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.
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