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At the first formal press briefing of his coronavirus task force on February 26, 2020, President Trump said he didn't agree with the assessment by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that an outbreak was "inevitable" in the United States, noting that the country had just 15 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and no deaths attributed to the virus. "When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done," Trump said. "We have it so well under control. I mean, we really have done a very good job." In his February 7, 2020, interview President Trump told Bob Woodward that he understood COVID19 was dangerous, airborne, and far more deadly than the flu: "This is deadly stuff." Bob asked: "What was President Xi saying yesterday?" Trump answered: "Oh, we were talking mostly about the uh, the virus. And I think he's going to have it in good shape, but you know, it's a very tricky situation. It's – "On March 19, 2020, President Trump told Woodward he was downplaying the dangers to avoid creating a panic: "Now it's turning out it's not just old people, Bob. Just today and yesterday, some startling facts came out. It's not just old- older." President Trump later added: "The virus has nothing to do with me." President Donald Trump has repeatedly made claims about the COVID19 pandemic and his administration's preparation for this once-in-a-generation crisis. When asked about President Trump's claims, current White House Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany said, "The President has never lied to the American public on Covid." Has McEnany reneged on the promise to reporters on her first day as the Presidential Press Secretary, when she promised she would never lie to them?At the first formal press briefing of his coronavirus task force February 26, 2020, President Trump said he didn't agree with the assessment but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that an outbreak was "inevitable" in the United States, noting that the country had just 15 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and no death attributed to the virus. "When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done. We have it so well under control. I mean, we really have done a very good job. Ever since Trump has been moving the goal posts on the pandemic, and on Sunday, despite coronavirus cases and deaths mounting, President Trump said that his keeping the U.S. death toll between 100,000 and 200,000 would be "a very good job." We can hold that down, as we're saying, to 100,000, that's a horrible number, maybe even less, but to 100,000 — so we have between 100- and 200,000 — we all, together, have done a very good job," Trump said at a press briefing in the White House Rose Garden. The president repeatedly cited a projection by medical experts on the task force that as many as 2.2 million people would have died if the administration had not instituted social distancing and other mitigation measures: "Two-point-two million people would have died if we didn't do what we're doing," Trump said at the briefing, during which he cited that number 16 times. "And now we're looking at numbers that are going to be much, much, much lower than that. And it makes everything we're doing feel much better to me." In an interview with NBC's "Today" show Monday, Dr. Deborah Birx, a member of the White House task force, predicted there would be up to 200,000 deaths in the U.S. even "if we do things almost perfectly." According to Johns Hopkins University, which has been tracking the pandemic since before its outset, there have been more than 143,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States — more than any other country — and over 2,500 deaths attributed to the virus. There are 724,945 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide, more than 34,000 deaths. By September 2020 over 200,000 COVID deaths in the United States.