President Donald Trump says that though he never gave an order to slow down testing, he really did tell his people that the United States would look better if fewer coronavirus tests were performed.
« I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down please,’ » he said.
Soon after Trump made the comment, White House officials asserted that the President was joking.
But in an interview with CBN News that aired Monday evening, Trump said he told his « people » — presumably his staff or Cabinet members — about his perceived « disadvantage » to expanded coronavirus testing, adding that he never ordered testing levels be lowered.
In the interview with CBN News, Trump was asked directly if he told his administration to slow down testing, as he said at his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday night.
« No, » he answered, « but I think we put ourselves at a disadvantage, I told my people. I said, ‘We’ve gotten so good at testing… We test much more than any other nation,’ so you hear about all these cases.
