Trump Pivots From Push for Less COVID-19 Testing: It Was Said ‘Sarcastically’
President Donald Trump is backpedaling to retract his remarks made about slowing down coronavirus testing. On Thursday evening, Trump sat down for a town hall with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. The president discussed the…
President Donald Trump is backpedaling to retract his remarks made about slowing down coronavirus testing.
On Thursday evening, Trump sat down for a town hall with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. The president discussed the debacle stemming from his remarks where he suggested slowing down COVID-19 testing would lower the infection rate.
The president claimed slowing down testing would not be “the right thing to do.”
“Sometimes I jokingly say, or sarcastically say, if we didn’t do tests we would look great,” Trump said. “But you know what? It’s not the right thing to do.”
See Trump’s remarks below starting at the 14:20 mark:
Trump’s remarks on Thursday came days after his remarks during the campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
At the time, the president referred to the coronavirus as the “Kung flu” and “Chinese virus,” before saying, “Testing is a double-edged sword. We’ve tested now 25 million people. It’s probably 20 million people more than anybody else.”
He later added, “Here’s the bad part. When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people. You’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.”