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Washington:
US President Donald Trump insisted Thursday that he by no means lied to Americans in regards to the risks of coronavirus after a bombshell new guide by journalist Bob Woodward revealed that he intentionally tried to downplay the disaster.
Trump’s taped admission to Woodward that he minimized the pandemic in public, whereas being conscious of the distinctive hazard from Covid-19, has set off alarm bells lower than eight weeks earlier than election day.
Asked bluntly at a swiftly organized White House press convention “Why did you lie to the American people?” Trump responded: “I didn’t lie.”
The Republican, who’s down within the polls towards Democrat Joe Biden and faces overwhelming disapproval from Americans on his dealing with of the coronavirus disaster, insisted that he’d softened the hazards in public in order to protect calm.
“I think we did a great job, Trump said. “I do not need to leap up and down and begin screaming ‘Death! Death!'”
But Trump has been thrown onto the defense after multiple excerpts and recordings from Woodward’s book “Rage” were released on Wednesday.
That night he pushed back with a call-in to his friend, Fox News personality Sean Hannity. Early Thursday, he followed up with a Fox News Radio interview focused on his nomination by a right-wing member of Norway’s parliament for the Nobel Peace Prize.
He then fired dozens of tweets in wildly random directions through the day, from extolling the “good well being” of North Korean strongman Kim Jong Un to criticizing Woodward and retweeting a fan whose dress he admired at a recent election rally.
Trump was to continue his PR blitz with another rally in Michigan later Thursday.
Revelations
“Rage” is filled with startling episodes, including the assessment by Trump’s then director of national intelligence, the respected Dan Coats, that the president “does not know the distinction between the reality and a lie.”
But the segments in which Trump candidly discusses the coronavirus pandemic — which has by now killed almost 2,00,000 Americans — are getting the most attention.
Despite openly describing to Woodward the scary characteristics of the then unknown virus, including the fact that it is transmitted by air, Trump said “I needed to at all times play it down.”
Trump went on to explain to Woodward that he wanted to avoid causing panic. However, his acknowledgement that he was deliberately failing to tell the country the unvarnished truth has started a firestorm.
“He knew how lethal it was,” Biden said Wednesday. “He lied to the American folks. He knowingly and willingly lied in regards to the menace it posed to the nation for months.”
Can’t shoot the messenger
Trump usually fights criticism by blaming what he calls “the faux information” and claiming that unnamed sources commonly used in White House reporting don’t exist.
But shoot the messenger won’t work in the case of “Rage.” The shocking revelations rely mostly on Trump himself and Woodward — famous for bringing down Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal — has published recordings.
In one dig at Woodward on Thursday, Trump tweeted that if the legendary reporter thought that the quotes were “so dangerous or harmful, why did not he instantly report them in an effort to save lots of lives?”
“Because he knew they had been good and correct solutions. Calm, no panic!” Trump argued.
Quite why Trump would grant Woodward so much access in an election year, however, is a question many in Washington are asking. The reporter got 18 interviews with the president and was entirely open about them being put on tape.
“I did it out of curiousity,” was Trump’s explanation Thursday.
According to White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, Trump went ahead “as a result of he’s probably the most clear president in historical past.”
Trump, who has a lifetime experience in salesmanship and performing on television, has indeed set a new record for his unprecedented number of press conferences and impromptu question-and-answer sessions.
But the performances often leave his own staff scrambling in damage limitation mode, like when he mused at a press conference about the possible benefits of injecting Covid-19 patients with bleach.
In the final run before November 3 election day, aides and allies are again gritting their teeth.
“Honestly, (Woodward’s) entry to the White House might be one thing that I might not have really useful had I been within the chief of workers position early on,” Trump’s current chief of staff, Mark Meadows, told Fox News.
Karl Rove, the Republican campaign mastermind in the George W. Bush era, had this warning for the incumbent: “If the president is not centered…, the occupant of the Oval Office is ready to alter.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
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