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."
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