Trump told Bob Woodward he knew in February that COVID-19 was ‘deadly stuff’ but wanted to ‘play it down’

Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.

President Donald Trump acknowledged the dangers of the coronavirus pandemic in a February interview with journalist Bob Woodward, and acknowledged downplaying the threat in a March interview, according to an account of Woodward's new book.

“I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don't want to create a panic," Trump said in a March 19 call with Woodward, according to an audio clip posted Wednesday on The Washington Post's website. The newspaper obtained a copy of his book "Rage," which is scheduled to be released next week.

The new revelation about what Trump was saying privately come as the president tries to convince the American public to vote in November to give him a second term in office as he struggles to overcome low public opinion polls on how he has handled the response to the virus.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany maintained the president had not been misleading.

"The president has never lied to the American public on COVID," McEnany said, and has "always been clear that lives could be lost."

Woodward details in his book that Trump was briefed on the virus in January.

"This is deadly stuff," Trump told Woodward in a Feb. 7 phone call.

“You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” Trump told Woodward, according to the Washington Post. “And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flu.”

The book says Trump was given dire warnings in January about the virus that would lead to a worldwide pandemic in March.

“This will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency,” national security adviser Robert O’Brien told Trump on Jan 28, according to the book. “This is going to be the roughest thing you face.”

Trump blocked some Chinese nationals from coming into the country in the days after the briefing, but continued to play down the danger posed by the virus and repeatedly compared it to the flu.

“We only have five people. Hopefully, everything's going to be great,” Trump said on Jan. 30. A few days later, he said, “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”

On March 9, weeks after he told Woodward the coronavirus was more than five times deadlier than the flu, Trump tweeted, "So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!"

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed the president in an interview on MSNBC, and said his "downplaying" cost lives.

The "denial about the threat is responsible for many of the deaths and infections that we have today, not all of them, but many of them, could have been prevented,” the California Democrat told Andrea Mitchell.

The book also sheds further light on how much distrust some of Trump's top officials had in the president.

Woodward also recounted a conversation — which he attributed to unnamed sources — between Coats and James Mattis, who was the Defense secretary at the time, in which Mattis told Coats, “The president has no moral compass.”

Coats agreed, according to the book.

"To him, a lie is not a lie. It’s just what he thinks. He doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie,” Coats is quoted by Woodward as saying.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.