"You can't say that": Donald Trump is striving to defend his record on the coronavirus
In front of a journalist from the Axios media, the American president tried to prove that the figures for the Covid-19 epidemic in the United States were among the best in the world.
The coronavirus epidemic is "under control," said US President Donald Trump on July 28 in an interview with the American website Axios, extracts of which were released on August 4. However, the president added an enigmatic “as far as we can control it”. To date, the United States remains the country most affected by the virus, with 156,000 deaths since the start of the epidemic.
However, in front of the journalist, Donald Trump maintained that the figures for the Covid-19 epidemic in the United States were better than elsewhere. “We are inferior to the rest of the world, the American president repeated to the journalist, inferior to Europe!”. In the face of the dumbfounded journalist's objections, Trump persisted, confusing himself with the numbers and charts he presented.
.@jonathanvswan: “Oh, you’re doing death as a proportion of cases. I’m talking about death as a proportion of population. That’s where the U.S. is really bad. Much worse than South Korea, Germany, etc.”@realdonaldtrump: “You can’t do that.”
— Axios (@axios) August 4, 2020
Swan: “Why can’t I do that?” pic.twitter.com/MStySfkV39
"The number of deaths is much lower than those it was before, explains the President of the United States, it is falling in Arizona, Florida", he explains without convincing the journalist who retorts that at the national level, the death toll continues to rise.
"You take into account the death in proportion to the cases, tries to explain the journalist. I am talking about deaths as a proportion of the population. This is where the United States is really bad. Much worse than Germany, South Korea, etc. ” Nothing helps, Donald Trump is holding on: "you can't say that", he replies simply.
Since the start of the pandemic, the main yardstick used to assess the epidemic in a country has been the number of cases, which is possibly related to the number of inhabitants of the country. Donald Trump chooses to present the number of deaths compared to the number of cases so that the situation appears more lenient.
The journalist tries to explain the relevance of the relationship between the number of cases and the total population. “In South Korea, for example: 51 million people, 300 deaths. It's crazy compared to other countries! ”He says.
Pique, the American president refutes the argument, "you do not know", he repeats twice. This answer astonishes the journalist who questions him: “you think they are faking their statistics? South Korea?" Donald Trump answers, enigmatic: "I will not go into that, because I have very good relations with the country. But you don't know it ”.
The exchange is cut short, the American president splits a "you do not inform correctly", for the journalist. "I think so", responds, annoyed, the person concerned.
