Trump repeatedly downplayed COVID-19 as it spread in early 2020. At the White House on Feb. 27, 2020, he said, “It's going to disappear. One day, it's like a miracle, it will disappear.” Weeks earlier, at a New Hampshire rally, he said that “by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”
He kept saying it as cases rose. Newsweek counted at least 18 times he had said the virus would disappear before a July 1, 2020, Fox Business interview in which he said, “I think that at some point that's going to sort of just disappear, I hope,” as states were setting single-day case records.
He also touted hydroxychloroquine as a treatment based on anecdotes rather than reliable studies, STAT reported. On June 15, 2020, the FDA revoked the drug's emergency use authorization, finding it “unlikely to be effective” against COVID-19 and citing serious cardiac side effects. U.S. COVID-19 deaths passed 1 million in May 2022.
Correction (October 14, 2026): A dead CDC data-tracker link was replaced, and sources were added for the hydroxychloroquine and death-toll claims, which previously had no supporting citation. The Feb. 27 quote now matches the Washington Post's transcription, and the earlier phrase “contributing to public health crisis” was replaced with the specific, sourced facts.