Correcting Trump’s Press Conference Misinformation
President Donald Trump has been holding daily press conferences to provide the latest information about the coronavirus from the federal government, but his rhetoric has sometimes been imprecise, misleading or outright incorrect.
Here are three recent examples:
- News reports suggest China may have known about and concealed emerging information in the weeks after the novel coronavirus was detected, but Trump exaggerated how long when he said, “I wish they told us three months sooner that this was a problem.”
- Trump said, “We enacted legislation guaranteeing paid sick leave for workers at no cost to employers.” He didn’t mention that nearly half the nation’s workforce — those who work for companies employing 500 or more people — isn’t covered by the bill.
- He also said, “I don’t think I’ve ever said, ‘No,'” to providing funds for other countries to fight diseases. But Trump has proposed global health budget cuts, including for programs that aim to prevent or respond to infectious diseases worldwide.
These statements were made in press conferences on March 20, 21 and 22.
How Long Did China Conceal News?
News reports suggest China may have known about and concealed emerging information in the weeks after the novel coronavirus was detected. But Trump went too far when he said, “I wish they told us three months sooner that this was a problem.”
The symptoms from the first cases of the virus did not emerge until early December, at the earliest, and China alerted the World Health Organization of mysterious pneumonia cases on Dec. 31. By early January, at the latest, the U.S. government was aware of the virus.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Trump’s right-hand man during the coronavirus crisis, said the president’s statement “doesn’t comport [with the facts], because 2 or 3 months earlier would have been September.”
But the president
