Trump says the U.S. is in 'good shape, other than if you look south and west'

(Image credit: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

While standing in front of a map showing coronavirus hotspots across the United States, President Trump struck an optimistic tone about how the country is doing.

"You can see from that it's in great shape, lots of it," Trump told reporters on Thursday evening. "The northeast has become very clean. The country is in good shape, other than if you look south and west — some problems that'll all work out."

Cases are surging across both regions, with California on Wednesday reporting a record 157 coronavirus fatalities, bringing the death toll to more than 8,000. Texas and Alabama also reported a record number of deaths on Wednesday, with 197 in Texas and 61 in Alabama. In Mississippi, there have been an average of 1,215 cases reported per day over the last week, an increase of 70 percent from the average two weeks earlier. On Thursday, the United States hit four million confirmed COVID-19 cases.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.