What Trump Told Woodward

It flies through the air with the greatest of ease--
That coronavirus at which not to sneeze.

In 2016, Donald Trump was not my candidate. I thought his nomination by the Republicans was disastrous. I would never have supported Clinton, but would have preferred almost any other Republican.

Not the first time I’ve been wrong.

The reality is that he has done an unusually good job, by all visible indications. If any president deserved a second term, he does. The fact that the polls are still against him seems insane.

There is currently a scandal, it is true, about his supposed lying to the public about the COVID pandemic. And demands that Kayleigh McEnerny must also resign for saying that Trump did not lie. Because he told Bob Woodward on February 7 that the coronavirus spread by air and that it was more severe than flu. At the same time, and later, his public announcements were that the virus was “under control” and that Americans should "Just stay calm. It will go away."

I can’t see any lie here; except by the Democrats. If Trump “knew” that COVID was spread by air, and was worse than the flu, he can only have heard this from the experts. The experts at the same time were telling the public that COVID was under control, the risk was low, and they did not know whether it was spread by air. These same experts who advised Trump, or others like them, would have advised members of Congress. No members of Congress were warning the public as of February 7 that COVID was more serious than they realized, and was spread by air. China was saying at the same time that it was under control and probably was not spread by air. The WHO was still refusing to confirm airborne transmission as of July 8. The Centre for Disease Control would not confirm either that it was airborne or how deadly it was. Bob Woodward too obviously knew whatever Trump knew, having just been told by Trump; and he too told nobody.

They were all, of course, acting rationally and in everyone’s best interests. Nobody knew any of this for sure; it was speculation, although reasonable speculation. Everyone was trying to keep everyone calm. Trump was more honest than anyone: he actually publicly said, at the time, that his prime concern was to keep everyone calm. He was the most honest.

It is this that the corrupt elite cannot tolerate.

Trump is consistently a straight-talker. Those who oppose him seem to lie persistently and without compunction.