June 22, 2020

Trump Refuses to Say Whether He Ordered to Slow Down Coronavirus Testing

Undermining aides once again, the president doesn’t deny what he told thousands he did.

President Donald Trump sent his aides scrambling this weekend after his trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he revealed during his first campaign rally since the lockdown that he had recently ordered health officials to “slow down” coronavirus testing. 

Trump’s logic for scaling back a crucial tool for fighting the pandemic was that testing—rather than relaxed social distancing measures as health officials have warned—was to blame for the steady rise in new coronavirus cases. The remarks sparked alarm, and the White House went into overdrive to deny their seriousness.

There are plenty of reasons to doubt the White House’s “tongue in cheek” defense but now, we have one more. Be sure to make it across to the 45-second mark to see a man barely containing his burning desire to blurt out the truth.

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We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

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