‘Yes’: Jared Kushner calls US handling of coronavirus a success story after being questioned on 170,000 death toll

Trump administration under fire as much as ever with death toll still rising precipitously each day

Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner has described the administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic as a success – even as around 1,000 Americans are still dying every day.

Interviewing Mr Kushner on CNN’s The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer played a clip from April in which Mr Kushner predicted that by July the country would be “really rocking again” after a “great success story” for the Trump administration.

“More than 170,000 Americans are now dead from this pandemic over the last five or six months,” asked Mr Blitzer after rolling the tape. “Are 170,000 dead Americans, would you still suggest that this has been a success story?”

“Yes," replied Mr Kushner, without hesitation. "Look, there’s been a lot of challenges. This has been a global pandemic, a lot of unprecedented challenges.

“Again, the first phase of it, people didn’t know what to expect, a lot of it was happening in different states. The president was able to rush the supplies we needed.

“Now we’re in the middle phase, where we’re using all the knowledge we have right now to deal with strategically – how do we learn from what we had and protect the vulnerable?”

Mr Blitzer then raised the fact that White House adviser Deborah Birx had earlier said she wished that the US had locked down earlier and more strictly, comparing it unfavourably to Italy.

Mr Kushner responded that the US had made progress on obtaining ventilators and developing a vaccine, but Mr Blitzer pointed out that whereas three people are now dying each day in Italy, the US’s daily toll is dramatically higher.

“I will just press you, Jared” said Mr Blitzer. “A thousand Americans dying every day is not a success, right?”

Mr Kushner replied that while one American dying each day would be too much, the figure has dropped markedly since April and the case fatality rate has declined. He then urged Mr Blitzer to change the subject to developments in the Middle East.

Mr Kushner also sought to highlight Mr Trump's alleged achievements on handling the coronavirus in the US, which has seen the highest death toll from Covid in the world.

He claimed that Mr Trump has encouraged people to wear masks and socially distance, even though the president has been heavily criticised for refusing to be seen wearing a mask in public until the summer.

Mr Trump has also gathered thousands of people together at rallies where few people were masked, including a disastrous rally in Tulsa that fell short of the campaign’s expected audience while also being blamed for kickstarting a local spike in cases.

Mr Kushner also pointed to the progress made on developing a vaccine under the programme named Operation Warp Speed, created by the administration earlier this year to produce a jab in record time.

While some candidate vaccines have indeed entered stage three trials, various voices in the medical community have warned that rushing a jab through could skip crucial tests that would ensure it is both safe and effective.

Some have pointed out that the president’s true priority may well be to ensure he can announce a vaccine before election day on 3 November.