It turns out President Donald Trump made even more private comments acknowledging the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic to reporter Bob Woodward back in April.
On Monday night, CNN released clips of Trump’s phone conversation with Woodward regarding COVID-19 on April 13 in which the President asserted that “this thing is a killer if it gets you.”
“If you’re the wrong person, you don’t have a chance,” Trump told the reporter.
In another clip of the conversation, the President said COVID-19 “rips you apart” and described the virus as “the plague.”
Twitter users pointed out that Trump made the comments three days after he claimed that the virus “will soon be in full retreat!” and four days before he called on the right-wingers protesting stay-at-home orders to “LIBERATE” Minnesota, Michigan, and Virginia.
The new recordings further fuel the scandal surrounding Trump’s private remarks to Woodward as the journalist was working on his book, “Rage,” in which the President admitted in February that the virus was “deadly stuff” even while publicly downplaying the pandemic. In March, Trump told Woodward he “wanted to always play it down.”
After revelations of Trump’s comments emerged last week, the President claimed he had purposefully downplayed the virus to the public in order to prevent “panic.”
Listen to CNN’s clips below:
In a newly released tape, Trump privately tells Bob Woodward in April that COVID-19 "is a killer if it gets you." pic.twitter.com/Jiib9GJqwz
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) September 15, 2020
I’m still here waiting for the magic show. I was told that it would disappear.
Not much “hoax” there.
While Trump lied to the public for months, Bob Woodward decided repeatedly, over those same months, not to air Trump’s private comments.
Those defending Bob may not be thinking about how they could have used Trump’s comments against him – and not for mere political advantage but to help save hundreds of thousands of lives.
It will, after a safe and effective vaccine is developed.
Once again, the President’s unfitness for office is completely clear. The Vice President, and his false religion that he wears openly, is also unfit. This also shows why the Republican Party needs to go - they had the authority (and mandate) to protect this Nation, and did nothing but attempt to use the President as a font for the enactment of their radical right-wing policies. We are at 195,000 US fatalities, with an estimate of 115,500 due to the President’s inaction. The fact that he knew what was happening only makes this worse. How these deaths are not criminal is something I don’t understand.
Murderer