-The president went on Fox News and lied to millions of people
about the coronavirus outbreak
as his administration bungles its response to the crisis.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
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I think it's safe to say at this point
that the president of the United States
is undermining public health.
And I'm not just saying that
because he looks like an "Outbreak" monkey
that escaped from a lab.
[ Laughter ]
Trump keeps lying to people about the potential threat
posed by the spread of the coronavirus
while the United States lags behind other countries
in testing, even though we've had time to learn
from their experiences.
One infectious disease expert
called the lack of widespread accurate testing
a national scandal.
For example, the CDC website said today
that 1,500 patients had been tested just at CDC.
Meanwhile, "Bloomberg News" reported
that in a short space of time,
South Korea has managed to test more than 140,000 people,
and they're using an ingenious new way to do it.
-Outside of China, South Korea has the most coronavirus cases.
They've come up with a new innovative way to test
for the virus in the form of a drive-through.
-I'm going to show you
drive-through coronavirus testing.
This is a free service that the city of Goyang
is offering anybody.
Vehicles come through here, and you get a questionnaire.
You get your hands sanitized,
and then you go through a number of stations here.
The patients never get out of the car.
They come in, they fill out questionnaires,
find out whether or not they're in a risk category,
and while sitting in their cars,
the nurses will swab their nostrils and their throats,
take samples, and then the results
will come in within two to three days.
This could be a model for countries like the U.S.
that are just starting to
deal with their first coronavirus cases.
-Of course, it should be a model for us.
Look, we might be bad at stuff like health care, education,
gun control, climate change, housing, criminal justice,
and gender equality, but nobody is better than us
at drive-throughs! I mean, come on!
[ Cheers and applause ]
And nothing, nothing should appeal to our president more
than treating healthcare like fast food.
All we have to do is put "coronavirus testing"
on the menu at every Wendy's, and he'd go get one himself.
[ As Trump ] Yeah, I'll have four bacon cheeseburgers,
two Frosties, chicken nuggets, and a cheek swab. Yeah.
And maybe supersize that swab. I've got cheeks like a mainsail.
[ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] And yet, we haven't gotten truth,
transparency, or testing from the president.
And that's because from the very moment
news of the outbreak began to spread,
Trump seemed to want to wish it away
by denying the reality of the situation
and telling people that one day,
the virus would just magically disappear.
-You have 15 people,
and the 15 within a couple of days
is going to be down to close to zero.
We're going down, not up.
We're going very substantially down, not up.
I really think, doctor, you ought to treat this
like you treat the flu, right?
And, you know, it's going to be -- it's going to be --
Looks like by April, you know, in theory,
when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.
Hope that's true.
It's going to disappear.
One day, it's like a miracle, it will disappear.
-As a general rule, never trust someone's medical advice
when they use the word "miracle."
If you ask someone to look at a rash, and they say,
"It will go away," and you ask how,
and they say, "Like a miracle,"
you need to go buy some ointment.
Also, I don't trust Donald Trump on the subject
of medical advice or miracles.
-I have a great relationship with God.
God is the ultimate. I mean, God created this.
So, uh, nobody,
no thing, no -- there's nothing like God.
The Bible certainly is one of -- if not --
I mean, it is the book.
-Do you actively go to church?
-Well, I go as much as I can,
always on Christmas, always on Easter,
and during the Sundays, I'm a Sunday church person.
-Oh, are you a Sunday church person?
As opposed to, like, a Tuesday afternoon church person?
Trump sounds like an atheist cop going undercover as a priest
to spy on a bunch of Catholic mobsters.
"So, uh, Father, what do you think
of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ?"
[ As Trump ] Oh, J.C.?
Well, you know, he's just the ultimate.
And the Bible, of course, that's just the book, you know?
And I go to church on Sundays. You guys, too?
Get me out of here! They're on to me!
[ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] Trump's been trying to pretend
the problem doesn't exist
because he knows he'll get blamed for it.
And he knows that because if he weren't president right now,
he'd definitely be blaming whoever was president.
In fact, yesterday, he even lied and blamed a past president
for the current lack of testing.
-The Obama administration made a decision on testing
that turned out to be very detrimental to what we're doing
and we undid that decision a few days ago
so that the testing can take place
in a much more accurate and rapid fashion.
-You can't blame Obama for something that didn't exist
when he left office.
[ As Trump ] Obama should have never green-lit "Cats."
I mean, you either go full cats or full people.
[ Normal voice ] And it won't surprise you to learn
that this lie was immediately debunked.
Even the White House couldn't explain it.
CNN reported that a source close to the coronavirus task force
said it's not clear where Trump got his information.
I have an idea where he got it --
the same place he gets all his ideas.
I won't say where it is, but I just hope he washed his hands.
Trump knows this whole thing could be a challenge for him
politically and for the economy,
which is all that matters to him.
In fact, MSNBC reported
that during Trump's trip to India last month,
he was paying close attention to TV news reports,
not about the virus, but about the stock market.
-Our reporting indicates that while he was in India
he was watching the stock market reaction very closely.
He was very nervous and upset
to see what was happening with the stock market.
He seemed to be more aware of what was happening
with the stock market than what was actually happening
with developments with the virus.
-Of course, because the stock market
is the only thing Trump cares about.
If you told Trump that spreading the coronavirus
would actually help the stock market,
he'd be doing press conferences
giving people the opposite advice of doctors.
[ As Trump ] Remember not to block your sneezes,
lick stuff in public,
and just touch your face as much as possible.
Just really get your fingers in there, knead it like dough.
[ Normal voice ] Trump desperately wants to wish
the situation away to avoid political accountability.
That's why he decided to call in
to his favorite propaganda network, Fox News,
and spread disinformation about the virus last night.
For example, the World Health Organization
announced this week that the official mortality rate
for the coronavirus so far has been 3.4%
compared to the flu which is about 0.1%.
Now, with aggressive measures in testing,
experts say it's certainly possible
that number will come down.
Instead, Trump told Fox News host,
Sean Hannity, in a phone interview
that he straight-up doesn't believe those numbers.
-We had a report today that global death rate at 3.4%,
and a report that the Olympics could be delayed.
Your reaction to that?
-Well, I think the 3.4% is really a false number.
Now, this is just my hunch.
I think that that number is very high.
I think the number -- personally, I would say
the number is way under 1%.
-Why are you going on national television
and contradicting experts based on a hunch?
First of all, the only hunch of yours that I trust
is the one in your back after an hour at one of your rallies.
I mean, look at him.
Normally, you only hide your face like that
when you're at a restaurant with your girlfriend
and you see your wife at the other table.
[ As Trump ] I love you, baby, and I don't care who knows.
Oh [bleep] Carol!
[ Normal voice ] So, Trump lied to viewers
about the mortality rate.
Then there's the fact that employers
and public health experts are urging anyone
with any symptoms to stay home and self-quarantine
rather than go to work and potentially spread the virus.
Just yesterday, a county in Washington
officially recommended teleworking,
and both Amazon and Facebook
asked their Seattle employees to stay home.
But again, Dr. Trump disagreed.
-A lot of people will have this, and it's very mild.
They'll get better very rapidly.
They don't even see a doctor. They don't even call a doctor.
You never hear about those people.
So, if, you know, we have thousands
or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by,
you know, sitting around and even going to work,
some of them go to work, but they get better.
-So now he's telling people
it's okay to go to work if they're sick.
This from a guy who doesn't even go to work when he's healthy.
[ Laughter ]
So, the president is spreading misinformation
about a public health crisis
in order to avoid political consequences.
But at least he knows the name of the virus, right?
-So, you can't put them down in the category
of the overall population in terms of this corona flu.
-Jesus. The corona flu?
Not only is he lying, he's making up new diseases now.
[ As Trump ] It's called the "corona swine Ebola flu."
We just came up with it. It was very exciting.
You can find it on the drive-through menu at Wendy's.
[ Normal voice ] This is the kind of public health crisis
that tests the competence
and honesty of our president, and obviously,
Trump is completely unequipped on both counts.
We need truth, transparency, and testing,
and we're not going to get it from Donald Trump.
Then again, that's... -Just my hunch.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
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