President Trump called into the Hannity show on Fox “News” tonight.
TL;DR: Trump lies about COVID testing rates, asserts Joe Biden needs to take the same cognitive test he did, bragged that he was looking forward to use force on Seattle protesters, claims that his taxes are still under audit, believes that today’s SCOTUS rulings means the cases just start over, and says he’ll wear a mask during an upcoming visit to Walter Reed.
(This is not a transcript of the entire interview, but highlights of some discussion points.)
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After Hannity made a false argument that Joe Biden wants to dismantle police departments, Trump bragged about selling hundreds of millions of dollars of surplus military equipment to police departments. “I’ve been thanked by every police department,” he claimed.
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Discussing the break up of the Minneapolis and Seattle protests, Trump claimed he ordered the governor of Minnesota to deploy the National Guard. “If you look at Minneapolis, after four or five days of horror, we called them and said, ‘You gotta get out the National Guard.’ We insisted that they do it. When the National Guard finally got out, they walked through it like a knife goes through butter. But we were ready to go into Seattle. Frankly, I looked forward to it.”
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TRUMP: “But Joe [Biden], just, look, let’s face it: he’s been taken over by the radical left. He has no clue what they’re doing and what they’re getting him into. … And Joe’s never going to fight it, even if he disagreed with it which I actually don’t think he does. I think he– Y’know there’s an expression, old expression was used badly a long time ago in politics. I think they brainwashed him. They brainwashed him. He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know what he’s doing and our country will suffer. Our stock markets will, um, crash. Bad things will happen.”
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TRUMP: “[Joe Biden} couldn’t take any cognitive test because he couldn’t pass one. I actually took one when I, uh, very recently when I, ah, when I, y’know, the radical left was saying, ‘Is he all there? Is he all there?” and I proved I was all there ’cause I aced it, I aced the test and he should take the same exact test, the very standard test. I took, I took it at Walter Reed Medical Center in front of doctors and they were very surprised. They said that’s an unbelievable thing, rarely does anybody do what you just did.”
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TRUMP: “We do testing like nobody’s ever done testing. And when we test, the more you test, the more cases you find. Other countries, you know when they test, and I ask them all, they test when someone’s not feeling well or when somebody walks into a hospital. So they don’t have test, they have tests that are very limited. We have these massive, 40, 45 million people have been tested. It’s a record and our tests are the best. So we have cases all over the place. Most of those cases immediately get better. They get, y’know, people, they young people, they have sniffles and two days later they’re fine. They’re not sick to start off with. They’re asymptomatic. A lot of… things… happen and what we’re doing is with all of these tests that we’re doing all over the country, test, everybody test, pull up parking lots everything else. What we’ve done is we’ve created a tremendous number of cases. Everybody else, can you imagine if China tested like we test? They don’t. Can you image if other big countries, the bigger countries tested like we, or Germany, we’ve tested many, many, many times, even proportionately the number of people that other countries have tested. … We are testing and creating, it’s the greatest thing that ever happened for the opposite party but we’re doing something that nobody’s ever done to the extent and we’re doing a great job. But we have a mortality rate, think of this, that’s ten-fold better than any other, what we’re doing is incredible. If you look, you’ve heard the numbers, ten fold, we have fewer people dying, and our people have done an incredible job. And one other thing, we’re very well on a way to a vaccine, very well on the way therapeutically, therapeutics, we’re very well on the way. We’ve got a lot of great things happening. We already do. We do have some that are, that are very effective or at least e-ffective. And a lot of very good things have happened.”
(FACT CHECKS: “Sniffles” isn’t a definitive symptom of coronavirus; a mix of different symptoms can be indicative of infection. The number of cases is not dependent on testing; the cases still exist but are undiscovered. The US ranks 25th in testing per capita. The US ranks 114th out of 150 nations in the case fatality rate. The US ranks 9th in per capita mortality rates. Daily fatalities have spiked in the last three days. Stats from worldometers.com.)
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TRUMP: “But the testing is just showing up all these cases, and if you turn the news on it’s always the word ‘cases.’ They don’t talk about death, because deaths are WAY down. They talk about cases, all the time cases. And those cases get better. They, they, in, in most, most cases, in almost, I mean literally in most cases, they automatically cure, they automatically get better.”
(FACT CHECK: Case fatalities have spiked in the last three days.)
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HANNITY: “What are your thoughts on, not only mask wearing, but do we have enough PPE for Houston and other hotspots as they arise?”
TRUMP: “Well, we do and we’ve done a great job in that we’ve created a, a supply chain that is incredible. On ventilators, we’re making thousands a week. On, ah, PPE, we are doing great. We do, but y’know I think it’s fine to wear a mask if it makes you feel comfortable. I think under certain conditions like when you’re going into a hospital, I’ll be going to Walter Reed to see some of our great, ah, soldiers that have been injured, badly injured, and also see some of our COVID workers, the people that have done such a great job, and I expect to be wearing a mask when I go into Walter Reed, you’re in hospital setting. I think it’s a very appropriate thing. I have no problem with a mask. I don’t think you need one when you’re tested all the time, everybody around you is tested.”
(FACT CHECK: Many reports, including this one from the Washington Post, detail PPE shortages around the country.)
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HANNITY: “Let me ask you about today’s Supreme Court opinions…. One would send things back to the lower court but would open up the possibility of at least some of your taxes being revealed to a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and the other saying no to Congress they don’t have a right to that information. Um, your thoughts?”
TRUMP: “Well, first of all, I’m under tax audit, okay, so, I mean, they treat, the IRS treats me just like the used to treat the Tea Party except worse. And I’m under tax audit. I have been for a long period of time. We made a deal a long time ago and once I ran for politics that deals was, eh, like we didn’t make it. So I’m under a continuing audit and anybody that did that or showed that before you have it finalized but they treat, they treat me horribly, the IRS. Horribly. It’s a disgrace what’s happened. …. It basically sends it all back and we start all over.”
(FACT CHECKS: Hannity’s premise is wrong; the decision doesn’t deny Congress the right to the information. Releasing tax information doesn’t depend on it being under audit or any audit being released. And Trump must turn over the documents to New York State as decided by the Vance case; it’s not starting over.)