President Donald Trump insisted on Tuesday that his government did not "screw up" the preparation for the surge in coronavirus cases.
During a Fox News virtual town hall event, host Bill Hemmer asked the president why the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) was slow to ramp up testing for COVID-19.
"A month ago, the CDC had an initial test that failed," Hemmer explained. "At that moment, late February, you said, it's perfect and it wasn't perfect, so what happened there in the early stages in late February?"
Trump, however, said that he was referring to his controversial Ukraine call as "perfect," not the virus — although he did compare the two.
"That was another whole scandal nonsense," the president complained. "A total witch hunt. But this one, is a much different thing. We had other administrations — not just the last one — they built up a platform, they built up a test. But the test was no good, it didn't handle large numbers of people."
"So did the CDC screw up?" Hemmer pressed. "Or did you screw up?"
"We did not screw up!" Trump said, cutting off the Fox News host. "And I don't think CDC screwed up either. They had a test that would have worked for a small group of people. In other words, for a normal problem."
"Nobody ever expect a thing like this," he added. "Nobody would say that millions and millions of people have been tested."
You can watch the clip below via Fox News:
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