"Slow the Testing Down, Please"
Trump told his Tulsa rally crowd he ordered officials to slow COVID testing because finding more cases made the U.S. "look bad." The White House said he was joking. Trump told reporters two days later: "I don't kid."
At the Tulsa rally on June 20, 2020, Trump said: "When you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down, please." He argued that testing made the United States "look bad" by finding more cases.
The White House immediately claimed Trump was speaking "in jest." Two days later, Trump told reporters: "I don't kid." He contradicted his own staff's attempt to walk back the statement.
At the time, the United States was averaging over 25,000 new COVID cases per day. Testing was the primary tool for tracking and containing the spread. The president of the United States was publicly asking his administration to test fewer people so the numbers would look better — prioritizing optics over the lives of Americans.
Four top health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, later testified under oath that they were never directly ordered to slow testing. But the statement revealed Trump's fundamental approach to the pandemic: the problem wasn't that people were dying — the problem was that people were finding out.