Lara Trump says president has done ‘incredible job’ on coronavirus and defends not wearing mask at debate

Campaign adviser and daughter-in-law points to ‘incredible’ response to public health crisis as US infections break records

Donald Trump’s campaign adviser and daughter-in-law Lara Trump has defended the president’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and blamed the economic fallout from the public health crisis causing an "artificial interruption” of the nation’s economy.

"The president has done actually an incredible job with the coronavirus," she told CNN’s Jake Tapper, who brushed off her comments as “talking points” in a contentious interview on Sunday.

In a segment discussing the president’s declining support among women voters based on recent polling, Ms Trump – who is married to Eric Trump – falsely claimed that Joe Biden called the president’s travel restrictions from China xenophobic.

“You think politically correct, soft Joe Biden would have shut down travel to China, especially now we know it’s been very lucrative for Joe Biden and his family China?”

“I don’t know what that means,” Mr Tapper said.

Following the president’s travel restrictions, his Democratic rival had criticised his “record of hysteria xenophobia, hysterical xenophobia, and fear-mongering to lead the way instead of science” – he has not referred to the restrictions themselves as evidence of xenophobia.

Ms Trump pointed to the administration’s drug therapy production and fast-tracked vaccine research and the president’s use of experimental drug therapies during his own hospitalisation following a Covid-19 diagnosis.

“He’s done with Covid now, and they work," she said.

On Friday, the US reached its highest single-day record of coronavirus infections since July.

Nearly 70,000 coronavirus infections were reported in the US on Friday, as the nation reached more than 8 million confirmed cases this week.

She also repeated the administration’s claim that 2 million Americans would have died from the disease, though that projection from health officials is for the number of deaths if the federal government had not had any response to the pandemic. More than 219,000 people have died from the disease.

Ms Trump called the coronavirus an “artificial interruption” to the nation’s economy, including millions of out-of-work Americans and shuttered businesses in the wake of public health threats and stay-at-home restrictions. The White House and Republican-controlled Senate have refused House Democrats’ efforts to pass sweeping economic aid and extend federal unemployment relief, as administration officials negotiate with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and GOP senators to reach a scaled-down agreement.

She defended not wearing a mask at the first presidential debate on 29 September in Ohio.

“We thought we were following the rules,” she said. “We walked in with masks on, we were socially distant sitting down. We never once moved from those seats.”

Asked whether the president tested negative for the coronavirus within 72 hours of the debate, before he announced his diagnosis, Ms Trump said: “I assume the answer is that he tested negative.”

“Why would the president knowingly test positive and go to a debate?” she said.

Mr Tapper said: “I didn’t say he did. We’ve been trying to get a straight answer for weeks as to when he last tested negative.”

Following his hospitalisation, as reporters traced a timeline from campaign rallies and a White House event for the president’s Supreme Court nominee, White House officials and campaign staff refused to answer when the president had most recently tested negative for the coronavirus.