During an interview with ABC’s “World News Tonight” Host David Muir, President Donald Trump acknowledged that as the country continues to move ahead with re-opening, more deaths will occur as a result of the spread of the Coronavirus.
Trump said that deciding to re-opening the country was the most difficult decision of his presidency, saying that as the U.S. opens his administration was going to have to put out COVID-19 “embers” and “small fires,” as well as “some big fires.”
When asked to talk about the possibility of a higher death rate as the country reopens, Trump said that the death toll was probably going “to be higher” than 70-80 thousand, but that the U.S. needs to reopen.
Trump also said that his decision to shut down the country was the right choice, quipping that “even the Democrats aren’t blaming me for” doing so.
Trump was then asked about the number of cases of COVID-19 in the U.S., which prompted the president to pull out a stat sheet he had tucked away in his suit, and argue that if the U.S. tested as little as other nations, the infection rate would be a lot lower.
“If I tested like other countries, I would have a lot more cases,” said President Trump