Donald Trump on COVID-19 testing
← Back to Donald Trump ProfileAmidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Donald Trump falsely asserted that widespread testing was readily available, despite evidence to the contrary.
“If people want to get tested, they get tested.”
Donald Trump, facing criticism over the US coronavirus response in May 2020, suggested that reduced testing would drastically lower the reported case count, sparking widespread condemnation.
“If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases”
Amidst surging COVID-19 infections and a significant death toll, Donald Trump downplayed the virus's severity, claiming 99% of cases were "totally harmless."
“Now we have tested almost 40m people. By so doing, we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless.”
“The only reason the U.S. has reported one million cases of CoronaVirus is that our Testing is sooo much better than any other country in the World.”
Facing criticism over insufficient coronavirus testing in March 2020, President Trump deflected blame, citing inherited "circumstances" and outdated regulations.
“No, I don't take responsibility at all, because we were given a set of circumstances and we were given rules, regulations and specifications from a different time.”
In April 2020, Donald Trump falsely claimed the U.S. had conducted more coronavirus tests than all other countries combined, a statement quickly debunked by *Vox*.
“I think I read yesterday a report that we’ve done more than everybody — every other country — combined, we’ve tested more than every other country in the world even put together.”
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Donald Trump attempted to clarify the results of his coronavirus test, using the confusing phrase "positively toward negative."
“Yeah. I tested positively toward negative, right? So, no, I tested perfectly this morning, meaning—meaning I tested negative... But that’s a way of saying it: positively toward the negative.”
Amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, Donald Trump revealed a controversial strategy to suppress case numbers by directing his staff to curtail testing efforts.
“You know testing is a double-edged sword. ... Here’s the bad part. When you test to that extent, you are going to find more people, find more cases. So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down please.’”
Amidst a rising Covid-19 toll, Donald Trump controversially declared the US's high case count a "badge of honour," attributing it to superior testing capabilities.
“When we have a lot of cases, I don’t look at that as a bad thing — I look at that in a certain respect as being a good thing because it means our testing is much better. ... So I view it as a badge of honour, really,”
During a CDC visit, Donald Trump likened coronavirus testing to his "perfect" Ukraine call, downplaying potential flaws in the testing process by referencing a controversial past event.
“But as of right now and yesterday, anybody that needs a test — That's the important thing. And the tests are all perfect. Like, the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.”
“For the 1/100th time, the reason we show so many Cases, compared to other countries that haven’t done nearly as well as we have, is that our TESTING is much bigger and better. We have tested 40,000,000 people. If we did 20,000,000 instead, Cases would be half, etc. NOT REPORTED!”
“So we’ve done 1,670,000 tests. Think of that 1,670,000 tests. And we have a great system. Now we’re working with the states in almost all instances, but we have a great system. And the other thing that we bought a tremendous amount of is the hydroxy chloroquine. Hydroxy chloroquine, which I think is, you know, it’s a great malaria drug. It’s worked unbelievably. It’s a powerful drug on malaria and there are signs that it works on this, some very strong signs and in the meantime it’s been around a long time. It also works very powerfully on lupus, so there are some very strong powerful signs and we’ll have to see because again, it’s tested.”
“I want them to try it. It may work, and it may not work. But if it doesn’t work, it’s nothing lost by doing it. Nothing. Because we know long-term what I want. I want to save lives, and I don’t want it to be in a lab for the next year-and-a-half as people are dying all over the place. In France, they had a very good test. They’re continuing. But we don’t have time to go and say, gee, let’s take a couple of years and test it out, and let’s go and test with the test tubes and the laboratories. We don’t have time. I’d love to do that, but we have people dying today. As we speak, there are people dying. If it works, that’d be great. If it doesn’t work, we know for many years malaria, it’s incredible what it’s done for malaria. It’s incredible what it’s done for lupus, but it doesn’t kill people.”