The president wasn’t kidding that he told public health officials, ‘Slow the testing down, please!’
« With smaller testing we would show fewer cases!, » tweeted President Trump back on June 23 with regard to diagnostic COVID-19 tests. « Instead of 25 million tests, let’s say we did 10 million tests. We’d look like we were doing much better because we’d have far fewer cases. You understand that, » Trump said on CBN News. The president told the participants at his Tulsa campaign rally in June, « I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please!' » White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany later told reporters, « It was a comment that he made in jest. » Trump almost immediately contradicted McEnany, telling a reporter, « I don’t kid, let me just tell you, let me make it clear. » And it turns out that the president really wasn’t kidding. The New York Times is reporting that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was pressured by officials in the White House to change its testing recommendations.
