Top 10 Stupidest Things President Trump has Said Regarding COVID-19 (Coronavirus)

President Trump has spent his years as president spouting all sorts of nonsense. We've become numb to the word salads, the boastful lies, the tone deaf rhetoric, and the schoolyard insults. We've had to. You'd go crazy otherwise.

Fortunately, most of the idiotic things Trump has said in the past haven't had any real impact. As a do nothing administration, it's more reality television than anything of real consequence. At the end of the day, even the whole impeachment drama was little more than drama when compared to the threat of a global pandemic with the potential of killing millions of people.

And it's in this time of real crisis that the President has finally composed himself, taken charge of uniting a divided nation, started acting as Presidential as he promised he would on the campaign trail, and... who are we kidding? President Trump has done the exact opposite. Faced with a true defining moment in his presidency, Trump has become his worst version of himself as is demonstrated by the quotes below.
The Top Ten
"The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.... Stock Market starting to look very good to me." - February 24, 2020

Under control? Hardly. The virus has been identified in over 5,000,000 Americans and in all 50 states, with the possibility of many more unidentified infections. The NBA, NHL, MLB, XFL, MLS, and multiple other sporting leagues suspended play, and the NCAA canceled the 2020 Division I men's and women's basketball tournaments. Schools are closed across the country. Oh yeah, and over 175,000 people have died. Sure doesn't feel like everything is under control.

As for the stock market analysis and prediction, let's see how that turned out. The very next day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped over a thousand points. A month later, the Dow was down over 10,000 points, and the Fed slashed interest rates to 0%, along with effectively relaunching the 2008-era bond-buying program known as quantitative easing. Trillions of dollars in value disappeared almost overnight. All the gains the market had made during Trump's presidency were gone.

It's little wonder the stock market has done so poorly the day after Trump's televised coronavirus addresses. The things he says have no basis in reality, and his track record of lying makes it so that every time he tries to paint a rosy picture of the state of affairs, people naturally and correctly assume the opposite is true.

"We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine." - January 22, 2020

..Containing viruses is so easy. Nobody is better at containing viruses than me. They say we're doing better than anyone ever has at dealing with coronavirus. Nobody believed we could do viruses as well as we have. Everyone is amazed.

Yeah, he didn't actually say any of that stuff, but it's scary how believable it sounds.

"I hear the numbers are getting much better in Italy." - March 6, 2020

Did he hear this from the same "they say" sources Trump likes to attribute all the amazing things people say about him to?

The day after Trump said this, Italy reported they had 5,883 confirmed cases and 233 deaths. Two days later, another 230 people had died. Three days later, over 550 more people had died, and the number of confirmed cases had increased to over 15,000.

"And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15, within a couple of days, is going to be down to close to zero. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done." - February 26, 2020

If 15 to 0 is the indication of a pretty good job, is 15 to over 1,000,000 in a couple of months an indication of how terribly the "we" Trump is talking about is doing? Because if it is, Trump and the rest of the "we" he is so proud of are not doing a good job at all.

"I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it... Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability." - March 6, 2020

Bear in mind, this claim of "really getting it" is coming from a man who asked doctors if the flu vaccine would work on COVID-19 (the answer was a prompt "no"), continues to conflate preventative measures like vaccines with post-infection treatments, and has endorsed the repeatedly debunked anti-vaxxer claim that childhood vaccines cause autism.

This is also a man who has claimed the human body is like a battery with a finite amount of energy. He believes that this energy gets depleted by exercise, which causes a person to die earlier than they would if they didn't stay fit. That's right. A man who honestly thinks he has an unnatural aptitude for understanding human biology has claimed exercise is bad for you.

This doesn't sound like a natural ability. This sounds like an uneducated buffoon who would go on to suggest using UV light and disinfectants on people's "insides."

"And these prohibitions will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo but various other things as we get approval. Anything coming from Europe to the United States is what we are discussing." - March 11, 2020

This is Trump explaining in a televised address to the nation how the travel ban affecting Europe will work. Is it any wonder that even after clarifying the inaccuracies in this statement, the Dow dropped 10% the next day, which was the worst day it had experienced in over 30 years?

At a time when people are desperate for clarity and answers and are looking for reasons to believe things will be alright, this buffoon goes on television and demonstrates that he has no idea what he's doing. Minutes after the broadcast, Trump issued a clarifying tweet stating that cargo would still be allowed in and the ban only applied to people. Later administration communications further clarified that not all of Europe would be affected, and American citizens would be allowed to return to the country. Ironically, he had picked this time to make things sound worse than they were after so many episodes of being brazenly and baselessly optimistic.

Given the stock market dive, however, it appears the subsequent refining of Trump's gaffe was not enough to quell the panic. The President showed he was not competent to lead during this time of crisis and offered a measure to contain the virus by closing the barn door long after the horses had already escaped.

"You know, a lot of people are staying here and they’re going to be doing their business here. They’re going to be travelling here. And they’ll be going to resorts here." - March 6, 2020

Wishful thinking from a hotelier who has refused to stop promoting and benefiting from the family business while he's been in office? That seems like as good an explanation as any as to why he would say this less than a week before floating the idea of offering bailouts to airlines and hotels to help them deal with the crisis.

"As of right now and yesterday, anybody that needs a test [can have one], that’s the important thing, and the tests are all perfect, like the letter was perfect, the transcription was perfect..." - March 6, 2020

, that's the important thing, and the tests are all perfect, like the letter was perfect, the transcription was perfect..." - March 6, 2020]
So very untrue. Tests were and are in short supply. Medical professionals have cited a lack of access to testing as a reason for being unable to rein in this epidemic.

Literally the day before Trump said this, Mike Pence said, "We don't have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward." However, if this is Trump's version of "perfect," then that is illuminating.

It helps explain why he felt compelled to lie multiple times about a "perfect" letter and why he was ultimately impeached in part as a consequence of his "perfect" phone call.

"You know, three, four weeks ago, I said, 'Well, how many people die a year from the flu?' And, in this country, I think last year was 36- or 37,000 people. And I'm saying, 'Wow, nobody knew that information.'" - March 2, 2020

"Nobody." Because Trump is the smartest, most well-read, most educated person in the whole world, so if something is new to him, then it is something so amazing that nobody else could possibly have known about it already.

"It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away." - March 10, 2020

Don't worry folks, it will all go away.

Yes, the Trump plan for the coronavirus is a "miracle" that will make it all disappear. As he said in February, "It's going to disappear. One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear." As an American, how can you feel anything other than supremely confident you're in good hands with leadership like that?

The Contenders
"I've always known this is a real, this is a pandemic. I've felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic." - March 17, 2020 

This is the type of egregious lie you only get from someone who a) has no reservations about lying to anyone and everyone and b) absolutely refuses to ever admit they are wrong.

It's embarrassing as a country to have elected a "leader" who is the equivalent of a 3-year-old with chocolate all over their face and fingers, saying they didn't eat any of a forbidden cake.

Fortunately for Trump, this is so obviously a lie that nobody will ever hold him accountable for it. Fortunate because if anybody truly believed he thought this and then went on to downplay the risks to the citizens of this country, both through rhetoric and inaction, the masses would be justified in demanding his head for intentionally putting millions of American lives at risk.

"I call it the unseen the unseen enemy, there’s a thousand different terms for it, but it snuck up on us" - March 18, 2020

Yes, it snuck up on us. Who could have possibly anticipated the possibility of a pandemic like this except maybe the Obama administration, the scientific community, the WHO, and the various U.S. intelligence agencies that have been warning about the possibility of a global pandemic for years?

Who could have thought this specific coronavirus could cause so much damage except maybe the experts and politicians who had been sounding alarms since it was first reported spreading in China, only to be dismissed as "fake news," never-Trumpers, and Deep State actors?

Maybe the only one who could have seen it coming was Trump, who just one day earlier claimed he had always known coronavirus was a pandemic, but apparently he forgot.

"HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine." - March 21, 2020

In a desperate attempt to provide hope, Trump frequently touted the unproven drug hydroxychloroquine as a miracle cure that would help us win the fight against COVID-19. Despite insufficient research and in the face of more grounded messaging from experts, Trump, the snake oil salesman, was promoting an elixir that would save the population, the economy, and, more importantly, his hopes for re-election.

The administration fast-tracked the drug for use in hospitals to treat COVID-19, and demand surged across the country. Millions were spent procuring Trump's so-called miracle cure.

Flash forward three weeks. More comprehensive testing showed that hydroxychloroquine was not effective in treating COVID-19 and may actually increase the risk of death in patients due to the known serious side effects of the drug.

Trump's justification for backing the drug cocktail was based largely on his instinct over any real evidence. When contradicted by the science, he hedged his bets by asking, "What do you have to lose?" As it turns out, the thing people may have lost is their lives.

"I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning?" - April 23, 2020

"Under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion, or any other route)." - Reckitt Benckiser, the manufacturer of Lysol (April 24, 2020)

Despite later claims, Trump was not being sarcastic (and even if he was, making jokes in a nationally televised press briefing as thousands of people are dying is no better). Yes, the President of the United States, after being briefed on how sunlight and disinfecting products like Lysol neutralize the virus on external surfaces, went on national television and suggested injecting poisonous substances into people. Mr. "Doctors are Surprised by How Well I Get This Stuff" endorsed the concept of drinking bleach to treat a virus.

After the briefing, poison control offices throughout the country reported an increase in calls related to ingesting disinfectants. When told by a reporter the Monday following his bone-headed display of being a moron trying to fake his way through a class presentation he didn't study for that the state of Maryland's emergency hotline had received hundreds of calls seeking guidance about his comments, Trump replied, "I can't imagine why. I can't imagine that." When asked if he took any responsibility for the increase, he replied, "No, I don't."

"The last administration left us with nothing. We started off with bad, broken tests and obsolete tests." - April 30, 2020

1. The novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was first identified on January 8, 2020.
2. The "last administration" (the Obama administration) had been out of office for almost three years.
3. It is not possible to create a test for a virus like this before the virus exists.

Things are going very badly for Trump. He is facing a very serious challenge and is performing miserably. But instead of owning up to any failures and seeing an opportunity to make improvements, Mr. "I take no responsibility" is blaming everyone but himself.

While claiming his response has been perfect, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, Trump has blamed China, the World Health Organization, the media, Democratic governors, government watchdogs, and his favorite target, Obama, who failed to create a time machine, travel to the future, create coronavirus tests, and return to 2017 to give them to Trump - who would almost certainly destroy them in his ongoing mission to undo everything associated with Obama's name.

"We are getting great marks for the handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, especially the very early BAN of people from China... Compare that to the Obama/Sleepy Joe disaster known as H1N1 Swine Flu." - May 10, 2020

So many things to address here.

First, "great marks"? Like grades? The only way this response is getting a passing grade is if it's one of those projects where the teacher asks you to grade yourself and you have absolutely no compunction about abusing the honor system.

Second, it's probably time to stop patting yourself on the back for a China ban that wasn't really a ban and didn't work. Over 40,000 people flew from China to the U.S. in the two months after the "ban" was put in place, and screening was inadequate. The argument could be made that the ban helped slow the spread and gave the country more time to prepare for the virus. That gets undercut, however, by the fact that instead of using that time to prepare the country by stockpiling supplies and implementing a robust testing system, the President spent the five weeks after implementing the ban downplaying the epidemic (see numerous "hoax" and containment claims), holding campaign rallies (New Hampshire, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, South Carolina, North Carolina), and golfing (4-5 outings at Trump International in West Palm Beach).

Lastly, now is probably not the best time to be comparing your administration's handling of the Coronavirus with the responses of previous administrations. Sure, in hindsight, there are things the previous administrations wish they would have done differently. The 2009 Swine Flu killed an estimated 12,000 people in the U.S. (according to the CDC) from April 2009 to April 2010. But when you compare that to the 2020 pandemic, where 12,000 Americans were dying per week and the U.S. has far more reported cases and deaths from COVID-19 than any country on the planet, it amounts to an epic self-burn.

"We've made every decision correctly. We may have some embers or some ashes or we may have some flames coming, but we'll put them out. We'll stomp them out" - June 8, 2020

At the time the statement was made, the United States was averaging 20,000 new confirmed cases per day. 115,000 people had already died.

As for those embers, ashes, and flames that would be stomped out... The number of daily confirmed cases tripled to over 60,000 in a month. Two months later, another 50,000 people had died from COVID-19.

"Here's the bad part... when you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people, you're going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down please." - June 20, 2020

Testing is crucial to the suppression of a pandemic. Testing gives communities the tools to slow the spread of a disease and to better treat those who become infected. Testing saves lives.

Trump doesn't care about saving lives. Trump cares about Trump. Since testing further illuminates the administration's catastrophic failure in controlling the outbreak in the United States, he is against it.

"It's got all different names. Wuhan. Wuhan was catching on... Kung flu... COVID-19. COVID. I say what's the 19?... Some people can't explain what the 19... I said, that's an odd name." - June 23, 2020

125,000 deaths, millions have lost their jobs, Q2 GDP saw the biggest drop on record (including the Great Depression), and some people are still putting their faith in a leader who doesn't even know what the 19 in COVID-19 stands for?

"If we didn't test, we wouldn't have cases. But we have cases because we test." - June 25, 2020

Once again, it's not about helping Americans. It's about helping himself. People would still be getting sick and dying if there were no testing. In fact, they would be doing so at a greater rate than they are already.

But in Trumpworld, it would somehow be better if American corpses were filling refrigerator trucks and mass graves as a result of some mysterious and unidentified cause. Then maybe the administration could better hide the numbers and fudge the statistics.

Either that or he is genuinely stupid enough to believe that testing causes people to get sick and that you do not have a condition until it is diagnosed.

"This could have been stopped. It could have been stopped quickly and easily. But for some reason, it wasn't, and we'll figure out what that reason was." - July 23, 2020 

A great leader takes responsibility for his failures. Trump, however, takes no responsibility for anything negative and demands full credit for anything positive, even when he had nothing to do with it.

Once again, Trump places the blame for thousands of American deaths on someone else, without giving a second thought to the failures of the orange face staring back at him in the mirror.

Every leader in the world whose country has been affected by the virus can identify something they could have done better. China's government shoulders plenty of blame here, but at the end of the day, their secrecy, obfuscation of the facts, and their inability to prevent the spread of the virus is not the sole cause for the damage it has wrought upon the world.

China was unfortunate to have the virus first appear within its borders, but the Trump administration's response - secrecy, obfuscation, and inability to control the spread - gives no reason to believe the results would have been any different if the virus had originated in the United States.

"The China virus is a vicious and dangerous illness, but we've learned a great deal about it and who it targets. We are in the process of developing a strategy that's going to be very, very powerful." - July 28, 2020

Americans, take comfort. After only six months and 150,000 American deaths, Trump is not only taking the virus seriously and not calling it a basic flu, but he is developing a plan to deal with it.

Certainly, it will be a beautiful plan. The most beautiful plan anyone has ever seen. Many people are already saying it is a beautiful plan. When will it be ready? Well, in two weeks, of course.

"Everybody thought this summer it would go away. They used to say the heat, the heat was good for it and it really knocks it out, remember? So they got that one wrong." - July 17, 2020

Critics have frequently pointed out that the unnamed "they" Trump loves to cite is Trump himself, or at the very least the voices in his head. "They" are typically enamored with Trump and have nothing but the highest praise for everything he does.

In spite of all the available evidence to the contrary, it is this "they" that has lauded Trump's response to the virus as the best in the world. Now we have even more reason to equate "they" with Trump since it was Trump himself who assured us multiple times that the heat would kill the virus. Americans shouldn't worry because it would "go away in April."

Of secondary interest is the idea that the "I take no responsibility" president, who rarely if ever admits to making a mistake ("We've made every decision correctly"), is, in a roundabout way, implying he may have been wrong.

"Big surge in New Zealand, you know it's terrible, we don't want that, but this is an invisible enemy that should never have been let to come to Europe and the rest of the world by China." - August 17, 2020

Wow! How big of a surge did New Zealand have that the President of a country seeing 40,000 new cases per day felt it warranted commenting on?

Turns out, it was 13. Not thirteen thousand. Not even thirteen hundred. Just 13. A baker's dozen.

"The places they were using to hold up, now they're having a big surge… they were holding up names of countries, and now they're saying 'whoops!'"

If 13 new cases is a "whoops," what is the word for 40,000? New Zealand has 22 reported COVID-19 deaths. There isn't a single state in the United States with fewer deaths than that, and for many states, 22 or more deaths is a daily occurrence.

Is this really the comparison you want to invite? That 13 cases is a "whoops" while 1,000 deaths per day "is what it is," is the product of "doing everything we can," and is "under control as much as you can control it"?

"She taped it. And it was not only taped, it was taped a long time ago, because she had the wrong deaths." - August 18, 2020

Of all the negative things Michelle Obama had to say about the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus, Trump chose to attack her on the timing of her speech. And not because she used outdated numbers that made him look bad by suggesting things had improved, but because she used a figure that had since become outdated due to an additional 20,000 deaths.

And even then, it's not as though her address was pre-taped that far in advance. Michelle Obama stated in her speech that there had been over 150,000 deaths, which remains true. The only time that would not have been accurate is if she had made the statement prior to July 25, 2020.

So, in the end, Trump proudly and publicly roasted himself with one of the most epic self-burns in an attempt to shame the former First Lady for recording a speech somewhere between the time of the convention and three and a half weeks earlier.