President Donald Trump refused to confirm whether he ordered to slow down coronavirus testing after controversial MAGA rally comments on slowing down the tests to show lower numbers. White House officials deny him giving the orders.
Trump has met public outrage after his comments at the MAGA rally in Tulsa, where he compared the excessive coronavirus testing to a “double-edged sword” and said he told officials to “slow the testing down” to avoid showing high numbers of confirmed cases. New coronavirus cases have been recently rising in 23 states, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics. The disease has killed more than 120,000 Americans since March. More than 25 million tests have been conducted in the U.S., with nearly 2.3 million people having tested positive.
“When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people; you’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down please,'” Trump said as his supporters applauded.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany denied Trump making such orders and said what he said at the rally was “a comment that he made in jest, a comment that he made in passing.”
“No, he has not directed that, and in fact I would note that we continue to test about 500,00 per day,” McEnany said.
Trump, on the other hand, during his interview with Scripps News did not confirm whether or not he ordered to slow down the testing,
“If we did slow it down, we wouldn’t show nearly as many cases,” Trump said.
“Frankly I think we’re way ahead of ourselves if you want to know the truth. We’ve done too good a job, because every time we go out with 25 million tests, you’re going to find more people so then they say ‘oh, we have more cases in the United States.’ The reason we have more cases [is] because we do more testing than any other country by far,” Trump added.
