Trump attacks Washington Post article, claiming CDC chief Redfield was misquoted. Redfield later said he wasn't.
At Wednesday’s coronavirus task force briefing, President Trump blasted a Washington Post article, claiming that it misquoted CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield about the severity of the coronavirus in the fall. Redfield clarified his remarks but said he was not misquoted.
Video Transcript
DONALD TRUMP: I do want to mention a man who's done a very good job for us. Dr. Robert Redfield was totally misquoted in the media on a statement about the fall season and the virus, totally misquoted. I spoke to him, he said it was ridiculous. He was talking about the flu and corona coming together at the same time.
And corona could be just some little flare-ups that we'll take care of. We're going to knock it out. We'll knock it out fast. But that's what he was referring to, coming together at the same time.
And I think rather than waiting, I'd ask Dr. Redfield to come up, say a couple of words just to straighten that out. Because he didn't say it was a big explosion. The headline in "The Washington Post" was totally inaccurate. The statement wasn't bad in "The Post," but the headline was ridiculous, which is-- as I say, that's fake news. And CNN is fake news like crazy. And they had just totally the wrong story, which they knew.
They were asked to change it, and they wouldn't do that. And it was false. So I'll ask Dr. Redfield, who is a, you know, real professional to come up and explain. Please. Thank you, Doctor.
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ROBERT REDFIELD: Thank you, Mr. President. And I really do think it's important to clarify this as we build the confidence of the American people. When I commented yesterday that there was a possibility of the fall/winter, next fall and winter, it could be more difficult, more complicated, when we have two respiratory illnesses circulating at the same time-- influenza and the coronavirus-19.
But I think it's really important to emphasize what I didn't say. I didn't say that this was going to be worse. I said it was going to be more complicated-- or more difficult and potentially complicated because we'll have flu and coronavirus circulating at the same time.
I want to emphasize that we continue to build the nation's public health infrastructure to ensure that we have the capacity to stay in the containment mode. Those of you who have heard me talk before, I've told you that in January and February, up to February 27, 28, this nation had 14 cases. We were in the containment mode. And then, unfortunately, the virus overwhelmed where we got into extreme mitigation.
We are building that public health capacity now to make sure that we stay in the containment mode for the upcoming fall and winter season so we will not need to resort to the kind of mitigation that we had to this spring.
I have confidence that our public health response of early case recognition that we've talked about, isolation, and contact tracing, combined with our plans for increased surveillance, particularly for the most vulnerable, will be an effective public health strategy so our nation will be able to maintain itself in the containment mode. And again, that will be supported by the American public's continued cooperation, obviously, in the areas of personal hygiene and the types of social distancing strategies that may be appropriate.
The key to my comments, and the reason that I really wanted to stress them, was to appeal to the American public to embrace the flu vaccine with confidence. One of the greatest tools we have is we go through the fall/winter season that we're into is to get the American public to embrace the influenza vaccine and thereby minimize the impact of flu to be the corespiratory disease that we confront. Thank you very much.
- Doctor, just to be clear--
- Could I ask a follow-up on that, Dr. Redfield, please?
- Just to clarify a couple things.
DONALD TRUMP: But I don't what's to follow up. He was misquoted, totally misquoted. He said they could come together. They didn't talk about that. And his whole purpose in making this statement was to get a flu shot so that next fall, we don't have such a big seasonal flu. And we possibly won't.
But as you said, it's possible if the corona even comes back-- and he doesn't know that it's going to, and neither do I. We spoke at great length. And I think the doctor will speak if you'd like to continue. But we may have some embers. And we're going to put them out, of corona. But we may have a big flu season. But that's different. Flu is very different from corona.
- Can I ask Dr. Redfield a follow-up question?
DONALD TRUMP: Yeah, go ahead. Sure.
- OK, so Dr. Redfield, "The Washington Post," which you did the interview with them-- they quoted you as saying, "there's a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through. And when I've said this to others, they've kind of put their head [INAUDIBLE] they don't understand what I mean. We're going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time." Is that what you said to "The Washington Post"?
ROBERT REDFIELD: Yeah, that's what I was trying to say to you just a minute ago, that the issue that I was talking about, about being more difficult, is that we're going to have two viruses circulating at the same time. This spring that we just went through, February, we had a benefit of having the flu season ended so we could use all our flu surveillance systems to say, whoops, this is coronavirus. We need to focus.
Next fall and winter, we are going to have two viruses circulating. And we're going to have to distinguish between which is flu and which is the coronavirus. And so the comment that I made, it's more difficult. It doesn't mean it will be more impossible. It doesn't mean it's going to be more, as some people have said, worse. It just means it's going to be more difficult because we have to distinguish between the two.
And what I was wanting to do, and what I want to do again here is appeal to the American public to recognize they can really help, like they did with mitigation, which they really helped-- I need them to help now to best prepare us by getting the flu vaccine and taking flu out of the picture.
- But that quote-- but that quote-- but, but, but-- excuse me.
DONALD TRUMP: We may not even have corona coming back, just so you understand. Doctor, would you like to--
- But I'm sorry. But that quote that I just read was accurate, right, sir? Because that's the quote from "The Washington Post." You were accurately quoted, correct?
ROBERT REDFIELD: I'm accurately quoted in "The Washington Post" as difficult.
- But the headline wasn't.
ROBERT REDFIELD: But the headline was inappropriate.
DONALD TRUMP: What does the headline say? What does the headline say? Read the headline.
- The headline says, "CDC Director Warns Second wave of Coronavirus is Likely to be Even More Devastating." And isn't that--
DONALD TRUMP: That's not what he said. That's not what he said.
- But if you have the two things--
DONALD TRUMP: The headline doesn't [INAUDIBLE].
ROBERT REDFIELD: No, I actually think it's actually going to be-- I think the American public is going to heed the request to relook at their vaccine hesitancy, to vaccine with confidence for flu. And I'm confident that the public health infrastructure that we're putting together now across this country so that we can early case diagnose, isolate, and contact trace, as I say, block and tackle, block and tackle-- that system is going to be there. And we're going to be able to contain this virus.
