A writer with the leftwing New York Magazine asked President Donald Trump at a coronavirus briefing at the White House on Monday if he deserves to be re-elected given the fact that more Americans have died from the virus than did in the Vietnam war.

According to the National Archives, 58,220 Americans died fighting in the Vietnam War. The number of deaths from coronavirus as of April 25 was 52,459, according to the Statista website.

Olivia Nuzzi asked Trump, “If an American president loses more Americans over the course of six weeks than died in the entirety of the Vietnam War, does he deserve to be re-elected?”

“Yes we’ve lost a lot of people, but if you look at what original projections were — 2.2 million — we’re probably heading to 60,000, 70,000 — far too many — one person is too many for this,” Trump responded.

“I think we’ve made a lot of really good decisions,” Trump said. “The big decision was closing the border or doing the ban.”

Trump was referring to his early decision to block the travel of non-U.S. citizens from China.

Trump credited Vice President Mike Pence and the task force for their efforts, saying they’ve “done a fantastic job.”

Trump said the U.S is “lapping” the world on testing, adding that all deaths are unacceptable.

“One person is too many,” the president said.

Nuzzi tweeted about her interaction with the president on Twitter.

If more than 50,000 Americans died over the course of a few weeks at any time in our history, it would be fair to ask the president if he deserves to be reelected. It wasn’t a gotcha question, it wasn’t designed to provoke, and I appreciate the fact that Trump took it seriously. — Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) April 27, 2020

“If more than 50,000 Americans died over the course of a few weeks at any time in our history, it would be fair to ask the president if he deserves to be reelected. It wasn’t a gotcha question, it wasn’t designed to provoke, and I appreciate the fact that Trump took it seriously,” Nuzzi tweeted.

Follow Penny Starr on Twitter.