The Associated Press, Snopes, and FactCheck.org have confirmed that the President did not call COVID-19 a hoax at a February rally in South Carolina as the media and others claim he did.
When the President said, “this is their new hoax” he was not talking about the virus itself, only the Democratic response to the virus and their attempt to impeach him.
Following the rally, Trump was asked if he regretted calling the virus a hoax. He responded, “No. No. NO. Hoax referring to the action that they take to try an dpin this on somebody because we’ve done such a good job. The hoax is on them, not – I’m not talking about what’s happening here. I’m talking about what they’re doing. That’s the hoax. That’s just a continuation of the hoax, whether it’s the impeachment hoax or the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. This is what I’m talking about. Certainly not referring to this. How could anybody refer to this? This is very serious stuff.”
During the rally he called out Democrats for “politicizing” the virus and people mistook his words and thought he had called the virus a hoax, when that wasn’t what he was referring to.
Sources: Snopes, FactCheck, Associated Press; Photo US News & World Report
