From this interview on Fox.
WALLACE: But, sir, we have the seventh highest mortality rate in the world. Our mortality rate is higher than Brazil, it’s higher than Russia and the European Union has us on a travel ban.
[….]
TRUMP: Kayleigh’s right here. I heard we have one of the lowest, maybe
the lowest mortality rate anywhere in the world.
TRUMP: Do you have the numbers, please? Because I heard we had the best
mortality rate.
TRUMP: Number, number one low mortality rate.
[…] [He’s lying. By some statistics, we have the tenth highest mortality rate.
John Hopkins has the US as seventh highest mortality rate. ]
WALLACE VOICE OVER: The White House went with this chart from the European CDC which shows Italy and Spain doing worse. But countries like Brazil and South Korea doing better. Other countries doing better like Russia aren’t included in the White House chart.
[….]
TRUMP: [About the prediction that covid would go away in summer.] I don’t know and I don’t think he knows. I don’t think anybody knows with this. This is a very tricky deal. Everybody thought this summer it would go away and it would come back in the fall. Well, when the summer came, they used to say the heat — the heat was good for it and it really knocks it out, remember? And then it might come back in the fall. So they got that one wrong.
[March 16, 2020, Trump said it would go away. He wasn’t alone in making that prediction, but it was a minority opinion, as covid was thriving in hot places even then. ]
[…]
TRUMP: [Fauci’s} a little bit of an alarmist. That’s OK. A little bit of an alarmist.
[….]
TRUMP: I’ll be right eventually. I will be right eventually. You know I said, “It’s going to disappear.” I’ll say it again.
WALLACE: But does that – does that discredit you?
TRUMP: It’s going to disappear and I’ll be right. I don’t think so.
WALLACE: Right.
TRUMP: I don’t think so. I don’t think so. You know why? Because I’ve
been right probably more than anybody else.
[….]
TRUMP: Chris, let the schools open. Do you ever see the statistics on young
people below the age of 18? The state of New Jersey had thousands of deaths.
Of all of these thousands, one person below the age of 18 – in the entire
state – one person and that was a person that had, I believe he said diabetes.
One person below the age of 18 died in the state of New Jersey during all of
this – you know, they had a hard time. And they’re doing very well now, so
that’s it.
[So, notice that, not only is unconcerned about staff, but he doesn’t seem to understand the concept of the children infecting others, let alone the issues related to long-term damage from the disease.]
[….]
TRUMP: And Biden wants to defund the police.
WALLACE: No he, sir, he does not.
TRUMP: Look. He signed a charter with Bernie Sanders; I will get that one
just like I was right on the mortality rate. Did you read the charter that he
agreed to with…
WALLACE: It says nothing about defunding the police.
TRUMP: Oh really? It says abolish, it says — let’s go. Get me the charter,
please.
WALLACE: All right.
TRUMP: Chris, you’ve got to start studying for these.
WALLACE: He says defund the police?
TRUMP: He says defund the police. They talk about abolishing the police.
[It doesn’t.]
[….]
TRUMP: Because I think that Fort Bragg, Fort Robert E. Lee, all of these
forts that have been named that way for a long time, decades and decades…
WALLACE: But the military says they’re for this.
TRUMP: …excuse me, excuse me. I don’t care what the military says. I do –
I’m supposed to make the decision.
[….]
WALLACE: You said our children are taught in school to hate our country.
Where do you see that?
TRUMP: I just look at – I look at school. I watch, I read, look at the
stuff. Now they want to change — 1492, Columbus discovered America. You know,
we grew up, you grew up, we all did, that’s what we learned. Now they want to
make it the 1619 project. Where did that come from? What does it represent? I
don’t even know, so.
WALLACE: It’s slavery.
TRUMP: That’s what they’re saying, but they don’t even know.
[…]
TRUMP: Biden can’t put two sentences together.
[….]
TRUMP: I called Michigan, I want to have a big rally in Michigan. Do you know we’re not allowed to have a rally in Michigan? Do you know we’re not allowed to have a rally in Minnesota? Do you know we’re not allowed to have a rally in Nevada? We’re not allowed to
have rallies.
WALLACE: Well, some people would say it’s a health…
TRUMP: In these Democrat-run states…
WALLACE: But, wait a minute, some people would that it’s a health
risk, sir.
TRUMP: Some people would say fine
WALLACE: I mean we had some issues after Tulsa.
TRUMP: But I would guarantee if everything was gone 100 percent, they
still wouldn’t allow it. They’re not allowing me to do it. So they’re not —
they’re not allowing me to have rallies.
[….]
[About the test of his cognitive abilities—Wallace says it’s an easy test]
TRUMP: It’s all misrepresentation. Because, yes, the first few
questions are easy, but I’ll bet you couldn’t even answer the last five
questions. I’ll bet you couldn’t, they get very hard, the last five questions.
WALLACE: Well, one of them was count back from 100 by seven.
TRUMP: Let me tell you…
WALLACE: Ninety-three.
TRUMP: … you couldn’t answer — you couldn’t answer many of the
questions.
WALLACE: Ok, what’s the question?
TRUMP: I’ll get you the test, I’d like to give it. I’ll guarantee you
that Joe Biden could not answer those questions.
WALLACE: OK.
TRUMP: OK. And I answered all 35 questions correctly.
[On healthcare]
TRUMP: Pre-existing conditions will always be taken care of by me and
Republicans, 100 percent.
WALLACE: But you’ve been in office three and a half years, you don’t
have a plan.
TRUMP: Well, we haven’t had. Excuse me. You heard me yesterday. We’re
signing a health care plan within two weeks, a full and complete health care
plan that the Supreme Court decision on DACA gave me the right to do. So we’re
going to solve — we’re going to sign an immigration plan, a health care plan,
and various other plans. And nobody will have done what I’m doing in the next
four weeks. The Supreme Court gave the president of the United States powers
that nobody thought the president had, by approving, by doing what they did —
their decision on DACA. And DACA’s going to be taken care of also. But we’re
getting rid of it because we’re going to replace it with something much better.
What we got rid of already, which was most of Obamacare, the individual
mandate. And that I’ve already won on. And we won also on the Supreme Court.
But the decision by the Supreme Court on DACA allows me to do things on
immigration, on health care, on other things that we’ve never done before. And
you’re going to find it to be a very exciting two weeks.
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