Trump Defends Tulsa Rally in Axios Interview on Covid Response: ‘The Highest Rated Speech in the History of Fox’ on Saturdays

President Donald Trump defended the U.S. coronavirus response and his Tulsa campaign rally in his wide-ranging interview with Axios’ Jonathan Swan.

Swan repeatedly confronted the president on continued problems in the U.S. pandemic response and his comments at odds with public health experts.

“By June we knew things were bad,” Swan said before bringing up the Tulsa rally in particular. “These people, they listen to you!”

Trump — who started his answer by correcting media reports on how many people attended that rally — defended holding it and claimed, “You couldn’t even get it. It was like an armed camp, because thy had 120 Black Lives Matter people there.”

He also said that Tulsa was a “good area” at the time and cases only started “going up” weeks later.

“We had a tremendous crowd, we had tremendous response,” Trump said. “The other thing we had that nobody wants to talk about. So Fox broadcast it. It was the highest rating in the history of Fox television, Saturday night. It was the highest rating… That speech was the highest rated speech in the history of Fox television on Saturday night, and nobody says that.”

Swan jumped in to say he’s not questioning Trump’s ability to draw a crowd. He noted at one point that Trump’s devoted followers listen to everything he says and so when he says things like “everything’s under control, don’t worry about wearing masks,” they listen.

“Many of them are older people, Mr. President,” Swan said. “It’s giving them a false sense of security.”

“Right now I think it’s under control,” Trump responded.

“How? 1000 Americans are dying a day,” Swan responded.

“They are dying, that’s true, it is what it is. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t doing everything we can,” Trump said. “It’s under control as much as you can control it.”

Watch above, via HBO.