President Trump repeatedly dodged a question about whether he asked officials to “slow down” coronavirus testing.
Trump, in a Monday interview with Joe St. George, a Washington correspondent for Scripps, was pressed on his claim during a weekend rally that he urged testing to be slowed down. The reporter asked if it meant somebody watching the interview would not be getting a test.
“We do more testing than any country in the world by far. Twenty-five million tests. Other countries do 1 million. Every time you do a test, as you do more tests, it shows more and more cases,” Trump said in the interview. “If other countries aren’t doing, or if we did slow it down, we wouldn’t show nearly as many cases. You’re showing people that are asymptomatic. You’re showing people that have very little problem. You’re showing young people that don’t have a problem, but we’re doing so much testing, 25 million tests.”
VIDEO: Just asked President Trump if he actually ordered testing to be slowed down. He said in his Saturday speech he did. He didn’t answer the direct question. pic.twitter.com/aDKGu6F2Ok
— Joe St. George (@JoeStGeorge) June 22, 2020
St. George interjected and asked if Trump asked his administration to “slow it down.”
“If it did slow down, frankly, I think we’re way ahead of ourselves, if you want to know the truth. We’ve done too good a job because every time we go out, with 25 million tests, you’re going to find more people,” the president responded, noting that more testing results in more positive cases.
Trump, during his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday, said he told “my people” to “slow the testing down, please” because of the high volume of positive cases.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro insisted the president was joking.
“Come on, now, Jake. You know it was tongue-in-cheek,” Navarro said, in a Sunday morning interview on CNN’s State of the Union with Jake Tapper. “Come on, now. That was tongue-in-cheek, please.”
More than 2.2 million people in the United States have been infected by the virus, and at least 120,000 COVID-19 patients have died.
