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Trump Faces Credibility Test as He Plays down Virus Threat

Associated Press

   WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump faces a critical personal challenge
   in grappling with the new coronavirus outbreak: asking Americans to
   believe him after he and some of his top advisers have contradicted
   federal scientists in playing down the threat.

   Keenly aware of the stakes not just for public health but also his
   credibility, Trump conducted a lengthy press conference Wednesday
   evening aimed at reassuring everyone that he has the crisis well in
   hand.

   Trump surrounded himself with his administration's top health experts.
   And he encouraged Americans to be prepared for the virus' potential
   spread.

   But he continued to minimize the risk, saying the outbreak "may get a
   little bigger; it may not get bigger at all." And he continued to
   distance himself from the stated opinion of public health officials
   that it's inevitable the virus will spread within the United States.

   As businesses, schools and people in general think about preparing, the
   X-factor may be an unpredictable president who has clashed repeatedly
   with scientists in his own administration and tends to see any crisis
   through the lens of his own reelection chances.

   "I don't think it's inevitable," Trump said at the news conference,
   where he announced Vice President Mike Pence would lead the
   administration's response to the outbreak. "I think it has a chance
   that it could get worse. There is a chance you can get fairly
   substantially worse. But nothing's inevitable."

   He also said he had recently learned that thousands die from the flu
   each year, contrasting that to the coronavirus.

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