The other side: A senior White House official pushed back, saying this of the president’s thinking: “Skepticism isn’t the right way to frame it. The numbers have been revised up to include presumptive cases — meaning deaths that are believed to be related to COVID but not known for sure.”
“So he’s expressed the need to properly convey that to American people so they’re not startled by why numbers ticked up.”
Another senior administration official said this concern about the death count was not confined to Trump, and was in fact shared by a number of his senior staff and has been a subject of discussion for weeks.
“With something like this virus, where you’ve got this weird coagulation in the lungs . . . we need more autopsies,” the official said.
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