Medical Experts Furious Over Trump's Statement
ALLEN: U.S. President Trump is now comparing his handling of the coronavirus pandemic to that of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill during World War II. Listen to what he told a crowd of supporters on Thursday in Michigan.</s>TRUMP: America will prevail over the China virus, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself. That's it.</s>TRUMP: We are doing very well. As the British government advised the British people in the face of World War II, keep calm and carry on. That's what I did. When Hitler was bombing London, Churchill, great leader, would oftentimes go to a roof in London, and speak. And he always spoke with calmness. He said, we have to show calmness. No, we did it the right way, and we've done a job like nobody.</s>ALLEN: Few people wore masks at the rally and social distancing was nonexistent. This comes just one day after on the record interviews by the president, revealed that he knew back in February that the coronavirus was both highly contagious and deadlier than the flu. Yet, he admits in those same interviews with journalist Bob Woodward to intentionally downplaying the health threat, because he said he doesn't want to cause panic. Some of Woodward's taped interviews with the president were released ahead of his new book on the Trump presidency, unlike anonymous sources that can't be dismissed as fake, it is the president himself admitting on tape he misled the country about this pandemic. As the White House grapples with the fallout from those revelations, the president now blames Woodward. We get more on all of this from CNN's Jim Acosta.</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: One day after bombshell recordings reveal the president intentionally downplayed the COVID-19 threat, Mr. Trump is claiming it was all about keeping Americans from panicking.</s>TRUMP: I didn't lie. What I said is we have to be calm. We can't be panicked. I don't want to jump up and down and start screaming death, death.</s>ACOSTA: The president is even trying to shift the blame to the journalist with the Trump tapes, Bob Woodward.</s>TRUMP: Certainly, if he thought that was a bad statement, he would have reported it because he thinks that, you know, you don't want to have anybody that is going to suffer medically because of some fact. If Bob Woodward thought what I said was bad, then he should have immediately, right after I said it, gone out to the authorities so they can prepare and let them know, but he didn't think it was bad, and he said he didn't think it was bad. He actually said he didn't think it was bad.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bob Woodward is not the president.</s>TRUMP: The only that --</s>ACOSTA: Democrats aren't buying it, with Joe Biden tweeting, Donald Trump said he didn't want to tell the truth and create a panic, so he did nothing and created a disaster.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), UNITED STATES SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: He hid the facts and refused to take the threat seriously, leaving the entire country exposed and unprepared. He didn't want to cause a panic. Why? Because of the stock market?</s>ACOSTA: The president has used the panic excuse before, way back in March.</s>ACOSTA: What do you say to Americans who believe that you got this wrong?</s>TRUMP: And I do want them to stay calm, and we are doing a great job. If you could ask a normal question, the statements I made are, I want to keep the country calm, I don't panic in the country. I could cause panic, much better than even you.</s>ACOSTA: But here's the problem, in February the president warned Woodward the virus was deadly, but not the public.</s>TRUMP: It goes through air, Bob. That's always tougher than the touch, you know, the touch you don't have to touch things, right, but the air, you just breathe the air and that's how it's passed. And so, that's a very tricky one, that's a very delicate one. It's also more deadly than your, you know, even your strenuous flu's. This is more deadly.</s>ACOSTA: Even with the Trumps admissions caught on tape --</s>TRUMP: I wanted to -- I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down.</s>BOB WOODWARD, AUTHOR, RAGE: Yes,</s>I -- TRUMP: Because I don't want to create a panic.</s>ACOSTA: Top administration officials are trying to tell the public don't believe your own ears.</s>MICHAEL PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I actually didn't sense the president was downplaying anything. We were giving the American people the facts as we knew them, as we learned them, every step of the way.</s>ACOSTA: Woodward book has GOP senators running for cover with Iowa's Joni Ernst telling CNN, I haven't read it. I haven't seen it, so give me a chance to take a look. And John Cornyn of Texas praising Mr. Trump, saying, he's done as good job as you can under the circumstances. But there are other pressing questions for the president raised in the Woodward book, as to why Mr. Trump thought it was a good idea to tell the author about what sounds like a top-secret nuclear weapon system.</s>TRUMP: I have built a nuclear -- a weapon. I have built a weapon system, a weapon system that nobody has ever had in this country before. We have stuff that you haven't even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before. There is nobody -- what we have this incredible.</s>ACOSTA: And during this rally in Michigan the president and his campaign team were violating his administration's own coronavirus guidelines as they packed in thousands of supporters who weren't practicing social distancing, and many were not wearing masks. Jim Acosta, CNN, at the Saginaw Airport in Michigan.</s>ALLEN: John Bolton has been critical of President Trump's leadership after he was ousted as national security adviser one year ago. Bolton spoke earlier with our Chris Cuomo and said, Mr. Trump only views the pandemic as it may impact his chances for reelection. Here he is.</s>JOHN BOLTON, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, this is a very serious political problem for the president, which is what he understands it to be. It's not a matter of truth or falsity here for him. This is an existential threat to his reelection which I think explains the vehemence of his response to it. And I think it's just absolutely striking how clear he is on these tapes to Woodward of his appreciation for how dangerous the coronavirus was, compared to what he was saying publicly at the time, what his senior advisers, and cabinet officials were saying at the time. There's no way you can reconcile those things. And that, coming out of his own mouth I think -- I think this could be nearly the point where the campaign ends.</s>ALLEN: Bolton also said it was President Trump's nature to resist listening to negative information that he doesn't want to hear especially if it might have an adverse effect on the economy and jeopardize Trump's reelection. We turn to other news now. Peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban are set to begin Saturday in Qatar. If successful, it could mark a turning point in Afghanistan's tortured history. The U.S. plans to cut American forces in the country by half, and pull out completely by next April under a deal signed with the Taliban in February. But there are conditions to that pull out. And U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo is on his way to Qatar to support the peace process. And speaking with reporters, Pompeo acknowledged ongoing bloodshed including a deadly roadside bomb in Kabul on Wednesday.</s>MIKE POMPEO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: There are a series of commitments that the Taliban have made, and we have every expectation that they will follow through on them. Our commitment to reduce our forces to zero is conditioned on them executing their obligations under the agreement. So very clear about their responsibilities with respect to terrorist activity taking place in Afghanistan that is plotting against external -- external operate -- plotting external operations. It's very clear that the violence levels have to come down to acceptable levels. Look, we saw just yesterday, maybe the day before, there were plenty of spoilers out there. There are people who don't want this to go forth. They want America mired in this place. They don't want peace in Afghanistan. Most afghan people want that.</s>ALLEN: We'll be following Pompeo's trip here to Qatar. Deadly wildfires continue to rage across the western U.S. Next, I talk with a California fire management expert who is rethinking what can be done to prevent these infernos.