//What Trump said about Covid-19 in private versus what he said in public

What Trump said about Covid-19 in private versus what he said in public

President Donald Trump speaks to the press from the White House on September 15, 2020. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

Trump’s public remarks about the coronavirus were very different from what he told a journalist one-on-one.

President Donald Trump seemed to have very different things to say about Covid-19 when he spoke in public — at press conferences and TV appearances — than when he spoke to journalist Bob Woodward one-on-one.

In public comments, Trump took a tone that downplayed the coronavirus — making it seem like the virus would go away quickly, and emphasizing the need to reopen the country to try to get the economy going again.

With Woodward, Trump warned about the risks of the virus in frank and scary terms, calling it “the plague,” acknowledging it’s deadlier than the flu, and saying it could spread by air.

This was, apparently,