President Trump said Tuesday that he did not learn of two memos written in January and February by his own economic adviser warning that a COVID-19 pandemic could kill as many as 2 million Americans until “maybe a day ago.”

“I heard he wrote some memos talking about pandemic,” Trump said during a White House coronavirus task force briefing, “I didn’t see them. I didn’t look for them, either.”

On Jan. 29, Peter Navarro warned his colleagues at the White House that if the administration did not mount an aggressive containment strategy for the coronavirus, it could kill more than half a million Americans and cost the country nearly $6 trillion.

Nearly a month later, on Feb. 23, Navarro distributed an even more dire second memo in which he said as many as 100 million Americans could be infected with COVID-19, which might kill upwards of 2 million U.S. citizens.

On Feb. 27, Trump briefed the country on the coronavirus outbreak, assuring Americans that it was well under control.

“When you have 15 people,” Trump said of the number of reported cases in the U.S. at the time, “and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”

Pressed on whether he had been apprised of Navarro’s warnings, the president said Tuesday he had not.

“I asked him about it just a little while ago, because I read something about a memo,” Trump recalled. “I said, ‘Did you do a memo?’ I didn’t look for, I didn’t see it, I didn’t ask for him to show it to me.”

Navarro has no medical background or national security brief; he is an economist and director of trade and manufacturing policy for the administration. On Monday, he got into a heated exchange with CNN anchor John Berman over his advocacy of the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19, something Trump has also promoted. Navarro insisted to Berman that he was qualified to have an informed position. Read more

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