Snopes Is Claiming Trump Never Called Coronavirus a Hoax [View all]

[erpowers]

During a Feb. 28, 2020, campaign rally in South Carolina, President Donald Trump likened the Democrats' criticism of his administration's response to the new coronavirus outbreak to their efforts to impeach him, saying "this is their new hoax." During the speech he also seemed to downplay the severity of the outbreak, comparing it to the common flu.

Snip

Trump held the rally on Feb. 28 on the eve of the South Carolina Democratic primary, which former Vice President Joe Biden ultimately won. During his roughly one-hour, 20-minute commentary, Trump hit back at his political opponents in the Democratic Party for their critiques of his administration’s handling of a potential pandemic.

Snip

In context, Trump did not say in the passage above that the virus itself was a hoax. He instead said that Democrats’ criticism of his administration’s response to it was a hoax. He muddied the waters a few minutes later, however, by comparing the number of coronavirus fatalities in the U.S. (none, at that point in time) to the number of fatalities during an average flu season, and accusing the press of being in “hysteria mode”:

Snip

Trump did however downplay the scale of the virus and the danger it posed to the public. At the time he made his remarks, the U.S. had 57 confirmed coronavirus cases, 40 of which came from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which experienced an outbreak of the virus. And health officials were warning that the spread of the virus domestically was “inevitable.”

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-remark/