President Trump responded to the grim milestone of 1 million coronavirus cases Tuesday by claiming America’s testing program reveals more cases and pledging to stamp out the virus.
The president was responding to questions about his faulty prediction in late February, when he said the 15 recorded cases at the time could go recede to zero.
“It will go down to zero, ultimately,” Mr. Trump said Tuesday from the East Room.
He also said U.S. efforts to improve diagnostics are bound to reveal more infections than in other countries.
“We’re testing, we’re doing more testing than any other country by far,” he said. “So we’re gonna show more cases because we’re doing much more testing.”
Mr. Trump says he’s been unfairly criticized for the rampant spread of the virus in the U.S. He says China misled the world as the virus spread within its borders in December and January, and that the World Health Organization failed to hold Beijing accountable. He also boasts he met or exceeded the governor’s requests for life-saving ventilators.
However, the administration stumbled in its efforts to expand testing in February and, later that month, Mr. Trump said when “you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”
As the U.S. exceeded 1 million cases and the death toll neared 58,000, the president said many people underestimated the virus.
“The experts got it wrong, a lot of people got it wrong,” Mr. Trump said.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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