Trump Says He Ordered That Coronavirus Testing Be Slowed

membership ticker

Right now is no time to come up short.

It's time to fight like hell for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme and cruel agenda, where the Big Lie is called a Big Lie, where facts matter, and where accountability at the polls and in the press has a fighting chance. We have our work cut out for us, and we urgently need to raise about 400,000 by Thursday, June 30, to finish our fiscal year on track and give it everything we possibly can. Please help us get there with a donation if you can right now.

$1,150,000

$1,350,000

Right now is no time to come up short. It's time to fight like hell for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme and cruel agenda, where facts matter, and where accountability at the polls and in the press has a fighting chance. We have our work cut out for us, and we still need to raise upwards of 400,000 by June 30 to give it everything we can. Please help:

Evan Vucci/AP

The coronavirus is a rapidly developing news story, so some of the content in this article might be out of date. Check out our most recent coverage of the coronavirus crisis, and subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.

Riffing about the coronavirus during a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to reboot his reelection campaign, President Trump said he asked for less testing to track the coronavirus pandemic for fear the increase in positives might make him look bad. The White House quickly clarified that Trump was joking, though it’s the sort of thing the president has said in the past. (Remember this?)

“When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases,” Trump said. “So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.'”

"Here's the bad part: When you do testing to that extent, you're gonna find more people, you're gonna find more cases. So I said to my people, 'slow the testing down please!'" — Trump pic.twitter.com/m5MOV9je70

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 21, 2020

A little later:

White House official says Trump was clearly joking. "He's never advised staff to slow testing. We are extremely proud of the 25 million tests we are conducting at a rapid pace." https://t.co/TLlZxtyvXo

— Michael C. Bender (@MichaelCBender) June 21, 2020

Our weak testing capability hamstrung the initial response to the coronavirus, and the country is still paying the price for it. As of Saturday, nearly 122,000 Americans have died in the pandemic. Joke’s on them, I guess.