Trump Asks America to Pray (March 15, 2020)

On March 15, 2020, President Donald Trump declared a National Day of Prayer, asking Americans to pray for the country as COVID-19 spread. It was one of the earliest symbolic moments of the U.S. pandemic response.

The same period was marked by a series of widely documented public statements from the president about the virus that were contradicted by what followed:

• "We have it very well under control."
• "We pretty much shut it down coming in from China."
• "The numbers are going to get progressively better."
• "We're going very substantially down, not up."
• "One day — it's like a miracle — it will disappear."

None of it held up. By the end of March 2020, the United States had become the country with the most confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world.

Originally published March 2020.