On Wednesday, president Trump defended his decision to downplay the severity of the coronavirus to the American people, saying that the ensuing panic would have only exacerbated the oncoming pandemic.
“I’m a cheerleader for this country,” he told reporters during an unrelated White House briefing. “I don’t want people to be frightened. I don’t want to create panic. “We want to show confidence. We want to show strength. We want to show strength as a nation. And that’s what I’ve done.”Trump acknowledged to Washington Post editor Bob Woodward in an interview for his upcoming book that he “wanted to always play it [the coronavirus] down” publicly, even as he conceded a grave outlook behind the scenes, according to excerpts released on Wednesday. “We don’t want to jump up and down and start shouting that we have a problem that is a tremendous problem, scare everyone,” Trump said in the briefing. He also presented the public calm as a strategy to prevent price-gouging and ensure that America was able to stockpile masks, gowns and other needed supplies.
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