Trump Says ‘Not Much’ He Would Change In Hypothetical COVID Do-Over

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 26: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to journalists as he departs the White House September 26, 2020 in Washington, DC. Trump is traveling to Middletown, Pennsylvania, for a campaign rall... WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 26: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to journalists as he departs the White House September 26, 2020 in Washington, DC. Trump is traveling to Middletown, Pennsylvania, for a campaign rally. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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President Donald Trump on Tuesday said there’s “not much” he would change if he had a shot at a do-over on the coronavirus pandemic that has now killed roughly 221,000 people in the United States.

Sinclair’s Eric Bolling asked the President during a town hall scheduled to air Wednesday night if there anything the President “could have done differently” if he had another chance to tackle the coronavirus pandemic from the beginning. 

“If you had a mulligan or a do-over on one aspect of the way you handled it, what would it be?” Bolling asked. 

“Not much,” Trump said. “Look, it’s all over the world. You have a lot of great leaders, a lot of smart people — it’s all over the world. It came out of China. China should’ve stopped it.”

When pressed on the matter he doubled down, again saying, there was “not much” he would change amid a pandemic that is far from contained in the United States. The nation’s seven-day average of new daily cases had exceeded 58,300 as of Monday — a case average not seen since the first week of August, according to CNN.

“I did it very early,” Trump said in an apparent reference to a travel ban that he put on China that he repeatedly has suggested saved millions of lives.

The President knocked top infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci and others he said discouraged him from banning travel from the East Asian country, adding that while gets along with him “fine” that the public health expert has “made mistakes.”

The President also appeared to refer to claims made by Fauci that he had been discouraged from making some media appearances and “then you see him do 60 Minutes, not one of the greatest shows in the world.”

The comments come after President Trump sat down with correspondent Lesley Stahl for a “60 Minutes” interview Tuesday that he cut short, later making accusations of the interview being “fake” and “biased” while threatening on Twitter to release the taped interview early.

Sources told the Daily Beast that Trump has often told close associates and advisers that Fauci is  acting like a member of anti-MAGA “resistance” commentators.

Two sources with knowledge of Trump’s private comments told the Daily Beast that the President believes Fauci is hoping to win adulation from the press and appears at times to be “audition[ing]” or “trying to get a job at CNN.”

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