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Tries to justify his interview statements in February
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JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS
US President Donald Trump has defended his interview with journalist Bob Woodward.
In the conversation, Trump had admitted to deliberately downplaying the danger posed by the corona virus.
"The last thing you want is to cause panic in the country," he said now.
"We want to show confidence, we want to show strength."
At the same time, he pointed out that he had taken measures such as restricting travel to China.
Trump's challenger in the White House race, Joe Biden, attacked the president sharply.
Tens of thousands of lives could have been saved if Trump had acted faster, Biden said.
"It was a life and death betrayal of the American people," he also tweeted.
The broadcaster CNN had previously reported on the new book Woodwards and also published short audio recordings from the interviews.
You can hear Trump saying, "I always wanted to downplay it. I still like to downplay it because I don't want to panic."
The excerpt is from March 19th.
Contradiction between interview and public statements
In a conversation on February 7, according to the recordings, Trump had already described the corona virus as "deadly stuff".
People don't have to touch contact surfaces to get infected: "You just breathe in air and that's how it is transmitted."
The disease is also "deadlier" than the flu, which kills 25,000 to 30,000 Americans each year, Trump said.
"Who would have ever thought that, right?"
At the end of February, Trump spoke at a press conference in the White House about the importance of washing your hands often and not touching every handle - and that you should treat the disease in the same way as you would with the flu.
At the same time, he publicly claimed that the death rate was lower than that of flu.
Even before Trump's statement, his spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany announced that the president had "never lied to the American public about Covid".
However, one of his tasks is to ensure that the population stays calm.
"The president never downplayed the virus. The president exuded calm. He was hopeful," McEnany said.
So far, around 190,000 people have died in the USA after being infected with the coronavirus.
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hba / dpa