Please stop perpetuating these lies. It's laughable at this point. He NEVER called the outbreak hoax... Stop. This. Nonsense.
He famously avoids actually saying anything in a way you can pin down. Then he complains how he's being misinterpreted. "And you know what that means" is one of his favorite rando things to slip into his harangues.
In this particular standup routine, he uses the indefinite pronoun "this" ("This is their [the Democrats'] new hoax") then his minions complain that it was "out of context" and he meant that "their new hoax" is that he, Trump, is not doing well w/the coronavirus ("They're politicizing it...").
Here's Trump that afternoon or before (posted 2/28) talking about how great we're doing, how minimal this disease is, how well we compare with other nations because we keep finding no new cases when we don't look, we're working on cures and getting some very good results, etc.
"We haven't seen an increase and people are getting better... almost everybody I see is getting better and it could be everybody soon."
The "hoax" language is from the rally, also 2/28. He repeats comparisons, mocks Democrats, etc. He just about breaks his arm patting himself on the back. Then he uses the indefinite pronoun "this", ("this is their new hoax") and when his quote gets remembered for his position, which it exactly encapsulates, he gets upset and the marching morons start their shtick online etc., parsing words and pleading mistreatment.
He says he's doing a brilliant job, and the virus is almost gone. Then finally he says "This is their new hoax," and complains that "this" refers to something else. If you have a problem with vague speech being mis-reported, stop speaking vaguely, right? But you and I both know that speaking vaguely is his con game, it's what gets him through appearances.
He follows that up by saying "We won early, and we will do everything in our power to keep the infection and those who have it from entering our country." The theory of the case is it's a "foreign virus," he has "won," and the sole intervention necessary is to restrict foreign travel.
Moving on, from the tape posted on Feb. 28:
"I made one decision, that was a very important decision, and that was to close our country to a certain area of the world that was relatively heavily infected, and because of that, we're talking about 15, who seem to be all getting better... and had that decision not been made it could have been a much different story..." and so on.
Yesterday we were over 14k cases, I dont know today's count.
Get it? His position was that where the puck
is (as measured by never measuring) is all that matters, not Pandemic 101,
PREVENTION and
PREPARING. Why? because the only prevention in this case is containment, and containment involves gathering his enemy, data. So, we'll skip that part and "see what happens" right? Because markets will be spooked if
we get "relatively heavily infected..." and report it. So he gets to keep saying 15 instead.
So parse words, twist yourself in knots reassigning the indefinite pronoun, point fingers at the media.
Parsing what he said "Hoax" about is fun, but the problem is not so much the word "hoax," it is that he believed that he had "won," that the Dems still being concerned was out of line, and that if you hope hard enough and remain optimistic viruses disappear. Most importantly, he had a stake in "creating" a reality show in which only 15 people got it, and once he got those 15 people off the ledger, everything was fine. But it wasn't fine. Other people got the virus. Because a virus isn't a tank coming over a border, it's a virus. Other people catch the virus once the initial 15 have it. To find out who, you have to TEST - and he would not or could not make that happen.
Because sometimes if you double 15, it declines to 0? Something like that. Deep down he knew there was a disconnect, because he refused to gather data. Test people, and you have to admit reality.
YES, this has been mishandled, YES, the president used the word "Hoax," NO, he did not take the virus seriously, and YES that has cost lives.
Now he's trying to ride in on a white horse, trying to be the first layman to scream "why don't they just...!" followed by something that real medical people would never do. At present he's cheerleading for a "right to try on super steroids" type response - basically using infected people as guinea pigs for unproven treatments. Then if 1 person gets better and 20 die, he wants to crow about THAT and be a big fat hero. Munchausen by presidency.
Massive, massive fail.
Any of us could be next. Sad.
