White House chief of staff Mark Meadows doubled down on President Trump’s baseless claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless” during an interview on “Fox and Friends” Monday morning.
During a Fourth of July event Saturday at the White House, the President insisted without evidence that 99% of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless” due to testing almost 40 million people for the viral disease. The next morning, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn repeatedly dodged when pressed on Trump’s claim during an interview on CNN, saying that that he’s “not going to get into who is right and who is wrong.”
COVID-19 cases have continued to spike nationwide as the country’s seven-day average for daily new cases hit a record high for the 27th straight day on Sunday.
Meadows then argued that “when you start to look at the stats and look at all the numbers we have,” as well as testing totals in the country, “the vast majority of people are safe from this.”
Meadows also said that those who are at high risk of contracting COVID-19 — such as the elderly or those with underlying conditions such as co-morbidities, diabetes, hypertension and heart issues — should be extra careful.
“Outside of that, the risks are extremely low and the President is right with that and the facts and statistics back us up there,” Meadows said.
Watch Meadows’ remarks below:
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows responds to Trump's claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are "harmless" pic.twitter.com/fZc0jAkGzg
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) July 6, 2020
