Trump uses charts to defend his COVID-19 response, shrugs about John Lewis, in freewheeling Axios interview

Axios' Jonathan Swan sat down with President Trump last Tuesday for a lengthy interview, broadcast on HBO Monday night, about the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia, the anti-racism protests sweeping the U.S., and the late civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who was lying in state at the U.S. Capitol as the two men spoke in the White House.

Swan started with COVID-19. "Those people that really understand it," Trump said, "they said it's incredible the job that we've done." "Who says that?" Swan asked, but Trump had moved on. "I think it's under control," Trump said later. "How?" Swan asked. "A thousand Americans are dying a day." "They are dying, that's true," Trump conceded. "And it is what it is." He later added that the pandemic is "under control as much as you can control it."

Trump then brought up testing. "You know, there are those that say you can test too much. You do know that?" Trump said. "Who says that?" Swan asked. "Oh, just read the manuals, read the books," the president replied. "Manuals? What manuals?" Swan asked, perplexed. "What books?" Trump brought out charts about case fatality rates to prove his point, and things got a little sloppy.

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Swan asked Trump about the intelligence that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban for killing U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Trump's two-pronged approach to mail-in voting, and his comments wishing Ghislaine Maxwell well, and Trump suggested he hopes the alleged sex trafficker doesn't die in jail like her associate Jeffrey Epstein.

They discussed the federal deployment to Portland and the anti-racist protests across the U.S. Trump said Black Lives Matter has never asked him for a meeting, and he tried to convince an incredulous Swan he has done more for African Americans than any president except perhaps Abraham Lincoln. And Trump had no opinion about Lewis, despite repeated queries.

Watch the entire interview below. Peter Weber