Asked about the coronavirus death toll reaching 200,000 in the United States on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said, “Well, I think it’s a shame.”
After ignoring a question from CNN’s Nikki Carvajal on his message to the American people, Trump was pressed on passing the 200,000 death threshold, and turned the conversation to his standard response on the virus, blaming China and saying the death count could have been much worse had he not taken action.
“I think if we didn’t do it properly and do it right, you’d have two and a half million deaths. If you take a look at alternatives, you could have two and a half million deaths or something thereabouts. You could have a number that would be substantially more,” Trump told reporters before departing the White House on Tuesday. “And you saw my United Nations speech, China should have stopped it at their border. They should have never let this spread all over the world and it’s a terrible thing.”
Trump went on to say had he not closed the country down, there could have been upwards of 3 million deaths.
“It’s a horrible thing. Should have never ever happened. China let this happen and just remember that,” Trump added.
Facts First: It’s misleading for Trump to say he closed the US border to travel from China and Europe because both policies contained multiple exemptions, including for US citizens and permanent residents; the Europe policy exempted entire countries. Only foreign nationals who had been in China, Europe’s Schengen area, the UK or Ireland within the past 14 days were outright banned from entering the US.
