During an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity on Wednesday night, President Donald Trump claimed that California would have been hit much harder by COVID-19 if it had not been for his border wall.
Trump absurdly claims that California would've been much harder hit by the coronavirus without his border wall pic.twitter.com/lhV5JyONhz
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 18, 2020
“Think of it, in Tijuana, Mexico, it's one of the most infected places on earth, and we have a wall between Tijuana and San Diego,” Trump said. “You know, it's like a beautiful, very powerful wall, and California is very happy that we have it, because they wouldn't have any numbers. They would have numbers like you wouldn't believe right now if we didn't have that. So we've done a great job.”
Trump also told Hannity that COVID-19 is “fading away” in the U.S., despite 10 states seeing record numbers of new cases this week. Earlier Wednesday, Trump told Gray TV that the virus is “dying out.”
Jacqueline Policastro, Gray TV's DC bureau chief, asked Trump, “Coronavirus cases are rising in 22 states, including Oklahoma, where you plan to hold a big rally this week. Aren't you worried about people getting sick?”
“No, because if you look, the numbers are very minuscule compared to what it was,” Trump responded. “It's dying out.”
More from CNN: Twenty-one states are seeing an upward trend in new coronavirus cases and health experts continue to stress the importance of taking precautions to reduce the virus's spread. Despite the rising number of cases, the White House has downplayed the risks, with President Donald Trump saying in an interview with Gray TV on Wednesday that the virus is “dying out.” At the same time that the White House narrative is at odds with the data, health experts including Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci have been absent from many public updates. Dr. Johnathan Reiner, a professor of medicine at George Washington University, told CNN's Erin Burnett it's because “they tell the truth.””And the truth is that the pandemic is still very, very active in the United States and that we're not getting back to normal and there are difficult things that the public has to do,” Reiner said.
