Mark Meadows has defended Donald Trump’s false claim that 99% of Coronavirus cases are “harmless”. The White House chief of staff joined his boss in downplaying the virus.
The President caused serious dismay when he made the claim during an Independence Day speech over the weekend.
“There were no tests for a new virus, but now we have tested over 40 million people,” Trump said.
“But by so doing, we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless.”
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Meadows, a former Republican congressman, appeared on Fox News on Monday and argued that most people are indeed safe from the virus, despite evidence to the contrary.
Watch the video:
Mark Meadows defends the Tulsa rally for causing no known "major outbreaks," and says "the vast majority of people are safe" from coronavirus (which is not true.) pic.twitter.com/OBRRMIGvBv
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) July 6, 2020
“When you start to look at the stats and look at all the numbers that we have, the amount of testing that we have, the vast majority of people are safe from this,” Meadows said.
“When you look at the deaths that we have, if you’re over 80 years of age, or if you have what they call co-morbidities — diabetes, hypertension, heart issues — then you need to be very, very careful.”
“Outside of that, the risks are extremely low, and the President is right with that. And the facts and statistics back us up there.”
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Darragh Roche is a journalist covering U.S. politics and media
