(CNN) – White House trade adviser Peter Navarro publicly said Americans had “nothing to worry about” while he privately warned the White House that the coronavirus pandemic could cost trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of American lives.
Navarro circulated two memos at the White House in late January and February warning that a full-blown coronavirus outbreak would leave American lives and the economy vulnerable.
But Navarro, a frequent surrogate for President Donald Trump and his administration on television, continued to present a far more optimistic message in public, CNN’s KFile found after reviewing Navarro’s interviews, statements and writings.
In the January 29 memo, Navarro wrote that the “increasing probability of a full-blown COVID-19 pandemic” could infect as many as 100 million Americans and kill “as many as 1-2 million souls.” That same day — in which the coronavirus task force was also formed — Navarro made no mention of the possibility when asked a question about the impact of the coronavirus while appearing on CNBC promoting the USMCA trade agreement.
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At the White House coronavirus briefing Tuesday, Trump said he didn’t know about Navarro’s memos until a few days ago and still hadn’t read it.
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In Navarro’s second memo, dated February 23, he urged for immediate funding to “minimize economic and social disruption.”
“Any member of the Task Force who wants to be cautious about appropriating funds for a crisis that could inflict trillions of dollars in economic damage and take millions of lives has come to the wrong administration,” Navarro wrote.
But at a press gaggle on February 24, Navarro assured that coronavirus was “nothing to worry about for the American people” under Trump’s leadership.
“Since the day that President Trump pulled down the flights from China to the US, he has been actively leading the situation in terms of this crisis with the task force. Nothing to worry about for the American people,” Navarro said.
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In a statement to CNN, Navarro defended his February 24 statement.
“‘Nothing to worry about’ indicates the American people should be confident in the strong leadership of President Trump handling the crisis, NOT the seriousness of the crisis itself. To suggest otherwise is simply mischief and fake news,” said Navarro.
Navarro continued to wave off concern that America’s economy would suffer from the virus.
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- Discussion
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“In the January 29 memo, Navarro wrote that the ‘increasing probability of a full-blown COVID-19 pandemic’ could infect as many as 100 million Americans and kill ‘as many as 1-2 million souls.’ That same day …Navarro made no mention of the possibility” https://t.co/DllGVKQ342
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) April 11, 2020
On Jan. 30, Azar spoke w POTUS, who was on AF1, by phone. Azar warned of a pandemic and wanted to criticize China. POTUS told him to stop panicking, said China had enough to deal with w/o the public critique. The China flight pull down came the next day https://t.co/4pgKT9vg2h
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) April 11, 2020
I guess when this is all over — or maybe before — Navarro will be made a scapegoat for all that went wrong. As we all know, Trump has to have a scapegoat for his failures.
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