President Donald Trump, expanding on the comments about coronavirus testing that he'd made during his campaign rally in Tulsa Saturday, insisted he did not order testing rates to be lowered to make the numbers of positive cases in the United States look better.
"You know, what we did is a miracle, between the ventilators and all of the things we did. But, we got so good at testing that we’ve done 25 million tests," Trump told Fox News' Brian Kilmeade, according to a clip played on "Fox and Friends" from a larger interview and tour of the White House that will be aired this coming Sunday.
"We’ve done 20 or 21 million more than Germany and these other countries," he told Kilmeade. "If you do more tests, that means you’re going to have more cases. So, we’ve done so good that we’re showing we have a lot of cases."
Trump added that he was only joking when he said during the rally that he'd asked for the testing to slow down.
"We have more cases because we have more testing," Trump told Kilmeade. "So, they can test a kid who’s got sniffles and is going to be better in about two hours, because you know, the young kids have done unbelievably well ... we have done 25 million tests. That means we show a lot of cases and that's all fine but it makes us look bad even though it should make us look good."
Trump also defended the lower-than-expected attendance at Saturday's rally, saying that people were warned early about going to the event.
"I heard two weeks of 'You are going to die if you go. You will never breathe again if you walk into that very beautiful arena,'" said Trump.
He also noted that the rally gave Fox News "its largest audience in the history of Fox" on a Saturday night, and even if it did mark the first time he's had an event that had empty seats, "these are the best ratings we have ever had."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.