'Play it down': Trump admits to concealing the true threat of coronavirus in new Woodward book
"This is deadly stuff," Trump told Woodward on February 7.In a series of interviews with Woodward, Trump revealed that he had a surprising level of detail about the threat of the virus earlier than previously known. "Pretty amazing," Trump told Woodward, adding that the coronavirus was maybe five times "more deadly" than the flu.
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...in early February, Trump told Woodward he knew how deadly the virus was, and in March, admitted he kept that knowledge hidden from the public.
"I wanted to always play it down," Trump told Woodward on March 19, even as he had declared a national emergency over the virus days earlier. "I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic."
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When Woodward spoke to Trump on February 7, two days after he was acquitted on impeachment charges by the Senate, Woodward expected a lengthy conversation about the trial. He was surprised, however, by the President's focus on the virus. At the same time that Trump and his public health officials were saying the virus was "low risk," Trump divulged to Woodward that the night before he'd spoken to Chinese President Xi Jinping about the virus. Woodward quotes Trump as saying, "We've got a little bit of an interesting setback with the virus going in China."
"It goes through the air," Trump said. "That's always tougher than the touch. You don't have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that's how it's passed. And so that's a very tricky one. That's a very delicate one. It's also more deadly than even your strenuous flus."
But Trump spent most of the next month saying that the virus was "very much under control" and that cases in the US would "disappear." Trump said on his trip to India on February 25 that it was "a problem that's going to go away," and the next day he predicted the number of US cases "within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero."
By March 19, when Trump told Woodward he was purposely downplaying the dangers to avoid creating a panic, he also acknowledged the threat to young people. "Just today and yesterday, some startling facts came out. It's not just old, older. Young people too, plenty of young people," Trump said.
Publicly, however, Trump has continued to insist just the opposite, saying as recently as August 5 that children were "almost immune."
Even into April, when the US became the country with the most confirmed cases in the world, Trump's public statements contradicted his acknowledgements to Woodward. At an April 3 coronavirus task force briefing, Trump was still downplaying the virus and stating that it would go away. "I said it's going away and it is going away," he said. Yet two days later on April 5, Trump again told Woodward, "It's a horrible thing. It's unbelievable," and on April 13, he said, "It's so easily transmissible, you wouldn't even believe it."
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Woodward writes that Coats "continued to harbor the secret belief, one that had grown rather than lessened, although unsupported by intelligence proof, that Putin had something on Trump." Woodward continues, writing that Coats felt, "How else to explain the president's behavior? Coats could see no other explanation."
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Woodward reveals new details on the early warnings Trump received -- and often ignored.
In a January 28 top secret intelligence briefing, national security adviser Robert O'Brien gave Trump a "jarring" warning about the virus, telling the President it would be the "biggest national security threat" of his presidency. Trump's head "popped up," Woodward writes.
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At that time, there were fewer than a dozen reported coronavirus cases in the US.
Nevertheless, Trump continued to publicly downplay the danger of the virus.
"Presidents are the executive branch. There was a duty to warn. To listen, to plan, and to take care," Woodward writes. But in the days following the January 28 briefing, Trump used high-profile appearances to minimize the threat and, Woodward writes, "to reassure the public they faced little risk."
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"The virus has nothing to do with me," Trump told Woodward in their final interview in July. "It's not my fault. It's — China let the damn virus out."
Trump's conscious downplaying of the coronavirus is one of numerous revelations in "Rage."
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...After Mattis left the administration, he and Coats discussed whether they needed to take "collective action" to speak out publicly against Trump.
[Those "discussions" did not result in "collective action" to warn America. How come, Coats? Mattis has spoken out. You aided and abetted treason you fucking disgusting motherfucking piece of traitorous cowardly shit.]
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Woodward writes that Coats and his top staff members "examined the intelligence as carefully as possible," and that Coats still questions the relationship between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Coats saw how extraordinary it was for the president's top intelligence official to harbor such deep suspicions about the president's relationship with Putin. But he could not shake them."
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Trump's son-in-law and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner also weighs in with some unusual literary insights about his father-in-law. Kushner is quoted as saying that four texts are key to understanding Trump, including "Alice in Wonderland." Kushner paraphrased the Cheshire Cat: "If you don't know where you're going, any path will get you there."
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Woodward writes that Coats and his top staff members "examined the intelligence as carefully as possible," and that Coats still questions the relationship between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Coats saw how extraordinary it was for the president's top intelligence official to harbor such deep suspicions about the president's relationship with Putin. But he could not shake them."
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Trump's son-in-law and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner also weighs in with some unusual literary insights about his father-in-law. Kushner is quoted as saying that four texts are key to understanding Trump, including "Alice in Wonderland." Kushner paraphrased the Cheshire Cat: "If you don't know where you're going, any path will get you there."
