ABC’s Jon Karl Confronts Trump on Woodward Tapes: ‘Why Did You Lie to the American People?’

“Why did you lie to the American people? And why should we trust what you have to say now?” ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl asked President Donald Trump at a press briefing Thursday afternoon.

After opening the briefing with a lengthy statement blasting his 2020 opponent Joe Biden, the president was confronted by the press corps on an audio recording of him admitting he deliberately downplayed the coronavirus pandemic earlier this year.

Karl’s very direct question kicked things off.

“That’s a terrible question and the phraseology,” Trump replied. “I didn’t lie. What I said is we have to be calm. We can’t be panicked.

He continued:

These are a series of phone calls, mostly phone calls. Bob Woodward is somebody that I respect just from hearing the name for many, many years. Not knowing too much about his work, not caring about his work. But I thought it would be interesting to talk to him for a period of calls. So we did that. I don’t know if it’s good or bad. I don’t know if the book is good or bad. Certainly if he thought that was a bad statement, he would have reported it because he thinks that, you know, you don’t want to have anybody that is going to suffer medically because of some fact. He didn’t report it because he didn’t think it was bad. Nobody thought it was bad. Wait a minute. And your question, the way you phrased that is such a disgrace. It’s a disgrace to ABC television network, it’s a disgrace to your employer. And that’s your answer.

“You said it was deadlier than the flu, and then you went out and told the American public that this was just like the flu,” Karl objected.

Watch the president’s response above, via Fox News.