Former President Donald Trump is weighing in on the “explosion” of COVID-19 cases.
“Well, first of all, could you imagine if I were president right now and we had this massive attack from the coronavirus, you know, now they like to call it, they have new names and they have other new names, but it’s exactly what we had, we had the same thing,” Trump said during Saturday’s interview with Fox News contributor Dan Bongino.
He continued, “If that were me, they would say ‘what a horrible thing, what a horrible job.’ These are numbers in some cases that are equivalent to what it was, but we don’t hear that.”
Trump was criticized for his response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Noting he is a “big fan” of the vaccine against the coronavirus, the former president said, “At the same time, I’m a fan of our freedoms and people have to make that choice for themselves and I would recommend they get it and get it done and they’re being protected and the vaccines turned out to be a tremendous thing and I also though feel strongly here are some people who do not want to do it and I really believe in somebody’s choice, somebody’s freedom and that’s the way it is.”
Listen to Trump’s interview below:
Trump: Could you imagine if I were President right now and we had this massive attack from the Coronavirus. You know they like to call it the, they have new names and they’ll have other new names but it’s exactly what we had. pic.twitter.com/HwAqce3S60
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 8, 2021
Yeah imagine if Trump was president during the coronavirus pandemic, guess we’ll all just have to use our imaginations. https://t.co/lZoIOO9Xzl
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) August 8, 2021
In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic.
The U.S. has reported more than 1.4 million COVID-19 cases in total so far. The country saw its highest number of positive COVID-19 cases reported daily in January 2021 and mid-April 2021. More than 26,000 deaths related to the virus have been reported in the U.S.
Now, the U.S. is dealing with a resurgence of COVID-19 cases.
In late July, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said the delta variant is believed to make up majority of all sequenced COVID-19 cases in the U.S.
As of Sunday afternoon, over 166 million Americans are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, which is 50.1% of the population, according to the CDC.