In reality, Trump has been downplaying the threat of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, up until this week. Just over two weeks ago at a campaign rally in South Carolina, he posited that Democrats were fabricating the coronavirus threat to undermine his presidency. ... And this is their new hoax,” Trump told the crowd. Trump had also been repeatedly telling Americans the coronavirus situation in the U.S. was much better than it actually was. Two days before calling the coronavirus threat a hoax, Trump falsely said of domestic COVID-19 cases: “We’re going down, not up.

Source: Huffington Post March 17, 2020 18:56 UTC