On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” President Donald Trump responded to audio of him saying he downplayed the severity of the coronavirus by stating that he is “a cheerleader for this country, and I don’t want to see panic.” And that 2020 Democratic presidential nominee former Vice President Joe Biden was “way late. Pelosi was way, way late, and I was, at the end of January, far ahead of everybody.” Because he banned travel from China.
Trump said, “[I]f you look at what I said today, I said, don’t panic. We don’t want to be jumping up and down and going wild, don’t panic. I’m a cheerleader for this country, and I don’t want to see panic. … But, as far as the timing is concerned, I did something very important, as you know, at the end of January, I banned China. Because the people from China — because they were heavily infected, and I had a lot of people, including Dr. Fauci — and I don’t say that with disrespect, that’s really what he believed, but a lot of people believed that, that we shouldn’t ban them, there was no reason to ban them, and Biden was going around for many, many weeks after that saying it’s not even going to be a problem. … And they were all going around, no problem, no problem — everybody, practically everybody. Nobody had any idea it would be as violent as it turned out to be.”
He later added, “I want to show a calmness. I’m the leader of the country. I can’t be jumping up and down and scaring people. I don’t want to scare people. I want people not to panic, and that’s exactly what I did. And if you look at the representatives of Joe Biden, you see what they were saying. They were saying, no problem, this won’t be a problem. He didn’t think it was going to be a problem until months later. He was way late. Pelosi was way, way late, and I was, at the end of January, far ahead of everybody. Because I did something nobody wanted me to do.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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