President Trump has admitted to deliberately understating the severity of COVID-19 when addressing the public.

“I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic,” Trump said on March 19 in an interview with journalist Bob Woodward. The president later said that he didn’t want people to be frightened, and that “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.”

While Trump’s desire to avoid panicking the American people is justified, his portrayal of the coronavirus is not. He told America that the coronavirus was “very much under control” when it was not. He urged them not to worry, only to later admit to knowing the virus was deadly. Trump’s statements about the coronavirus dangerously minimized the seriousness of the situation in the United States and misled many Americans.

“Trump admitted he deliberately played down coronavirus threat: Reports,” Ben Gittleson. ABC News.