He wasn’t kidding.
Administration officials have tried to characterize President Trump’s statement Saturday that he wanted to “slow the testing down” for the Covid-19 coronavirus as a kind of off-key joke.
White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, said on Monday that his comments had been “in jest” — and that Trump “has not directed” that testing be slowed.
But as he left Tuesday morning for an appearance in Arizona, where the number of infections has jumped dramatically in recent days, Trump stopped to answer a reporter’s question: was he just kidding about the testing?
“I don’t kid,” he said.
Then he launched into a rambling, barely coherent lecture about the millions of tests that have been conducted across the country — the “greatest testing program anywhere in the world,” he said — while once again calling such testing “a double-edged sword” since more tests inevitably find more virus cases, CNN reported.
He didn’t say whether he has actually ordered the testing rate reduced.
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) is asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to find out for sure.
“It is critical, especially during a national crisis that decisions impacting the lives and livelihoods of all Americans be devoid of political interference, and even perceived political interference,” Harris wrote Tuesday to FEMA director Peter Gaynor.
So Trump’s pattern continues: it seems that every time he speaks about the pandemic and testing for the virus, he raises more questions than he answers.
Meanwhile, the number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. is on the rise again, while in Europe, where most countries have been more cautious about reopening, the number of new cases has fallen dramatically from its peak earlier this spring.
“As coronavirus cases surge in the U.S. South and West, health experts in countries with falling case numbers are watching with a growing sense of alarm and disbelief, with many wondering why virus-stricken U.S. states continue to reopen and why the advice of scientists is often ignored,” reports the Washington Post.
“It really does feel like the U.S. has given up,” an infectious-disease specialist in New Zealand told the Post. New Zealand has confirmed only three new cases over the past three weeks.
“It’s hard to see how this ends,” said infectious disease expert Siouxsie Wiles. She added that in the U.S., “There are just going to be more and more people infected, and more and more deaths. It’s heartbreaking.”
The Johns Hopkins Covid-19 Tracker shows that as of Tuesday, there have been more than 2.3 million cases in the U.S. and 120,451 people have died.