WATCH: Here’s Why Trump Said Don’t ‘Panic’ — Coronavirus is Like Flu, China ‘Extremely Capable,’ and ‘It Will Go Away’

President Donald Trump’s claim that he “downplayed” the coronavirus to avoid “panic” is self-evidently undercut by public statements in which he paired reassurances with claims we now know were deliberate falsehoods.

In remarks to reporters and in a Fox News interview Wednesday, Trump pushed back against the revelations contained in recordings of conversations with Bob Woodward by claiming that he “downplayed” the coronavirus in order to avoid “panic” — a word he also used in his conversation with Woodward.

The defense is self-evidently absurd given the other revelations in the Woodward tapes — that Trump knew in early February that the virus was much more deadly than the seasonal flu — and the flood of misinformation that Trump has unleashed over the months. It’s akin to claiming you’re trying to calm people in a burning building by telling them fire won’t hurt them.

But a review of Trump’s public comments further demonstrates that when he did suggest people shouldn’t panic, he paired those admonitions with claims he knew to be false.

For example, at a February 26 briefing of the coronavirus task force, Trump went on a brief rant about how the coronavirus is like the flu, predicting “this will end,” and telling reporters “You don’t want to see panic because there’s no reason to be panicked about it.”

In the very next breath, he claimed that handling coronavirus would be “in some ways easier” than the flu.

“But when I mentioned the flu, I said — actually, I asked the various doctors. I said, ‘Is this just like flu?’ Because people die from the flu. And this is very unusual. And it is a little bit different, but in some ways it’s easier and in some ways it’s a little bit tougher,” Trump said.

That was almost three weeks after he told Woodward that coronavirus is “more deadly than even your strenuous flus.”

At a March 30 coronavirus briefing, CNN’s Jim Acosta helpfully rattled off several of Trump’s statements downplaying the virus, such as “We have it very much under control in this country. The coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. It’s going to disappear. It’s like a miracle. It will disappear.”

March 4th: “We have a very small number of people in this country infected.”

March 10th: “We’re prepared. We’re doing a great job with it. It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

“Well, isn’t it true? It will go away,” was Trump’s reply.

He went on to say “I want to keep the country calm. I don’t want to panic in the country. I could cause panic much better than even you. I could do much — I would make you look like a minor league player. But you know what? I don’t want to do that.”

“I want to have our country be calm and strong, and fight and win, and it will go away,” Trump said.

Again, that assessment is belied by his remarks to Woodward, including his revelation — 11 days earlier — that “Just today and yesterday, some startling facts came out. It’s not just old, older. Young people too, plenty of young people,” and what he told Woodward in the days that followed: “It’s a horrible thing. It’s unbelievable,” and “It’s so easily transmissible, you wouldn’t even believe it.”

Trump also cited the Chinese government’s response as a reason not to panic. During a February 13 interview with Geraldo Rivera, he told Rivera that “they are having difficulty in China but they’re working very, very hard.”

He went on to say that “you wouldn’t want to run out to the world and go crazy and start saying whatever it is because you don’t want to create a panic. But, no, I think they’ve handled it professionally and I think they’re extremely capable and I think President Xi is extremely capable and I hope that it’s going to be resolved.”

He also predicted the virus might die out in April because “this virus reacts very poorly to heat and dies. So we’ll see what happens.”

Those sentiments are at odds with the tenor of his comments to Woodward at the time, but also with his sustained effort to blame China for the virus, including his unfounded claim — made just yesterday — that they “released” the pathogen.

Watch the clips above.