Striking back at the hysteria and "weaponization" of his administration's coronavirus response, President Donald Trump pointed a finger at former President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden for their own outbreak-related failures and lashed out at the World Health Organization for reporting "a false number" for the virus death rate.
"The Democrats weaponize everything we do," Trump told Fox News' "Hannity" on Wednesday night.
"We're talking about very small numbers in our country, very, very small, because of what we did with the borders," he added, referencing a quick decision to tighten up borders in the face of COVID-19.
Trump was critical of the H1N1 swine flu response by the Obama administration.
"But they never did close the borders," Trump said. "They never had a travel ban.
"They reacted much differently, then. I watch Biden try and criticize us, but I don't think he knows what he is criticizing."
Trump insisted his administration has made good decisions in the face of Democratic criticism, saying it is why the coronavirus impact in the U.S. is low relative to many other nations around the world.
"If they did it, they would be hailing it, but do they weaponize it," Trump said. "They know what a great job we're doing. They know we have the best in the world and we've really shown it.
"Even when you look at the small numbers in this country, they're very, very small. We have a very large country, to put it mildly -- and a great country, by the way, and it is getting greater all the time.
"They weaponized the virus against us and they will just say, even though they have no facts – or just say, 'we don't like the job they're doing' – it is just off the cuff, like a natural reflex."
Trump also challenged reports that the coronavirus death rate is higher than initially thought, saying the "easy" and unreported coronavirus cases would, if factored into statistics, drop the death rate from the contagion to something much lower.
"I think the 3.4% is a false number," Trump said of the death rate. "Now, this is just my hunch, but I had lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this – because a lot of people will have this, and it is very mild. They will get better very rapidly. They don't even call doctor."
"They don't know about the easy cases because the easy cases don't go to the hospital, they don't report to doctors, or the hospital in many cases," he added. 'So I think that that number is very high. I think the number, personally, I would say the number is way under 1%."
Attacks on his administration's response, and on the efforts of the task force now under the guidance of Vice President Mike Pence, are merely politically motivated in an election year, Trump said.
"Here I am in the White House, I'm president, and they're not; sort of amazing, isn't it?" he concluded.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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