July 22, 2020 at 12:16 AM EDT
Trump says the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. will ‘get worse before it gets better’
President Trump on Tuesday delivered a grim forecast of soaring cases of the novel coronavirus across the country, acknowledging that “it will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better.”
The statement was a rare admission from Trump that all is not well with the response to the virus by his administration, which has rejected the advice of scientific experts, been reluctant to take responsibility and has issued contradictory and at times divisive public messaging.
As he convened the first White House coronavirus task force briefing in weeks, the president struck a newly somber and pessimistic tone. After months of playing down the virus and the dangers of its resurgence, Trump said his acknowledgment that the situation will worsen is “something I don’t like saying about things, but that’s the way it is. That’s what we have.”
By William Wan, Reis Thebault, Carolyn Y. Johnson and Laurie McGinley