The media are claiming that President Donald Trump called the coronavirus a “hoax” while speaking at a campaign event in South Carolina on Friday.
But video of Trump’s remarks show otherwise.
What are critics saying?
Dana Milbank, a Washington Post syndicated columnist, outright claimed Trump called the disease a “hoax.”
Remember this moment: Trump, in South Carolina, just called the coronavirus a "hoax."
— Dana Milbank (@Milbank) February 29, 2020
Several media outlets then followed suit with whole stories dedicated to the claim.
- Politico: Trump rallies his base to treat coronavirus as a ‘hoax’
- NBC News: Trump calls coronavirus Democrats’ ‘new hoax’
- CNBC: Trump says the coronavirus is the Democrats’ ‘new hoax’
Joe Biden even seized on the claim as an opportunity to bash the president.
“Some of the stuff he says is so bizarre that you can laugh at it. It just so diminishes the faith that people around the world have in the United States,” Biden said. “The president of the United States says it’s a hoax? It’s hard to believe. Even for him it’s hard to believe.”
What did Trump actually say?
As TheBlaze reported, Trump did not call coronavirus itself a “hoax.”
Rather, he told supporters that Democrats are “politicizing” the disease and using it as another opportunity to attack him, alleging that he has somehow done something wrong in managing the U.S. response to the global outbreak.
Trump said:
Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs, you say, “How’s President Trump doing?” They go, “Oh, not good, not good.” They have no clue; they don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa. They can’t count their votes!
One of my people came up to me and said, “Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia. That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything, they tried it over and over. They’ve been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning, they lost, it’s all turning. Think of it. And this is their new hoax.”
First Democrats tried Russia, Russia, Russia.
Then they orchestrated the impeachment sham.
Now Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus and spreading misinformation about the Trump Administration's efforts to protect the American people.
This is their new hoax! pic.twitter.com/qaxrtnYKFE
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) February 29, 2020
The transcript and video make it clear that Trump did not call coronavirus a “hoax,” but rather emphasized that Democrats are using the disease — as they used Russia and impeachment — to attack him politically.
@Greg: Democrats should stay away from their public assistance distributors; there’s people coughing all over at those places.
Where are all the Dems who were gloating over the stock market drop last week? Did they drop out with Peatie?
@Randy: Like most things they “accomplish”, it simply didn’t last.
@Randy, #52:
The last couple of days Trump’s propaganda outlets have been pitching the proposition that democrats are hoping for a stock market crash and for millions of coronavirus deaths. The target audience doesn’t seem to analyze anything.
Seriously, have you given any thought at all to just how ridiculous these claims really are?
Are you under the impression that democrats don’t own stocks? Or that they’re somehow less likely to be infected with coronavirus than anyone else?
The M.S. Media will always be Fake News nothing has changed or ever will change with these scoundrels
@Greg: We are used to democrats insane accusations and the NYT wanting to call it the Trump virus. So dont feign innocence. Many willing to back a crazy old socialist for president One his entire platform is he has the money to beat Trump, ok then what Mikey. Some democrats will not under any circumstances vote for Bernie and will sit out the election, waiting for the Party to regain sanity.
People being attacked for simply wearing a red hat,yes there are some real sickos brother. I may look at a person in disgust for wearing a Che shirt, but thats as far as it would go, I wouldnt scream at them or get physical. BLM thought they had the right to silence Amy on Sunday. What about the right to listen to her, to them that didnt exist, to them she had to stop her run, facists. I think it came from the top.
@Greg: The strategy is ridiculous. The accusation is factual. There would be no other reason to lie and promote fear and panic.
For instance, is this the “Trumpvirus” as the NYT promoted? Did Trump bring about this virus? Is it HIS? You may be able to peddle your crap on liberal echo chambers, but it doesn’t fly here.
@Deplorable Me, #57:
In the real world, coronavirus is no less real a problem than global climate change. “Fear and panic” seem to have become the response to real news.
Remember what was said about the danger of tapping out our limited stimulus tools to stimulate a recovered economy, rather than saving them as a means to deal with an inevitable economic downturn? They’re close to tapped out. The emergency fed rate cut doesn’t seem to have achieved anything more than an anticipatory bounce in the market. Today on cable business news people were actually discussing the possible need for another TARP response.
We’re already running a trillion-dollar-per-year deficit with the economy going like a doped race horse. Downturns are inevitable. They always follow binges paid for with a credit card. This was an obvious set up for serious consequences from the start.
@Greg: The economy is doing quite well but could do even better, with more made in the USA, that is both good for citizens and the environment, those huge shipping barges push out tons of air pollution. The big corps couldnt dump toxins in America like they do in Asia. More stable jobs here in all industries. We rely too much on China for way to many items, quality control isnt priority. Most crap made in China is guaranteed to disintegrate before you get sick of it. Toxic toys for tots and poison dog food just 2of the examples.
@Greg:
You mean we can “solve” coronavirus by making people like Al Gore rich? Raise those taxes and save those lives!!
Funny how you want to defend falsely accusing Trump of calling a real crisis a hoax by referring to an actual hoax.
@kitt, #59:
And yet America’s giant pharmaceutical corporations have made us dependent upon Chinese manufacturers for around 80 percent of the active ingredients in our most needed prescription drugs…because that allowed said corporations to make ENORMOUS profits from their ENORMOUS markups.
@Greg: Unless you have any actual P&Ls for both drug product lines and a company’s Annual Report, you’re just talking out of your ass.
There are actual R&N costs to recuperate, and no, just because Sanders says “They’re lying” doesn’t mean they are (accusing a company of defrauding the IRS is a pretty serious charge, btw). Offering generics without the consent of the company who actually did the research, trials, got licenses, etc, is just stealing IP.
Unless you can show itemized costs vs how the drugs are priced, you can’t have a real conversation, and certainly can’t accuse the companies of price gouging. Not saying that isn’t possible, but show me.
@Deplorable Me:
More like “Fear and panic” seem to have become the goal of fake news.
@Greg:
The above analogy isn’t even remotely equivalent to what the economy is doing.
Try harder.
@Nathan Blue: Just Greg repeating MSM super simplified but inaccurate description. Why the government can just take it over and run it. Its so easy. They can take over anything and it is so simple it runs itself, Farming, energy, and healthcare dont forget housing.
Dont look at their history of F’ing up everything they touch.
@Greg: Thank Obama greggie!
@kitt, #65:
Are you under the impression that Trump policies have been promoting free markets and free market forces? The game is rigged six ways from Sunday. If people didn’t learn that from the the real estate bubble, the toxic mortgage bundling, the bailouts and the corporate bonuses paid out to the very people responsible, they can’t have been paying much attention. And all of the consumer protection legislation and industry regulation that followed the catastrophe to prevent something similar from happening again has been methodically rolled back at every opportunity. Democrats didn’t do that.
@Greg: No, that was the last guy they printed money, loaned it out at 0.0% interest, loaned government money to his campaign supporters for “green energy” boondoggles and allowed them to scamper off with their money after they went bankrupt with ours.
@Greg: Actually greggie, It started with Carter and continued with Clinton. Obama violated the laws with his executive orders and left bond holders hanging when he paid off the unions.
@Greg:
The realestate bubble and collapse the mortgage bundling, bail outs, not one of those things happened under Trump, so what in the hell is your point?
Know what else isnt happening? Community organizers backed by the Federal government are not forcing banks into bad loans (interest only or balloons)with 0 down payments, and incomes so low they get foreclosed on.
Oh yes the democrats caused all of it.
Nasty NAFTA 1993
China trade deals https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20140306/us-trade-deals-90s-set-china-pollution-haven
They caused every bit of it.
We lived through all of this and now you want to blame it on Trump? GTFO
That some people are too stupid to learn from experience.
@Greg:
Yeah, Obama wanted to reinstitute the Community Reinvestment Act after it caused the economic disaster.
@Greg: Yo dude you said Democrats didn’t do that. yes brother with the best of intentions but worst of oversight they did that all of it.
So we have tried the best of democrat bad ideas, time for the commies, democrats and progressives to go learn the lessons. Really learn them, obviously you have not.
@Greg:
Proof? Sources?
@Nathan Blue: Doesn’t need proof. It simply reinforces the bias and prejudice.
@Greg: Here’s a trip down memory lane. Maybe you aren’t too stupid to learn. But I’d not take any bets on it.
http://www.ornery.org/cgi-bin/printer_friendly.cgi?page=/essays/warwatch/2008-10-05-1.html
@Mully: Much of what happens to harm this nation would not happen if the media was honest and non-liberal. The corrupt liberal media promotes corrupt liberal policies and this situation has NO possibility of turning out well.
@Deplorable Me: True, I just like when the facade falls away and paid troll greg is forced to just post naked babble that even he can’t defend.
And you know, I’m thinking a few people use “his” email to post.
@Nathan Blue: Ut oh we have a Gregasan https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinese-media-spread-fake-news-negative-propaganda-about-us-coronavirus-outbreak_
After they stole it from a Canadian lab.
Are they looking for a reason to start a war as their economy is crashing?
@Deplorable Me: except he DID say it. It wasn’t misconstrued exaggerated or taken out of context. That’s the uncontrovertable truth. It scares me that there are people in this country that will blatantly ignore the truth so that they can continue to believe this president is competent. He’s not. Full stop.
@Paul: What else could the President and his administration have done to prove to those with TDS he was taking the virus seriously? How can you prove he thought the virus itself was a hoax?
You are wrong , prove your point.
Please point out where they are handling the situation poorly.
@Paul: Except he DIDN’T say it. Read his actual words. Read the full comment. Like his phone call transcript, you can’t simply imagine to be in his words what isn’t there. That’s simply LYING.
Funny that people lying on a regular basis and trying to do as much harm to this country as they possibly can just to achieve political power doesn’t scare you.
Do you think Schumer threatening Supreme Court Justices if they didn’t ignore the Constitution and support the liberal agenda is scary? I’m going to hazard a guess and say you don’t… because the liberal means justifies the liberal means.
Well if so, that staffer has an edge on the Great Pumpkin; e.g., what’s wrong with my teleprompter?