US President Donald Trump has tried to turn the tables on Bob Woodward, saying the acclaimed journalist should have alerted authorities if he believed Trump put lives at risk by downplaying the threat of the coronavirus early in the year | KnottMatthew
to avoid panicking the American public. In a February interview with Woodward, Trump made clear he knew how deadly the virus was, even as he was publicly comparing it favourably to the seasonal flu."If Bob Woodward thought what I said was bad, then he should have immediately, right after I said it, gone out to the authorities so they could prepare and let them know," Trump said at a White House press conference.
Earlier in the day he tweeted: "Bob Woodward had my quotes for many months. If he thought they were so bad or dangerous, why didn’t he immediately report them in an effort to save lives? Didn’t he have an obligation to do so? No, because he knew they were good and proper answers.
Trump said he believed the US had "possibly" done the best job in the world in combating the coronavirus, even as it has recorded almost 192,000 deaths, more than any other country. "If you look at the European Union right now they are having breakouts like you've never seen before and frankly their numbers are are at a level that are much worse than the numbers here," Trump said.The per capita death rate in the US for COVID-19 is below European countries such as Spain and the United Kingdom, but has now overtaken countries such as Sweden and France.
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