Acknowledging Congressional Demands, Trump Says WH Ready To Spend More On Coronavirus

US President Donald Trump holds a news conference with members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) on the COVID-19 outbreak at the White House on February 26, 2020. - US President Donald Trump on W... US President Donald Trump holds a news conference with members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) on the COVID-19 outbreak at the White House on February 26, 2020. - US President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his administration's response to the novel coronavirus, lashing the media for spreading panic as he conducts an evening news conference on the epidemic. (Photo by Eric BARADAT / AFP) (Photo by ERIC BARADAT/AFP via Getty Images) MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he was ready to acquiesce to congressional demands and use billions more to fight coronavirus than he had originally requested for the effort.

The White House on Monday asked for $2.5 billion to fight the virus — half of which would have been re-directed from other, already-allocated sources like a fund to fight the Ebola virus.

After angry legislators said the White House wasn’t taking the coronavirus threat seriously enough, Trump, flanked at a press conference by members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, seemed to acknowledge that he’d lowballed the first ask.

“We’ll take it. If they want to give more, we’ll do more,” he said of Congress. “We’re going to spend whatever is appropriate. Hopefully we’re not going to have to spend so much because we really think we’ve done a great job in keeping it down to a minimum.”

He added: “Some Republicans would like us to get four [billion] and some Democrats would like us to get eight-and-a-half. We’ll be satisfied whatever it is.”

Still, the President managed to downplay the risk of the virus to an extent that clashed with public health experts in his administration. Some of his remarks Wednesday displayed downright ignorance of the situation.

“We’ve stopped non-U.S. citizens from coming into America from China,” he said at one point — which the Obama White House’s Ebola virus czar, Ronald Klain, pointed out was untrue.

Coronavirus, Trump said, was “like a flu” — that’s wrong, and echoed the mistake Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf made during congressional testimony, when he claimed the fatality rates for the flu and coronavirus were both around 2 percent. In reality, the flu’s fatality rate is around 0.1 percent.

Separately, Trump claimed a vaccine for the virus was being “rapidly” developed — without noting that, as the National Institutes of Health official Anthony Fauci later said, a vaccine would be 12 to 18 months away.

Health Secretary Alex Azar said of coronavirus, “The degree of risk has the potential to change quickly.”

Trump characterized it a little differently.

“Now, it may get bigger, it may get a little bigger, it may not get bigger at all,” he said. “we’ll see what happens. But regardless of what happens, we’re totally prepared.”

Latest News

Notable Replies

  1. And the old fool on the hill just makes things worse.
    Do Jared or Ivanka even appear behind him when he pulls this shit?

  2. “Trump said Wednesday that he was ready to acquiesce to congressional demands and use billions more to fight coronavirus…”

    “But I would like you to do us a favor first…”

  3. Wow…an acknowledgement of reality…at least sort of. Of course, he had to cover all the bases…‘Now, it may get bigger, it may get a little bigger, it may not get bigger at all…’. Ooooh, the stable genius has spoken. Anyone who feels reassured by this clown and his cohorts…sorry, anything I come up with is either profane or just simply rude. I must be getting a little cranky this afternoon.

  4. Avatar for tao tao says:

    Yup. More money to divert to wall.

  5. The ironic thing is that it will be mostly Trump supporters who refuse to take the vaccine when it is finally available, and the virus will take out the old people who lean more towards Republicans. By sitting on their asses they are laying the foundation of the destruction of their base. They should be terrified of what’s coming if it gets loose here.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

72 more replies

Participants

Avatar for valgalky23 Avatar for becca656 Avatar for horrido Avatar for progress Avatar for bonvivant Avatar for left_in_washington_state Avatar for tao Avatar for califdemdreamer Avatar for darrtown Avatar for kimaanderson Avatar for khyber900 Avatar for dannydorko Avatar for katscherger Avatar for euglena4056 Avatar for drtv Avatar for moniker Avatar for bcgister Avatar for greenman66 Avatar for inthesedays Avatar for rascal_crone Avatar for haddockbranzini Avatar for thomaspaine Avatar for Hatmama Avatar for Texas_Aggie

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: