President Trump started Wednesday's Coronavirus Task Force briefing by accusing the press of misquoting the head of the CDC on the recurrence of coronavirus in the fall. The controversy came about over remarks made by CDC Director Robert Redfield to the Washington Post that, in the fall, we could face more difficult times as the seasonal flu collides with a return of the coronavirus.

Redfield said “there’s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be more difficult than the one we just went through and when I’ve said this to others, they kind of put their head back. They don’t understand what I mean. We’re going to have the flu epidemic and the Coronavirus epidemic at the same time.”

Trump said Redfield was “totally misquoted.” He said Redfield was talking about the flu, and a few coronavirus cases which “could be knocked out.” He said the Post was “fake news” and CNN is “fake news.” Redfield then came up to clarify, saying it would be more “complicated” when flu and coronavirus come at the same time, but that he didn’t say it would be “worse.”

When asked directly if he was misquoted by the Washington Post, Redfield said, “I am accurately quoted in the Washington Post.” Redfield stressed that he was trying to get the message across that the American public should “embrace the flu vaccine with confidence.”

Redfield went on to say, "We are building the infrastructure to stay in the containment zone, so the country won’t have to resort to the actions we have now.” Trump returned to say Redfield was “totally misquoted,” and that there might be “embers” of coronavirus in the fall, and “we’ll put them out.”

Dr. Deborah Birx said we know more now about the transmissibility of the virus and will be able to find it earlier next time.

Trump said, in the fall, the virus will come back “in smaller doses” that can be contained. He said, “In my opinion, we won’t go through what we just went through.”

When asked how he can say it won’t come back, he said he’s “spoken to 10 different people. It won’t come back like it did. It’s possible it won’t come back at all.” He then said, “We could have a mess. The flu is not the best thing in the world.  If we have embers of coronavirus, it won’t be pleasant, but it won’t be anything like this.”

Then asked why he’s continuing to spend so much on ventilators while saying no one needs them, he said, “We could have H1N1 or Swine Flu.” He said they’re making hundreds of thousands of ventilators, “but nobody talks about that.”

President Trump is sending 500 ventilators to Mexico, 500 to France, some to Italy. Trump said, “Leaders from around the world are calling me. I won’t even tell you.”

Trump said, again, that “we are testing more than anywhere in the world, more than if you add them all together.” In sheer numbers, yes, the U.S. has done more tests, but only 1.4% of the population has been tested, and in per capita testing, which is what actually counts, the U.S. falls behind several countries.

Trump went on to say, “If we gave everyone in the world a test 10 times, the fake news media would say, where’s the 11th time?” He then went on the attack against “fake news” that was unhappy when he had ventilators made, and against Nancy Pelosi for having a rally (she didn’t), said he “closed the country to China,” only to Chinese nationals. More than 40,000 travelers have come to the U.S. from China since the “ban,” and talked about the U.S. being at the “top of the list in terms of mortality and nobody wrote it.  Germany and us at the top of the list.”  The U.S. has the highest number of deaths, but the lowest death rate because of the sheer number of cases, now topping 800,000.

Trump continued to placed the blame squarely on China for the spread of the virus, saying, “It never should have left the little area where it started.” Trump said he told Georgia Governor Brian Kemp he disagrees with him about opening spas, beauty parlors, barber shops, tattoo shops and massage parlors, saying, “I love the people that use those places, but they can wait a bit longer,” but said the governor “has to do what he thinks is right.”

The Thunderbirds and Blue Angels will be performing air shows over major cities across the country, as “a tribute to our frontline health care workers.” They are the “other warriors for the more traditional fights we always win. Sometimes we don’t want to win.”

He compared the size of the crowd at last year’s 4th of July celebration on the Mall to the size of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s crowd at the Reflecting Pool, and said it would be like that again this year. He said, after his criticism yesterday, Harvard would not accept the money they received from the coronavirus relief package. Stanford University and other colleges and companies were doing the same thing. At yesterday’s briefing, he said Harvard should return the funds, but they never actually received funds.

He talked about signing an executive order banning immigration, saying it puts Americans in line first for jobs and health care. He could not answer whether it was just for Green Card applicants or for temporary visitors, but said it would not affect farm workers. He would not say if it would pertain to health care workers, but seemed to imply they would be banned as well.

Dr. Anthony Fauci came up to say the mitigation has been a success, but that we have to open in a “careful, measured way.” He pleaded with governors to re-open responsibly. He also said coronavirus will definitely return in the fall, despite Trump’s saying it might not come back at all. Fauci said no one can predict what will happen with an outbreak and advise Georgia Governo Brian Kemp to “be careful.”

When asked about the reassignment of Dr. Rick Bright, the Director of the Office Developing a Coronavirus vaccine, who said he was removed for opposing pursuing Hydroxychloroquine as therapeutic, Trump said he never heard of him. “The guys says he was pushed out of his job.  Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t,” he said. But when pressed by Weija Jiang, a favorite target, about whether moving Bright to the NIH was the best use of his gifts, Trump said, “his gifts? Do you know him? Have you studied him?”

He confirmed his order, sent by tweet, to blow up Iranian ships giving U.S. ships a hard time, Trump said, “we don’t want their gun boats running around our gun boats having a good time.”

He said again that it doesn’t matter how much testing he does, it will never be enough for the press to give him credit and said, again, “not everybody wants testing.  Some want it just because they know we can’t fulfill that goal.”

When asked about mortality rates at nursing homes, he said everyone wants to take care of “our” seniors, adding, “except me. Nobody wants to take care of me.”​