Will covid-19 miraculously disappear as Trump says? 2:03
(CNN) - As the nation celebrated a grim July 4 with many Americans homebound amid an alarming surge in coronavirus cases, President Donald Trump used his stage in the South Lawn of the White House on Saturday to present a puzzling - and dangerously misleading - claim that 99% of coronavirus cases in the United States are "totally harmless."
The President's no-evidence claim about the virus was his latest attempt to minimize the threat of the coronavirus as it plagues the United States with increasing cases across the country, and an increasing number of senior Republican officials, from governors to members of Congress, calling on Americans to redouble their efforts to curb the spread of the virus by warning of the dangerous consequences if current trends continue.
- LOOK: Trump claims without foundation that 99% of coronavirus cases & # 8220; are completely harmless & # 8221;
Seeking to distract the nation from the terrifying increase in covid-19 cases and the sinister death toll in the United States when it surpassed 129,000 people, Trump has delved deeper into a racially charged strategy aimed at bolstering his support among white Americans. They feel threatened by the cultural change that is unfolding in the country after the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.
To that end, he repeated many of the racially divisive lines of his speech at Mount Rushmore on Friday night, where he claimed that a left-wing fascist mafia is trying to "wipe out the United States" by erasing the nation's history and indoctrinating their children. Apparently hoping to overcome the incendiary language on Friday night, he compared his crusade to defeat "the radical left" to the United States' efforts to eradicate the Nazis.
"American heroes defeated the Nazis, dethroned the fascists, overthrew the communists, saved American values, defended American principles, and persecuted terrorists to the ends of the earth," Trump said Saturday night on the White House. "We are now in the process of defeating the radical left, the Marxists, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters, and the people who, in many cases, have absolutely no idea what they are doing."
The president's speech was part of an event he organized to celebrate July 4 by showing the pomp and power of the US military, while much of the nation listened to the recommendations of the administration's public health experts. Trump to avoid large gatherings, CNN noted that there seemed to be little social detachment in South Lawn and that many guests were not wearing masks.
Misleading about the virus
It was in that same speech that he made his latest puzzling claim about the virus, as he described the administration's flawed and lagging response to the pandemic as a great American success story and falsely suggested, once again, that the increase of cases in the US is due to increased evidence.
“Now we have tested, almost 40 million people. In doing so, we show cases, 99% of which are completely harmless, results that no other country can show because no other country has done the tests that we have done, "said Trump. "Not in terms of numbers, or in terms of quality."
It is unclear how the president might have the impression that 99% of cases are "totally harmless." At least 2.8 million cases of coronavirus have been reported so far in the United States, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. While the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 35% of cases are asymptomatic, those patients can still transmit the virus. As of Saturday, the Johns Hopkins estimated that the US death rate was 4.6%. The White House has not returned CNN's request for comment on the president's claim.
The commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration refused on Sunday to defend the president and repeatedly refused to say whether Trump's comment is true or false.
"I'm not going to go into who is right and who is wrong," Dr. Stephen Hahn, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, told CNN's Dana Bash on the "State of the Union" program.
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With frontline medical workers in the audience, Trump also touted the nation's measures to make more personal protective equipment and ventilators so desperately needed at the start of the outbreak. He indicated that the United States "will probably have a therapeutic or vaccine solution, well before the end of the year."
He again blamed China for the spread of the virus: “China's secrecy, deceit and cover-up allowed it to spread throughout the world, 189 countries. And China must be fully responsible, "said Trump. The Asian country has repeatedly denied these claims.
The president's optimistic language about the coronavirus was very much at odds with the situation at critical points in the nation this weekend. States like Arizona, California, Florida and Texas still see a record number of cases since last week. And hospitals in at least two Texas counties were at full capacity at the start of the holiday weekend, while Lone Star State county judges urged residents to stay home.
Trump's refusal to confront the magnitude of the health crisis facing the United States has few parallels among other presidents in recent history. Historian Douglas Brinkley noted on CNN Saturday night that President Woodrow Wilson attempted to minimize the Spanish flu pandemic because the United States was involved in a war.
But Wilson's effort "is nothing like what Donald Trump is doing here, trying to turn July 4 into his own private leonization," Brinkley said, noting Trump's recent visits to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. , Tulsa, Oklahoma and Arizona, "without worrying about social distancing, without wearing a mask."
"Can you imagine Franklin Roosevelt in the middle of World War II without invoking the spirit of World War II?" Brinkley said on CNN's "Newsroom", describing Roosevelt's effort to bring Americans together in a time of national crisis. "At least, Donald Trump should give a speech on this July 4 saying that we have new heroes, medical workers in the United States, nurses and doctors and technicians that we can now be proud of and someday there will be hospitals and memorials named after them. "
"Instead, he's just playing to tear down monuments," Brinkley said, citing Trump's obsession with defending what the president sees as an attack on statues of Confederate generals and other key figures in US history with racist pasts. "It was an abysmal performance by him."
Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois and a possible vice presidential election for alleged presidential candidate Joe Biden, said Sunday that Trump should focus more on the pandemic and reports that Russia offered rewards to Taliban fighters for killing US troops in Afghanistan.
"He spent more time worrying about honoring the dead Confederates than talking about the ... 130,000 Americans who lost their lives to the covid-19 or warning Russia of the reward they are putting on the heads of Americans," Duckworth said in "State of the Union ”from CNN. "His priorities are all wrong here."
USA: The covid-19 modifies the celebrations of July 4 3:40Sabotaging your own public health experts
The president's appearance at Friday's South Dakota event, which had no social distance and very little mask, and at his July 4 party in Washington, DC, where few of his guests chose to wear masks, comes at one point. that even some of his closest allies urge him to take a greater leadership role in encouraging facial coverage and other measures that would slow the spread of the virus.
Trump has resisted masks even when a long list of Republican leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy, as well as his own Director-General of Health and public health officials, they have begged the public to cover their faces.
In an abrupt reversal on Thursday, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott made facial coatings mandatory for most residents across the state. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another Trump ally, wore a mask at various events last week, including with Vice President Mike Pence, who has followed a careful line, wearing one in numerous recent public appearances and saying the decision should be both local officials and individuals.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, also a Republican, toured his state last week urging Georgians to wear masks. And even Trump enthusiasts like Steve Doocy, co-host of "Fox & Friends," said this week that if the president wore a mask, he would be a "good example" and a "good role model."
Doocy noted that his friends in New Jersey and New York wear masks all the time, and they keep telling him that if the President wore a mask, "it would appear that he is taking it seriously and listening to the CDC."
Meanwhile, Austin, Texas, Mayor Steve Adler, a Democrat, said Sunday that Trump's actions are "dangerous."
"It makes me mad," Adler told Bash. "It is dangerous not to send a clear message to the Americans, to the people in my city."
"When they begin to hear that kind of ambiguous message coming out of Washington, there are more and more people who do not wear masks, who do not keep their social distance, who will not do what is necessary to maintain a safe community #, he said, adding that he would like Abbott, a Republican, to give local authorities the ability to issue confinement orders. "
But Trump paid no heed to that advice at any of the events this weekend, allowing his July 4 show to unfold like any other year. But in Washington, DC, at least, many of the regular viewers who would attend the display of military might and fireworks did not do so this year. The crowd was thin, a sign that many Americans now pay more attention to the guidance of medical experts than to the example of their president.
CNN's Tami Luhby, Maggie Fox and Jamie Gumbrecht contributed to this report.
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