Even though Donald Trump was recently caught on tape saying he likes to downplay the pandemic, he looked a voter in the eye on Tuesday night and claimed he has actually been up-playing it.
“If you believe it’s the president’s responsibility to protect America, why would you downplay a pandemic that is known to disproportionately harm low-income families and minority communities?” a young woman asked him during a town hall event in Pennsylvania.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t downplay it,” Trump said, lying right to the voter’s face. “I actually, in many ways, I up-played it in terms of action.”
The town hall questioner was clearly frustrated by Trump’s lie as she attempted to interject, but he continued to ramble on about his COVID travel ban (which wasn’t much of a ban at all).
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
“With China, I put a ban on. With Europe, I put a ban on,” the president said. “And we would have lost thousands of more people had I not put the ban on.”
It’s worth noting that as Trump brags about the bang up job he did responding to the pandemic, more than 200,000 Americans have died from the virus – more than any other country in the world.
Video:
Trump lies to a voter who asks why he downplayed the pandemic: “I didn’t downplay it. I actually, in many ways, I up-played it.” pic.twitter.com/KNhEkKhs3G
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) September 16, 2020
Trump is on tape bragging about downplaying the virus
As Joy Reid noted after airing the town hall clip, Trump is literally on tape saying he likes to downplay the virus, even though he has privately known all along how deadly it is.
“There’s a tape that exists that we’ve played on this show of Donald Trump saying, ‘I like to downplay it.’ … He literally said those words,” the MSNBC host said.
New audio out this week even revealed that around the same time Trump was publicly demanding states re-open, he was privately calling the virus “a killer.”
That didn’t stop Donald Trump from looking a voter straight in the eye on Tuesday night and lying.
Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook and Twitter
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.