President Donald Trump told journalist Bob Woodward last March that he didn’t have "a lot of time" to meet with and talk to Dr. Anthony Fauci when the coronavirus first began appearing in the United States, CNN reports.
Woodward’s book, "Rage," on the series of interviews he conducted with Trump was released last September. In newly released audio clips of an interview Trump gave Woodward last March, which were obtained by CNN, the president says that he had met with Fauci, the top expert on infectious disease in the country, before adding, "but honestly there’s not a lot of time for that."
Trump said, "This is a busy White House. We've got a lot of things happening. And then this came up."
The president also said in an interview last March that he "wanted to always play it down," in reference to the coronavirus despite having declared a national emergency by that point.
"I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic," he said.
Trump previously told Woodward, in an interview last February, that the coronavirus "is deadly stuff," despite insisting at the time that the outbreak was "going to disappear," and everything would "all work out fine."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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