Democracy Dies in Darkness

Trump moves the coronavirus goal posts, pre-spinning 100,000 deaths as ‘a very good job’

After he spent the early weeks of the outbreak downplaying the severity of the situation, Trump is now playing up the most dire projections in an attempt to cast a positive light on his response

Analysis by
Staff writer
March 30, 2020 at 10:03 a.m. EDT
Over the past month, President Trump downplayed the worst-case coronavirus projections. Now he is embracing the worst-case projections to tout his response. (Video: The Washington Post, Photo: Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

On Feb. 26, when there were 15 reported cases of the novel coronavirus in the United States, President Trump predicted the number of cases would soon be “down to close to zero.”

On March 5, he hailed the fact that there were about 3,000 deaths worldwide but only 11 in the United States.