Coronavirus: Trump says US ‘very close’ to 5m daily tests target despite country only doing 200,000 a day

President skips daily coronavirus briefing, but takes questions twice on Tuesday, seemingly unable to resist the media spotlight

Donald Trump said the United States “soon” would be able to test 5 million people a day for coronavirus, and claimed his administration has done an “incredible job” dealing with the coronavirus outbreak in New York state despite at least 17,600 deaths there.

“We’re going to be there very soon ... We’re really doing ... a great job on testing,” the president told reporters following an event at the White House, which replaced his daily evening Covid-19 briefing. Making another bold claim, he predicted testing guidance he announced on Monday evening will allow his administration to “increase it by much more than that in the very near future”, saying vaguely “we’re going to an even higher number”.

In another bold move, the president suggested some localities seeking federal coronavirus help might have to ease or remove their “sanctuary city” policies. Such cities or municipalities have laws that allow illegal immigrants to stay free from prosecution or deportation – despite federal laws.

“We’d have to talk about things like sanctuary cities, as an example. I think sanctuary cities is something that has to be brought up where people who are criminals are protected, they are protected from prosecution,” Mr Trump said during an earlier event on Tuesday. He repeated the mantra later in the East Room.

“I think that has to be done. I think it’s one of the problems that the states have,” Mr Trump said, signalled another desired this-for-that proposal, the kind that got him impeached over his request Ukraine’s leader investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden. “I don’t even think they know they have a problem, but they have a big problem with the sanctuary situation.”

The president and his new communications team in recent days have signalled a new strategy. Though he delivered a coronavirus press conference on Monday, they say he won’t do them as often and the ones he does do might look differently.

Yet, he seems unable to resist.

Along with the Monday briefing, the president took a list of questions during a meeting earlier Tuesday in the Oval Office with GOP Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. And he turned the back half of the small business event into a mini-press conference.

As usual, it featured a number of bold claims and big predictions.

“We’re doing a job the likes of which no one has ever seen,” he said of his administration at one point.

There have been at least 57,600 Covid-19 deaths on US soil and over 1 million confirmed cases. Experts say both figures are likely higher.

“In New York, what we did was incredible,” the boaster in chief said.

But although Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has recently had more praise for Mr Trump on helping the Empire State obtain ventilators, he has sharply criticised the president over testing. Mr Cuomo contends the federal government has not done enough.

“Testing won’t work if it’s impossible to get. Testing won’t work if it’s too hard to get,” the New York leader said recently.

Mr Trump, defying his top public health officials – who were not with him during the afternoon event to field questions from reporters – also was back to predicting the virus would soon disappear.

“This is going to go away,” said.

But Anthony Fauci, his top infectious disease adviser, said bluntly last week: “We will have coronavirus in the fall.”

The president on Tuesday didn’t seem so sure, however, the latest instance of Mr Trump contradicting one of his most widely respected health officials.

“Whether it comes back in the fall, we’re going to be able to put it out in spurts,” he said.

On that, at least, he and Mr Fauci are in agreement. The federal government’s top infectious disease official last week also said the US would be in a much better position to locate, isolate and perhaps even treat the drug should it return in the fall.

The president made those claims as he took questions during an event celebrating small businesses who have benefited from a loan program funded by two Covid-19 relief bills that passed Congress with overwhelmingly bipartisan vote tallies before Mr Trump signed them into law.

Asked how he can be so sure the coronavirus will soon “go away”, Mr Trump did not offer a scientific explanation: “It will go down to zero.”

On testing, he also flashed his seeming obsession with the size of things for the second time in the day.

“We’re testing. We’re doing more testing than any other country by far,” he said following a spat with a Yahoo! reporter who incorrectly stated earlier in the day that South Korea still led the United States on tests given on a per capita (of population) scale. “Much, much more testing. Double.”

After that Yahoo! journalist admitted his mistake and apologised on Twitter, Mr Trump made sure to note the error and apology during the later event.

Mr Trump, who appeared to spend much of his briefing-free weekend watching cable news coverage of the outbreak and his government’s response while angrily tweeting about it, revealed his obsession with the media. As the small business event got started, he said he would take questions because he calculated, incorrectly, that reporters would be nicer to him if small business owners and employees were in the room.