It turns out President Donald Trump made even more private comments acknowledging the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic to reporter Bob Woodward back in April.
On Monday night, CNN released clips of Trump’s phone conversation with Woodward regarding COVID-19 on April 13 in which the President asserted that “this thing is a killer if it gets you.”
“If you’re the wrong person, you don’t have a chance,” Trump told the reporter.
In another clip of the conversation, the President said COVID-19 “rips you apart” and described the virus as “the plague.”
Twitter users pointed out that Trump made the comments three days after he claimed that the virus “will soon be in full retreat!” and four days before he called on the right-wingers protesting stay-at-home orders to “LIBERATE” Minnesota, Michigan, and Virginia.
The new recordings further fuel the scandal surrounding Trump’s private remarks to Woodward as the journalist was working on his book, “Rage,” in which the President admitted in February that the virus was “deadly stuff” even while publicly downplaying the pandemic. In March, Trump told Woodward he “wanted to always play it down.”
After revelations of Trump’s comments emerged last week, the President claimed he had purposefully downplayed the virus to the public in order to prevent “panic.”
Listen to CNN’s clips below:
In a newly released tape, Trump privately tells Bob Woodward in April that COVID-19 "is a killer if it gets you." pic.twitter.com/Jiib9GJqwz
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) September 15, 2020
