

"This was something that nobody has ever thought could happen to this country. I'm not even blaming ... Look, we inherited a broken situation, but I don't totally blame the people that were before me and this administration. Nobody would've ever thought a thing like this could have happened." The president first made this claim on March 16 (see above) and then repeated it throughout March and April. The facts:

• From Politico: The Obama administration left behind a 69-page National Security Council guide for fighting pandemics titled, "Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents."
• The Nation: Despite President Trump's repeated assertions that the Covid-19 epidemic was "unforeseen" and "came out of nowhere," the Pentagon was well aware of not just the threat of a novel influenza, but even anticipated the consequent scarcity of ventilators, face masks, and hospital beds, according to a 2017 Pentagon plan. The plan states: "Competition for, and scarcity of resources will include...non-pharmaceutical MCM [Medical Countermeasures] (e.g., ventilators, devices, personal protective equipment such as face masks and gloves), medical equipment, and logistical support. This will have a significant impact on the availability of the global workforce."

From Politico and the New York Post: Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York says his state needs 30,000 ventilators to respond to the escalating coronavirus crisis. President Donald Trump doesn't believe him. Speaking with Sean Hannity on Fox News Trump minimized the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic, casting doubt on the need for tens of thousands of ventilators for hospitals responding to the crisis. "I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they're going to be," he said. "I don't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators." (43) But less than 24 hours later, President Trump reversed course and invoked the Defense Production Act forcing GM to build ventilators and vowed that the U.S. would manufacture or otherwise procure 100,000 badly needed ventilators to treat critically ill coronavirus patients within 100 days. "General Motors MUST immediately open their stupidly abandoned Lordstown plant in Ohio, or some other plant, and START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!!!!!! FORD, GET GOING ON VENTILATORS, FAST!!!!!!" Trump tweeted. 

On 3/27

President Trump at today's White House briefing

From CNN:  "We have to open up. We can't say, 'Let's close.' People don't want to close. People want to go back to work. I'm hearing it loud and clear from everybody." (44)

FACT CHECK: While there is no polling data on how long Americans want the country's institutions to remain closed, it is clear that not "everybody" wants workplaces to reopen quickly amid an ongoing pandemic.

A Fox News poll conducted March 21-24 found that 75% of the 1,011 registered voters surveyed supported a national "stay-in-place" order for everyone other than essential workers. A March 24-26 poll by Morning Consult found that 4 in 5 voters believe Americans should continue to practice social distancing for as long as necessary, even if it means continued damage to the economy.

And on the day U.S. recorded its 1,687th coronavirus-related death, President Trump announced: "We have done a hell of a job. The federal government has really stepped up." (45)

On 3/29

At the White House brief briefing, President Trump announced:

• A large number of masks were being stolen from New York hospitals. "How do you go from 10 to 20 (thousand masks being used) to 300,000? Are they going out the back door?" (46) Commented Jonah Goldberg at National Review: "Perhaps - just perhaps - the increased volume of masks being used is correlated with the emergence of a runaway, highly contagious pandemic?"

On 3/30

From US News & World Report:  Today was the deadliest day in the U.S. fight against the coronavirus so far. Health officials recorded more than 570 deaths, pushing the U.S. death toll past 3,000.

From CBS:  President Trump claimed the country's governors were thanking him for the federal assistance they have received in fighting the coronavirus pandemic. A record of the call with rural state governors refutes Mr. Trump's claim, where Montana Governor Steve Bullock warned him that testing delays could soon overwhelm hospitals in rural areas. President Trump responded, "I haven't heard about testing in weeks. We've tested more now than any nation in the world...But I haven't heard about testing being a problem." (47)

From USA TODAY:  Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, said on NPR's Morning Edition that President Donald Trump was incorrect in saying coronavirus testing problems had been resolved. "Yeah, that's just not true. I mean I know that they've taken some steps to create new tests, but they're not actually produced and distributed out to the states." Hogan said. "No state has enough testing." In fact, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine told CNN his state will see its peak in coronavirus cases "between mid-April and mid-May... It's a 30-day period time. We're not quite sure when... Part of this is driven by the fact that we don't have widespread testing."

President Trump at today's White House briefing

"If we can hold that down, as we're saying, to 100,000 - that's a horrible number - maybe even less, but to 100,000; so we have between 100- and 200,000 - we all together, have done a very good job." (48)

"We can expect that, by June 1st, we will be well on our way to recovery. We think, by June 1st, a lot of great things will be happening." (49)

"I was on the call yesterday with the governors, and they were happy with the job we're doing. We are really doing a job." (50)

"We're producing tremendous numbers of ventilators. We're doing a great job on it. The fact is, we've done a great job of delivering." (FACT CHECK: Three days later, on April 2, President Trump again invoked the Defense Production Act, this time to clear up supply chain problems encountered in the manufacturing of medical ventilators. On April 9, Governor Gavin Newsom said he would use the bulk purchasing power of California "as a nation-state" to acquire the hospital supplies that the federal government has failed to provide. (For (51) see 3/11 above.)

On 3/31

President Trump at today's White House briefing

From the New York Times:  President Trump: "I do think we were very early, but I also think that we were very smart, because we stopped China. That was probably the biggest decision we made so far. We're the ones that kept China out of here." (52)

FACT CHECK: Since Chinese officials disclosed the outbreak of a mysterious pneumonialike illness to international health officials on New Year's Eve, at least 430,000 people have arrived in the United States on direct flights from China, including nearly 40,000 in the two months after President Trump imposed restrictions on such travel. (See 1/31 above and 9/20 below.) Fox News reported July 7 as many as 8,000 more Chinese nationals have entered the U.S. since April.

President Trump: And so, as you saw on that slide, that was our real number - that 100,000 to 200,000. And we think that that is the range. What would have happened if we did nothing? Because there was a group that said, "Let's just ride it out. Let's ride it out." What would have happened? And that number comes in at 1.5 to 1.6 million people, up to 2.2 and even beyond. So that's 2.2 million people would have died if we did nothing, if we just carried on our life. (53)

Blog editor's note: There was not "a group" saying "Let's just ride it out." And no president of the United States would have done "nothing." See 3/11 above.

On 4/1

President Trump at today's White House briefing

From CNN:

• "After a month or so, I think once this passes, we're not going to have to be, hopefully, worried too much about the virus." (54)

From the Washington Post Fact Checker:

• President Trump: "I don't want them [the states] to compete because all they're going to do is drive up the price. They should be calling us and we can work it so they get the ventilators and they get shipped directly." (55)

A shortage of ventilators and personal protective equipment for health-care workers (masks, gowns, gloves and the like) has caused consternation among local leaders and medical professionals. Because supplies are limited, states have had to compete and outbid each other for what's available on the market. Blog editor's note: On 3/19, see above, President Trump said just the opposite. "The federal government's not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. You know, we're not a shipping clerk."

• "It's not like we have a massive recession or worse." (56)

U.S. unemployment rate hit 16.3% in May with more than 40 million Americans petitioning for unemployment benefits. The National Bureau of Economic Research on June 8 declared the United States economy was in recession.

• "We inherited - the word is we inherited bad tests. We really inherited bad tests. These are horrible tests. And it was broken. It was all broken. And we fixed it." (57)

This is a misleading claim the president has made repeatedly before and after April 1. Trump's "clear suggestion (is) that the flawed test had been left to him by President Barack Obama's administration," reported CNN. However, every time a new virus surfaces, like the coronavirus, a new test is developed by the CDC. Sticking to past practice, the CDC created its own test for the coronavirus rather than use the test being distributed by the World Health Organization. But the test CDC developed in January did not work properly. A new test was developed in February and is working and in use today, although still in short supply according to public health experts and state officials.

On 4/3

Today's White House briefing

Reporter: Mr. President, Dr. Fauci last night recommended, said that every state should have stay at home orders right now. Do you agree with that? Should every state in this country have the kind of stay at home orders that we now see in places like Washington?

President Trump: The governors know what they're doing, they've been doing a great job. I guess we're close to 90% anyway. The states that we're talking about are not in jeopardy. (58) No, I would leave it to the governors.

Update: Of the nine states Trump said "are not in jeopardy," five - South Carolina, Utah, Iowa, Arkansas and Nebraska - all experienced significant spikes in cases beginning in mid-June.

On 4/4

President Trump at today's White House briefing

"I hope (Americans who are sick) use the hydroxychloroquine, and they can also do it with Z-Pak subject to your doctor's approval and all of that. But I hope they use it because, I'll tell you what, what do you have to lose? (59) But it's their choice. And it's their doctor's choice or the doctors in the hospital. But hydroxychloroquine. Try it, if you'd like.

"I hope they use it because it's been used for a long time and therefore it's passed the safety test. But I've seen some results now. It's early, I guess. It's early, and they should look at the lupus thing. I don't know what it says, but there's a rumor out there that, because it takes care of lupus very effectively as I understand it..

"I may take it."

Blog editor's note: See immediately below - "Special hydroxychloroquine update" - for more information on the safety of hydroxychloroquine.

On 4/5

Special hydroxychloroquine update:

During today's White House briefing, the president again urged Americans to take hydroxychloroquine. "What do you have to lose? What do I know? I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. But I have common sense." NPR reported on April 21, "A panel of experts convened by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases recommends against doctors using a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for the treatment of COVID-19 patients because of potential toxicities. 'The combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin was associated with QTc prolongation in patients with COVID-19,' the panel said. QTc prolongation increases the risk of sudden cardiac death." SPECIAL BULLETIN: On May 18, President Trump announced he has been taking hydroxychloroquine for the past week and a half. Fox News reported June 15 that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has "revoked the emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine" after finding the two drugs "are unlikely to be effective in treating COVID-19." Rear Admiral Denise Hinton, the FDA's chief scientist, found that hydroxychloroquine's "potential benefits...do not outweigh its known and potential risks." (Blog editor's note: See 7/6 below for more information on the safety of hydroxychloroquine.)

On 4/6

Today's White House briefing

Reacting to a report today from the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general that a survey of 323 hospitals across the country reported serious shortages of tests and protective equipment in the fight against coronavirus and concerns about being able to keep health workers safe, President Trump responded:

"It's just wrong." (60)

The survey also found "severe" shortages of tests and wait times as long as seven days for hospitals. The president berated Fox News reporter Kristin Fisher for asking the question, saying testing has been a success. "You should say, 'Congratulations. Great job' instead of being so horrid." (Update: On May 2, the Washington Post reported that President Trump "moved to replace the top watchdog at the Department of Health and Human Services after her office released a report in April on the shortages in testing and personal protective gear at hospitals.")

On 4/7

Today's White House briefing

President Trump criticized the World Health Organization.

• "They could have called it months earlier. They would have known." (61)

Fox News reported January 30 that the coronavirus outbreak started in China in late December. The World Health Organization and Chinese officials announced the discovery of the virus on January 9. It would have been impossible for the WHO to announce it "months earlier" since the virus had been discovered only a couple weeks before WHO notified member nations. (For (62) see 1/29 above.)

On 4/10

President Trump tweet: "The Invisible Enemy will soon be in full retreat!" (63)

On 4/13

President Trump tweet:

"For the purpose of creating conflict and confusion, some in the Fake News Media are saying that it is the Governors decision to open up the states, not that of the President of the United States & the Federal Government. Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect. (64) It is the decision of the President, and for many good reasons."  FACT CHECK: Bradley Moss, a Washington attorney who specializes in national security law, said, "Quite simply, there is no provision that gives a president 'total' authority, and particularly none in the context of a public health crisis."

From Bob Woodward's book "Rage" published in September: President Trump on April 13: "Bob, it's so easily transmissible, you wouldn't even believe it" and "This thing is a killer if it gets you. If you're the wrong person, you don't have a chance."

On 4/14

From the New York Times:   Recent polls show that more Americans disapprove of Mr. Trump's handling of the virus than approve. So on Tuesday, the president tried to shift the blame elsewhere, ordering his administration to halt funding for the World Health Organization and claiming the organization made a series of devastating mistakes as it sought to battle the virus. He said his administration would conduct a review into whether the W.H.O. was responsible for "severely mismanaging and covering up" the spread. (65)  FACT CHECK: Before President Trump finally implemented nation-wide social distancing on March 16, the World Health Organization warned of the pandemic repeatedly. See 1/9, 1/30, 2/7, 2/23, 3/5, and 3/11 above.

On 4/16

From AXIOS: President Trump told governors on a conference call today that he wants to begin to reopen the U.S. economy on May 1. "You states with beautifully low numbers, let's get your states open and get back to work." Reversing field from his statement three days before that he has "total" authority and the governors can't do anything without his approval, Trump told the governors on a conference call, "You're going to call your own shots."

From Reuters: It took 38 days to reach 10,000 deaths and just nine more days to reach 30,000.

On 4/19

Virginia's Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, called President Trump "delusional" for suggesting there is enough testing capacity for the states to reopen while Maryland's Republican governor, Larry Hogan, called the president's claim "absolutely false." (Note: President Trump would continue to make the false claim that America was prepared through April and May. On April 22 he said, "We're doing more testing, I think, than probably any of the governors even want.")

On 4/22

From the Washington Post:  The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned (on 4/21) that a second wave of the novel coronavirus will be far more dire because it is likely to coincide with the start of flu season. "There's a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through," CDC Director Robert Redfield said in an interview with The Washington Post. "And when I've said this to others, they kind of put their head back, they don't understand what I mean. We're going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time."

President Trump tweet today:  "CDC Director was totally misquoted by Fake News...on Covid 19." (66)

FACT CHECK: When asked at the White House press conference today whether he was accurately quoted, Redfield, with the president standing next to him, replied, "I am accurately quoted in the Washington Post."  Trump on July 19 in an interview on Fox News Sunday said of Redfield's prediction that the pandemic could worsen this fall, "I don't think he knows." (67) (Unfortunately, Dr. Redfield did know. See 11/17 and 12/29 below.)

On 4/23

President Trump at today's White House briefing

"So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous - whether it's ultraviolet or just a very powerful light - and I think you said that hasn't been checked because of the testing. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or some other way and I think you said you're going to test that too. I see the disinfectant that knocks it (coronavirus) out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning. As you see it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that." (68)

From The Washington Post: FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said on CNN, "I certainly wouldn't recommend the internal ingestion of a disinfectant." 

From AXIOS: Roughly 200 adults who responded to a CDC survey in May, 2020 said they intentionally inhaled disinfectants, washed food with bleach or applied household cleaning products to bare skin to combat the virus.

The Sage of Baltimore speaks  "On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." - H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

On 4/24

President Trump received a grim message on a conference call with campaign manager Brad Parscale, who walked the president through recent polls. The results were dreadful. "In February, you were on track to win more than four hundred electoral votes," Parscale told him, saying he had been poised to win even bigger than he won in 2016. "But now you are losing ground everywhere."

Parscale told the president that the pandemic, and public disapproval of his response, had been devastating to his standing among the voting public.

On 4/25

President Trump tweets: We have now Tested more than 5 Million People. That is more than any other country in the World, and even more than all major countries combined! (69)

Hot Air's Allahpundit comments: It's true that the U.S. has tested more than any other country (although not true that we've tested more than all other major countries combined), but the raw numbers of testing don't tell us anything. We're the third most populous country in the world; of course we're going to test more people than most others are. The relevant number is how many we're testing per capita. In that metric we're behind Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Australia, Belgium, even Russia. Even if we were ahead of them, it wouldn't change the fact that most epidemiologists believe we need many more tests per capita to reach a point where we can safely reopen most of the country without fear of a sudden spike.

On 4/28

President Trump at today's White House briefing

From CNBC and TIME: President Donald Trump said Tuesday the U.S. will "very soon" run 5 million coronavirus tests per day, even as the lack of testing remains an obstacle for many states anxious to reopen for business. He said he didn't have the exact date off the top of his head, but "if you look at the numbers, it could be that we're getting very close." Admiral Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary of health who is in charge of the government's testing response, said during an interview on Tuesday morning that "there is absolutely no way on Earth, on this planet or any other planet, that we can do 20 million tests a day, or even five million tests a day."

Five hours later, when a reporter asked Trump at the White House if the country would reach five million daily tests, as (a) Harvard study recommended, Trump responded: "We'll increase it, and it'll increase it by much more than that in the very near future." Asked to clarify if he meant the U.S. would "surpass 5 million tests per day", Trump said, "We're going to be there very soon." (70)  FACT CHECK: The National Review reported June 16 that from May through June, daily testing ranged between 400,000 and 580,000. US News reported that in late July daily testing reached over 822,000 a day but had dropped down to 736,000 by mid-August.

On 4/30

From CNN and National Geographic:  President Donald Trump contradicted a rare on-the-record statement from his own intelligence community by claiming Thursday that he has seen evidence that gives him a "high degree of confidence" the novel coronavirus originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, but declined to provide details to back up his assertion. (71)

"Yes, I have," Trump said when asked whether he's seen evidence that would suggest the virus originated in the lab. Later, asked why he was confident in that assessment, Trump demurred. "I can't tell you that. I'm not allowed to tell you that," he said.

UPDATE: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in a television interview with Breitbart on May 16, said "We know it began in Wuhan, but we don't know from where or from whom." Pompeo conceded the evidence the coronavirus came from "the vicinity" of the Wuhan lab "could be wrong."

On 5/1

President Trump: "The testing and the masks and all of the things, we've solved every problem. We solved it quickly." (72)

Politico reported May 6 that on May 1 President Trump's "own health and emergency management officials were privately warning that states were still experiencing shortages of masks, gowns and other medical gear, according to a recording of an interagency meeting between FEMA and HHS officials across the country, conducted by conference call.  (At a National Nurses Day event in the Oval Office on May 6, Sophia Thomas, president of the National Association of Nurse Practitioners, reported sufficient supplies of personal protective equipment "has been sporadic." She told the president, "I've been reusing my N95 masks for a few weeks now.")

On 5/3

At a Fox News virtual town hall at the Lincoln Memorial

• "We're going to lose anywhere from 75-, 80- to 100,000 people." (73)

Blog Editor's Note: President Trump can't seem to agree with himself on the potential death count in the U.S. from the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 30 and 31 the president agreed with Dr. Fauci's prediction that U.S. coronavirus deaths could reach between 100,000 and 200,000.

On April 10, the president predicted that the projected number of deaths will be "substantially under" 100,000. "I think we will be substantially under that number. Hard to believe that if you had 60,000, you can never be happy, but that's a lot fewer than we were originally told and thinking."

He changed his mind on April 20 when he revised his thinking downward again and said, "We're going toward 50, I'm hearing, or 60,000" dead. "That's at the lower - as you know, the low number was supposed to be 100,000 people. We could end up at 50 to 60. Okay?" But the president then raised the anticipated death total on April 28 to as many as 70,000.

And, then just three days later, on May 1, warned, "Hopefully, we're going to come in under that 100,000 lives lost." But he raised it again on May 8 when he told Fox News, "We'll be at 100,000. 110."

• "You go back, and you take a look at even professionals like Anthony were saying, 'This is no problem.' This was late in February. This is no problem. This is going to blow over." (74)

From CNN: While it is true that Fauci said in late February that Americans did not need to change their behavior patterns at that time, he also clarified that these conditions could change and coronavirus could develop into a major outbreak.

President Trump has used Dr. Fauci as an excuse for his decisions several times. Earlier, on April 28, President Trump explained, "You go back and you take a look at even professionals like Anthony were saying. 'This is no problem.' This was late in February. There is no problem. This is going to blow over.'" Fauci never made those comments.

• "Medically: We had empty cupboards. The cupboards - I say, the cupboards were empty."

David Muir of ABC on May 5: "You're three years into your term. What did you do when you became president to restock those cupboards that you say are bare?"
President Trump: "Well, I'll be honest, uh, I have a lot of things going on."

On 5/11

President Trump's tweet on the day U.S. deaths topped 80,000: "Coronavirus numbers are looking MUCH better, going down almost everywhere. Big progress being made!" (75)

Today's White House briefing in the Rose Garden

From NBC News:  Trump claimed on Monday during a press conference focused on coronavirus testing that Americans "should all be able to get a test right now." (76)  But there's no evidence that the U.S. is testing everyone who wants it. Some counties are able to perform testing on-demand, but many regions are prioritizing symptomatic individuals or requiring doctor's notes to get tests despite the prevalence of asymptomatic transmission.

Admiral Brett Giroir, the Health and Human Services official overseeing testing efforts, said that the states "aspire" to perform more than 12 million tests in the next four weeks. Pressed by a reporter, Giroir countered that "anybody who needs a test" can get one - calling out specifically symptomatic people or those with a confirmed exposure uncovered through contact tracing - but the president again doubled down on his claim.

"If people want to get tested, they get tested," Trump said.

Blog editor's note: For more examples of President Trump misleading the American public on the availability of coronavirus tests, see 3/6, 3/12, 3/30, 4/6, 4/10 and 5/1 above.

On 5/14

From Mediaite: President Donald Trump deployed some bizarre, backwards logic to try to explain away the country's global-leading number of COVID-19 cases in a Tuesday afternoon speech at Allentown, Pennsylvania.

"Don't forget, we have more cases than anybody in the world. But why? We do more testing," Trump said. "When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn't do any testing we would have very few cases." (77)

NOTE: In the interview with CBN News June 22, Trump repeated this fallacy: "So, instead of 25 million tests, let's say we did 10 million tests. We'd look like we were doing much better because we'd have far fewer cases."

So remember kids, if you don't want to get pregnant, don't take a pregnancy test!

On 5/18

President Trump tweets:  "Wow! The Front Page @washingtonpost Headline reads, "A BOOST IN TESTS, BUT LACK OF TAKERS." We have done a great job on Ventilators, Testing, and everything else. Were left little by Obama. Over 11 million tests, and going up fast. More than all countries in the world, combined." (78)

From Aaron Rupar at VOX: The novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19 didn't even exist until nearly three years after Obama left office. So Obama would've had to have been some sort of time traveler to develop coronavirus tests during his term. It's also not even close to true that the US has tested "more than all countries in the world, combined." According to data compiled by Worldometer, while the US leads the world with 11.9 million tests conducted as of May 18, the next three countries on the list - Russia (7.1 million), Germany (3.1 million), and Spain (3 million) - have done more tests together than the US.

Blog editor's note: On July 13, former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney wrote: "I know it isn't popular to talk about in some Republican circles, but we still have a testing problem in this country. My son was tested recently; we had to wait 5 to 7 days for results. That is simply inexcusable at this point in the pandemic." 

On 5/19

From NBC News and U.S. News & World Report:  LONDON - A British medical journal Tuesday rebutted claims by President Donald Trump that the World Health Organization had consistently ignored reports of the virus spreading in China, including ones featured in its publication. In a letter published Monday, Trump's excoriated WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, saying the organization had "failed to independently investigate credible reports that conflicted directly with the Chinese government's official accounts." (79)

The letter accuses WHO of consistently ignoring "credible reports of the virus spreading in Wuhan in early December 2019 or even earlier, including reports from The Lancet medical journal." The journal pushed back against the claim on Tuesday, saying in a statement that it "published no report in December, 2019, referring to a virus or outbreak in Wuhan or anywhere else in China. This statement is factually incorrect."

On 5/27

The United States recorded its 100,000th COVID-19 death today. President Trump made no public statement on the milestone but did retweet Fox News' Lou Dobbs comment that Trump "is arguably the greatest president in our history."

On 6/5

President Trump at the White House

• We could actually close our country, save millions of lives, stop people very early on from China, from coming in, because we stopped early. At the end of January, very early, people coming from China who were infected, coming into our country. That was a very hard decision to make. Nobody, almost nobody wanted me to make it. I would almost say nobody wanted me to make it. But we made that decision.
• When you do more testing, you have more cases. We have more cases than anybody because we do more testing than anybody. It's pretty simple.
• We saved possibly two million, two and a half million lives. Now, it could have been a million lives. I don't think anything less than that. But if you think we're at 105,000 today, that would mean at the lowest number, it would be 10 times that amount.
• We also closed it up to Europe. Europe became very infected from China.
• "We've made every decision correctly." (80)

Blog editor's note: These are mostly false claims the president has made in the past. There was no significant opposition in the United States to his decision to partially close down travel from China. Thousands of people traveling from China have, in fact, entered the United States since his decision to partially close the borders. See 3/31 above. He previously made the false claim about how testing determines the number of cases on 5/14. President Trump made the false claim about closing down all of Europe on 3/11. Trump claimed to have saved millions of lives on 3/31 above and 10/22 below. As of today, the number of U.S. deaths due to COVID-19 is actually 4,000 higher - 109,000 - than President Trump claimed. And the president's decisions have hardly been perfect. The U.S. leads the world in COVID-19 deaths and cases. Australia, South Korea and Canada, with a total population a third of the U.S., have experienced less than 1/10th the number of deaths as the U.S.

On 6/15

From the Independent (UK):  Donald Trump is blaming an uptick in coronavirus cases and hospitalisations solely on an increase in testing rather than his push for governors to reopen their states even as the sometimes-deadly disease continues to spread.

"If we stop testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any," the president said Monday during an event for seniors at the White House. (Note: See similar claims by the president above on 5/14 and 6/5 and 7/14 below.)

On 6/16

Vice President Pence writes an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled "There Isn't a Coronavirus Second Wave," admonishing the media for its pandemic "panic" and said the administration's actions were a "cause for celebration, not the media's fear mongering."

On 6/17

From Fox News:  President Trump declared during an exclusive interview with "Hannity" Wednesday that the coronavirus is "fading away" as states continue to reopen and the president prepares for his first reelection campaign rally in months. "We are starting up and it's going to be very, very strong ... " Trump told host Sean Hannity at the tail end of a discussion of the economy. "We're very close to a vaccine and we're very close to therapeutics, really good therapeutics. But even without that, I don't like to talk about that because it's fading away. It's going to fade away." (81)

On 6/20

President Trump's campaign rally at a Tulsa, Oklahoma indoor arena

From USA Today: President Donald Trump boasted of his administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic and again blamed China for spreading the virus. Coronavirus cases have spiked in several states around the country, including in Oklahoma, the site of the rally. Local health officials had called for the rally to be postponed out of concern about the spread of the virus.

NOTE: Former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain attended the rally and was photographed sitting happily in the crowd not wearing a mask. He subsequently contracted COVID-19 and died on July 30. Gov Kevin Stitt tested positive. And the seven-day rolling average of cases in Tulsa, which stood at 112.1 on June 20, jumped to 253.9 by July 29. 

On 6/23

From the Washington Post: President Trump again referred to the novel coronavirus as "kung flu," eliciting laughter and wild cheers from a young crowd in Arizona on Tuesday. Trump was listing the different names he has heard for the virus, which has killed at least 119,000 Americans, during a speech for the student Republican group Turning Point Action.

"Wuhan. Wuhan was catching on, coronavirus, kung flu," he said, repeating it as the crowd roared.

"It's going away." (82)

On 6/25

President Trump in Wisconsin  "We've done an incredible, historic job."

FACT CHECK: The President is correct. Today, the U.S. recorded a historic number of new COVID-19 cases - 39,327 - the largest ever in U.S. history.

Headline at Drudge Report: United States of Infected

On 7/1

President Trump on Fox Business:  "I think we're gonna be very good with the coronavirus. I think that at some point that's going to sort of just disappear, I hope."

On 7/2

President Trump at the White House press conference

From CNN: Trump claimed that, just like in China and Europe, the situation in the U.S. is "getting under control." He said health experts "continue to address the temporary hot spots in certain cities and counties." And he said "we have some areas where we're putting out the flames or the fires, and that's working out well." (83)

On 7/4

President Trump at the "Salute to America" event at the White House

"There were no tests for a new virus, but now we have tested almost 40 million people. By so doing, we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless." (84)

FACT CHECK: Dr. Anthony Fauci on July 10 commented, "I'm trying to figure out where the president got that number. What I think happened is that someone told him that the general mortality rate is about one percent. And he interpreted, therefore, that 99 percent is not a problem when that's obviously not the case."

On 7/6 and 7/7

President Trump tweet:

• "The highly respected Henry Ford Health System just reported, based on a large sampling, that HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE cut the death rate in certain sick patients very significantly. The Dems disparaged it for political reasons (me!). Disgraceful." (85)

From Bloomberg:  An FDA warning issued July 1 cautioned against use of hydroxychloroquine outside of a trial or hospital "due to risk of heart rhythm problems." The agency revoked its emergency use authorization, or EUA, two weeks earlier "based on recent results from a large, randomized clinical trial in hospitalized patients that found these medicines showed no benefit for decreasing the likelihood of death or speeding recovery." The EUA had been issued in March. (See 3/21 and 4/5 above for more about the safety of hydroxychloroquine. In addition, when President Trump was hospitalized for COVID in early October, his doctors did not give him hydroxychloroquine.)

President Trump tweet:

• "COVID-19 (China Virus) Death Rate PLUNGES From Peak In U.S." A Tenfold Decrease In Mortality. The Washington Times @WashTimes Valerie Richardson. We have the lowest Mortality Rate in the World. The Fake News should be reporting these most important of facts, but they don't!" (86)

From CNN: While U.S. coronavirus mortality rates have declined recently, they are not the lowest in the world. Among the 20 countries most affected by the virus, at least 14 have lower deaths rates than the U.S.  John Hopkins estimates the U.S. fatality rate is 4.5%, the sixth highest worldwide.

President Trump on America and COVID-19:

• "I think we are in a good place." (87)

From Gray Television:  President Trump on Dr. Fauci's comments that the pandemic in U.S. is "really not good."

• "Well, I think we are in a good place. I disagree with him. Dr. Fauci said don't wear masks and now he says wear them. And he said numerous things. Don't close off China. I did it anyway. I didn't listen to my experts and I banned China. We would have been in much worse shape. We've done a good job. I think we are going to be in two, three, four weeks, by the time we next speak, I think we're going to be in very good shape." (88)  

On 7/9

President Trump during Fox News interview

• "Dr. Fauci is a nice man, but he's made a lot of mistakes. A lot of them said don't wear a mask, don't wear a mask. Now they are saying wear a mask. A lot of mistakes were made, a lot of mistakes."

On 7/11

News item: President Trump, for the first time since the pandemic hit America, wears a mask in public.

From CNN: In a statement Saturday, a White House official told CNN that "several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci has been wrong on things." The official went on to provide a lengthy list of examples, citing Fauci's comments early in the pandemic and linking to past interviews. These bullet points, which resembled opposition research on a political opponent, included Fauci downplaying the virus early on and a quote from March when Fauci said, "People should not be walking around with masks," among other comments.

From the Editors of the National Review: This is a ridiculous gambit. The allegations in the circulated memo are largely out of context or overstated, and the doctor has never said anything as wildly unrealistic as Trump's own repeated assurances that the virus is simply going to disappear.

On 7/12

President Trump's retweet: "The most outrageous lies are the ones about Covid 19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust. I think it's all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election."

On 7/14

President Trump at today's White House press conference

• "If we did half the testing, we would have half the cases. If we did another... You cut that in half, we'd have yet again, half of that."

Magical Thinking, White House Style: So if we follow the president's logic, if we want to end COVID-19 or cancer, diabetes or any of the other deadly human ailments in the United States, we simply need to stop testing for them. (Also see 5/14 above for similar claim. For the definition of "magical thinking" see 8/31 below.)

• "But if we had listened to Joe Biden, hundreds of thousands of additional lives would have been lost."

On 7/19

President Trump on Fox News:  "Dr. Fauci said don't wear a mask. Our surgeon general - terrific guy - said don't wear a mask. Everybody was saying don't wear a mask, all of a sudden everybody's got to wear a mask. And as you know, masks cause problems too. With that being said, I am a believer in masks. I think masks are good." (89)  On August 13, President Trump confused the subject even more when he said of masks, "Maybe they are great and maybe they are just good, maybe they are not so good, but frankly, what do you have to lose? You've got nothing to lose." (See 9/3 and 9/16 below for more on the president's position on masks.)

Chris Wallace: "Our mortality rate is higher than Brazil, it's higher than Russia and the European Union has us on a travel ban."

President Trump: "I think we have one of the lowest mortality rates in the world." (90)

Chris Wallace: "That's not true, sir."

FACT CHECK: According to the John Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, as of July 19, the United States' deaths-per-100,000 rate of 42.83 is the third highest in the world, behind only the U.K. and Chile.

On 7/21

President Trump at today's White House briefing

At his first coronavirus briefing since April, President Trump, for the first time ever, admitted the COVID-19 crisis will probably get worse before it gets better.

• "Some areas of our country are doing very well, others are doing less well. It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better. Something I don't like saying about things, but that's the way it is."

Four-year anniversary: On July 21, 2016, candidate Donald Trump stood before the American people at the GOP's national convention and announced: "I alone can fix it."

On 7/23

President Trump at today's White House briefing

From The Daily Beast: After cancelling the Republican National Convention in Florida due to a spike in COVID-19 cases, President Trump could not help but attempt to put a positive spin on the American outbreak, which has risen to more than 4 million cases. "The country is in very good shape other than if you look south and west." (91) 

Schools opening good, GOP convention opening bad:

• "Schools have to open safely, but they have to open."
• "I looked at my team, and I said the timing for this event is not right, just not right with what's happened recently. The flare-up in Florida to have a big convention is not the right time. It's really something that for me, I have to protect the American people. That's what I've always done. That's what I always will do. That's what I'm about."

And more magical thinking: "You look at our mortality rate. You look at our death rate. You look at different statistics. We're doing very well." (See 1/30, 3/12 and 7/21 above for more examples of President Trump claiming America is doing "very well." Go to 8/31 for definition of "magical thinking.")

On 7/27

From CNN: A video featuring a group of doctors making false and dubious claims related to the coronavirus was removed by Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube after going viral Monday. President Trump shared multiple versions of the video with his 84 million Twitter followers Monday night despite the dubious claims running counter to his administration's own public health experts. (92) During the press conference, a speaker who identifies herself as a doctor makes a number of dubious claims, including that "you don't need masks" to prevent spread of the coronavirus, and that recent studies showing hydroxychloroquine is ineffective for the treatment of Covid-19 are "fake science" sponsored by "fake pharma companies." The claims run contrary to multiple studies on the anti-malarial drug and advice from public health officials to prevent spread of the virus. (See 4/5 and 7/6 above for more information on hydroxychloroquine's safety.)

From The Daily Beast: The doctor making these claims, Stella Immanuel, is a pediatrician and a religious minister who has claimed that gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are in fact caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches.

On 8/1

From Politico: President Donald Trump publicly rebuked Dr. Anthony Fauci on Saturday, forcefully rejecting the nation's top infectious disease expert's testimony on why the U.S. has experienced a renewed surge in coronavirus cases. "Wrong!" Trump wrote in a retweet of a video where Fauci explained to a House subcommittee that the U.S. has seen more cases than European countries because it only shut down a fraction of its economy amid the pandemic. "We have more cases because we have tested far more than any other country, 60,000,000. If we tested less, there would be less cases," the president added. Blog editor's note: President Trump continues to confuse the link between testing and COVID-19 cases. See 5/14 and 7/14 above.

On 8/2

In August, 2016, candidate Trump told a campaign rally, "I'm going to be working for you. I'm not going to have time to go golfing, believe me. Believe me, folks." As the U.S. death count passed 96,000 on May 23, President Trump was finally able to get in his first round of golf since declaring a national emergency March 16. As the U.S. death count passed 125,000, President Trump played golf June 26 and 27. As the death toll passed 150,000, President Trump played golf August 1, 2, 7, 8, and 9.  At the GOP National Convention, First Lady Melania Trump told the nation, "Donald will not rest until he has done all he can to take care of everyone impacted by this terrible pandemic."  But on November 15, the day the United States topped 11,000,000 cases, President Trump played golf.  And on November 21, the day President Trump skipped the G-20 session, "Pandemic Preparedness and Response," he also played golf. (See 11/28 below for more on Trump/COVID/golf.) 

On 8/3

From AXIOS:

President Trump: "You know, there are those that say you can test too much, you do know that." (93)

Jonathan Swan: "Who says that?"

Trump: "Oh, just read the manuals. Read the books."

Swan: "Manuals? What manuals?"

Trump: "Read the books. Read the books."

Swan: "What books?"

Trump moved on without offering a direct answer. And then:

Trump: "Right now, I think it's under control. I'll tell you what..."

Swan: "How? A thousand Americans are dying a day."

Trump: "They are dying, that's true. And you ha- It is what it is."

Tweet from President Trump encouraging schools to reopen: "Cases up because of BIG Testing!  Much of our Country is doing very well." (94)

On 8/5

From Facebook and Twitter: Facebook and Twitter have removed posts from President Donald Trump's page and Team Trump site, respectively, for posting false claims about Covid-19. The posts were a video of an interview the President gave to Fox News on Wednesday morning. Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone said the specific comments that had run afoul of Facebook's rules were Trump's false claims about children being almost immune to the virus. (95)  (See 9/29 below for more about the threat to children and the young.)  

And from Bob Woodward's book "Rage" published in September: President Trump told Woodward on March 7 that the threat of COVID-19, "It's just not old, older.  Young people, too. Plenty of young people."  

On 8/9

Today the United States reaches 5 million cases of COVID-19. With less than 5 percent of the world's population, we have more than 25 percent of infections and more than 20 percent of deaths.

From CNN:  Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates said it's "mind-blowing" that the U.S. government has been unable to ramp up its ability to provide rapid coronavirus diagnostic tests months into the outbreak. "You're paying billions of dollars in this very inequitable way to get the most worthless test results of any country in the world."

From TIME:  An American Nurses Associations survey from late July and early August found that of 21,000 U.S. nurses polled, 42% reported either widespread or intermittent shortages in personal protective equipment (PPE) like masks, gloves and medical gowns.

On 8/17

From the Washington Post: "You've seen what's going on in New Zealand?" President Trump said of the island nation, which went months without any new covid-19 cases. "Big surge in New Zealand. It's terrible. We don't want that." (96)  New Zealand has seen the virus return this month - but on Monday, it recorded just nine new cases. The United States has recently averaged around 50,000 new cases each day.

From PolitiFact: At an event in Oshkosh, Wis., President Donald Trump said the country was "doing great" in the fight against the coronavirus. "We're coming back and our numbers are better than almost all countries." (97)  PolitiFact Truth-O-Meter: FALSE

On 8/22

President Trump at the Council for National Policy: "And we're on track to develop the most incredible, from a standpoint of time - record time - vaccines. We have vaccines. You'll be reading about them very soon.  Way, way ahead of schedule. Years ahead of schedule." Note: See 8/27 below.

President Trump exposes plot against him (within his own administration) to thwart his promise: "The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. (98) Must focus on speed, and saving lives! "

On 8/23

President Trump tweeted: "So now the Democrats are using Mail Drop Boxes, which are a voter security disaster...They are not Covid sanitized." (99)

Twitter responded: "We placed a public interest notice on this Tweet for violating our Civic Integrity Policy for making misleading health claims that could potentially dissuade people from participation in voting."

From Fox News and the Associated Press: President Trump on Sunday granted an emergency authorization for the usage of convalescent plasma to treat coronavirus patients, dubbing it a "major breakthrough." Speaking to reporters from the White House Sunday, Trump said the FDA has "issued an emergency use authorization... for a treatment known as convalescent plasma."

From Bloomberg Politics: Trump said, "It has proven to reduce mortality by 35%. That's a tremendous number." (100) Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn made similar remarks touting the 35% benefit.

But the data don't actually show that.  The 35% statistic...has several fatal flaws. Since everyone in the program received blood plasma, it's not known what would have happened compared with patients who didn't get the therapy. And scores of variables, like how sick the patients were and when they were treated -- that could have skewed the results.

From the Associated Press: Two days later, on August 25, Dr. Hahn changed his tune. "Responding to an outcry from medical experts, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn on Tuesday apologized for overstating the life-saving benefits of treating COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma. That claim vastly overstated preliminary findings of Mayo Clinic observations. "I have been criticized for remarks I made Sunday night about the benefits of convalescent plasma. The criticism is entirely justified. What I should have said better is that the data show a relative risk reduction not an absolute risk reduction," Hahn tweeted.

Blog editor's note: When President Trump was hospitalized with COVID in early October, his doctors did not give him convalescent plasma.

On 8/25

• President Trump praises China...1/24, 1/30, 2/4 and 2/7 

President Trump blames Dr. Anthony Fauci...7/7, 7/9, 7/11, 8/1 and 10/19

President Trump blames President Obama...3/5, 3/13, 3/26, 4/1, 5/3, 5/18 and 9/15

President Trump blames Joe Biden...7/14 and 9/15

President Trump blames "deep state"...9/24

President Trump blames Bob Woodward...9/10

President Trump blames "the blue states"...9/16

President blames CDC, media, Democrats and "our Doctors"...7/12, 10/24 and 1/3/21

President Trump blames the World Health Organization...4/7, 4/14 and 5/19

• Also, WHO warns the world...1/9, 1/30, 2/7, 2/23, 3/5 and 3/11

"Anthony (said) 'This is no problem'"...5/3

"Nobody thought this could happen"...3/16, 3/19 and 3/26

"I don't take responsibility"...3/13

President Trump's 16 dumbest COVID quotes

On 1/24/20 - "It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American people, I want to thank President Xi!"

On 2/10 - "You know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat - as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April."

On 3/24 - "I'd love to have it open by Easter...I would love to have the country, opened up and just raring to go by Easter. You'll have packed churches all over our country."

On 3/29 - Alleging a large number of masks were being stolen from New York hospitals: "How do you go from 10 to 20 (thousand masks being used) to 300,000? Are they going out the back door?"  Commented Jonah Goldberg at National Review: "Perhaps - just perhaps - the increased volume of masks being used is correlated with the emergence of a runaway, highly contagious pandemic?"

On 4/23 - "So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous - whether it's ultraviolet or just a very powerful light - and I think you said that hasn't been checked because of the testing. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or some other way and I think you said you're going to test that too. I see the disinfectant that knocks it (coronavirus) out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning. As you see it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that."

On 5/3 - "We're going to lose anywhere from 75-, 80- to 100,000 people."

On 5/14 - "Don't forget, we have more cases than anybody in the world. But why? We do more testing. When you test, you have a case. If we didn't do any testing we would have very few cases." Blog editor comment: So remember kids, if you don't want to get pregnant, don't take a pregnancy test!

On 7/14 - "If we had listened to Joe Biden, hundreds of thousands of additional lives would have been lost."

On 7/23 - "The country is in very good shape other than if you look south and west."

On 8/23 - "So now the Democrats are using Mail Drop Boxes, which are a voter security disaster...They are not Covid sanitized."

On 8/31 - "We've done a great job on Covid but we don't get the credit."

On 10/8 - "And, remember this, when you catch it, you get better." Blog editor comment: Except for the more than 400,000 Americans who did not get better while he was president.

On 10/12 - "I have such respect for the people of this country, the way they've handled (the pandemic). It's been an incredible love fest together."

On 10/24 - "That's all I hear about now. That's all I hear. Turn on television-'Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid.' A plane goes down. 500 people dead, they don't talk about it. 'Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid.' By the way, on November 4, you won't hear about it anymore."

On 10/30: Commenting on how the COVID death count is actually exaggerated. "Our doctors are very smart people. So what they do is they say, 'I'm sorry but everybody dies of COVID.'"

And on 11/2, the day before the election - "We are rounding the turn. Just remember that."  Fact check: On the day he said this the 7-day average of COVID deaths in the U.S. was 836. On President Trump's last day in office, two-and-a-half months later, the 7-day average of COVID deaths was 3,015.

10 Key Questions the Blog Answers

• How early in the pandemic was President Trump warned repeatedly of the threat of the coronavirus? (See January, 2020 posts above.)

• How effective was Trump's travel ban on China and Europe in stopping the pandemic? (See 3/31 and 9/20 above)

• Who did President Trump blame for the crisis? (See "Index of Blame and Excuses")

• How will history judge Trump's leadership during the pandemic? (See 1/17/21 and 1/19/21)

• Did President Trump actually lose touch with reality during the past year? (See "President Trump's 16 dumbest COVID quotes.")

• How did the pandemic ultimately affect the outcome of the 2020 presidential election? (See 4/24, 11/7 and 11/8)

• Did President Trump, in effect, resign from his presidential duties - particularly in the battle against COVID - after the Nov. 3 election? (See 11/16 thru 1/19/2021)

• Was President Trump's refusal to accept both his re-election defeat and the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic two sides of the same coin? (See 12/12)

• What COVID-related lie did President Trump repeat most often? (See "President Donald J. Trump's COVID-19 Legacy")

• When was President Trump most honest and candid about the pandemic threat to the U.S.? (See 11/21)