17 jaw-dropping things Trump said at his latest 'unhinged' press conference

Trump's latest coronavirus press conference was one of his most bizarre and erratic yet.

Returning after a brief hiatus, Trump chose to hold the presser without his medical advisors Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Deborah Birx by his side, and rattled off numerous untruths and misleading claims.

He also took a moment to praise disgraced billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's associate Ghislaine Maxwell and criticised the European Union.

Here's 17 of Trump's most shocking statements.

1. Coronavirus will get worse before it gets better.

It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better — something I don’t like saying about things, but that’s the way it is. If you look over the world, it’s all over the world, and it tends to do that.

First of all, the spread of coronavirus is actually slowing down in most parts of the world because of initial emergency response measures like lockdowns and social distancing.

And second of all, how does this square with Trump's repeated claim that coronavirus will simply "disappear"?

2. Trump inherited "empty cupboards" from the Obama administration.

The governors are working very, very hard, and we are supporting them 100 percent. Everything they need, they get. [...] So that’s a big difference from inheriting very, very empty cupboards.

The National Strategic Stockpile was equipped with almost 17,000 workable ventilators when coronavirus hit. Stocks of items like masks were depleted but Trump had three years to build them back up.

3. The US has a "lower fatality rate than the European Union".

Our case fatality rate has continued to decline and is lower than the European Union and almost everywhere else in the world. If you watch American television, you’d think that the United States was the only country involved with and suffering from the China virus. Well, the world is suffering very badly.

Yes, Trump's still calling coronavirus "the China virus" despite having promised to stop doing this back in March.

He also erroneously claimed that the US's fatality rate is one of the lowest in the world. In terms of deaths per capita, the US is currently third.

4. We're facing a "significant spice" in virus cases in the West.

Oops.

5. The US is testing "more people for coronavirus than any other Western country".

Per capita, the U.S. is conducting 50 percent more tests than Europe, and we’ve conducted nearly three times as many tests as all of the other countries in the Western Hemisphere combined.

The UK and Russia are testing more people than the US, and Spain and Italy aren't far behind.

6. Governors have "everything they need" to combat the virus.

No governor needs anything right now, and we think we’ll have it that way until the end, because, frankly, we are stocked up and ready to go wherever we have to go.

Some healthcare workers in the US are still facing PPE rationing because of shortages.

7. Coronavirus is a mystery... but totally curable.

We've saved, potentially, millions of lives by doing the initial shutdown, but now we're very aware of the disease. We understand the disease, to a large extent. Nobody is going to maybe ever fully understand it, but we'll end up with a cure.

Somehow, according to Trump, scientists will find a way to "cure" coronavirus without ever fully understanding how it works. Seems logical...

8. Trump can see himself taking "two tests in one day".

I do take probably, on average, a test every two days, three days. And I don’t know of any time I’ve taken two tests in one day, but I could see that happening.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany claimed on Tuesday that Trump gets tested "multiple times" a day.

Trump contradicted this claim, but said that he could see it happening.

9. Medical advisors are lurking around the White House.

Reporter:

Why aren't your doctors with you here today? Where's Dr Fauci, Dr Birx?

Trump:

Well, Dr Birx is right outside.

10. The Trump Administration passed the Veteran's Choice Act. (It didn't.)

On rebuilding the military, on how we’ve handled the VA, we got Veterans Choice. Nobody thought that would be possible.

The Veteran's Choice Act, a measure allowing eligible veterans to receive healthcare from community providers rather than waiting for appointments from the Veterans Affairs department, was proposed by Bernie Sanders and John McCain and signed into law by Obama in 2014.

11. Trump is the "most successful president in US history".

I don’t think any administration, any President has accomplished so much as we’ve accomplished, from energy to health to so many other things.

In less than five years, Trump has accomplished more than George Washington or Abraham Lincoln, according to him.

12. Coronavirus is a "plague" that China should have stopped.

The plague, I call it the plague, the plague came in. A terrible thing. Should've been stopped. Wasn't stopped. It came in.

Trump repeated his xenophobic claim that China should be blamed for the coronavirus pandemic.

Also, it's a viral infection. The plague is bacterial.

13. Trump closed the US's borders to China and Europe when no-one else wanted to.

One day, we had a virus come in, and I closed the borders. And nobody wanted to do it. I wanted to do it. 

We closed the border to China. We put on the ban. Fairly shortly thereafter, I closed the borders from Europe. 

There were multiple exceptions to these policies.

US citizens could still fly in to the country from China, and entire countries from Europe remained exempt from the travel ban including Ireland, Romania and Russia.

14. Trump wishes Ghislaine Maxwell "well".

I just wish her well, frankly. I’ve met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well, whatever it is. I don’t know the situation with Prince Andrew. I just don’t know. I’m not aware of it.

Trump sent his well wishes to Ghislaine Maxwell, the close confidant of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, in the wake of her arrest by the FBI.

He also claimed to be unaware of the "situation with Prince Andrew", despite telling Fox News host Sean Hannity in 2016 that Epstein's private island was a "cesspool, there's no question about it. Just ask Prince Andrew".

15. Trump is worried people will make too much money during the pandemic.

We want to have people go back and want to go back to work as opposed to be, sort of, forced into a position where they’re making more money than they expected to make.

When asked about cuts to unemployment insurance, Trump voiced his concern that if people don't go back to work soon they'll end up receiving more money than they would have made anyway.

He added that some people are at risk of "making so much money that they really don't have to".

Just as a reminder, Trump is worth $2.1bn.

16. Coronavirus will simply "disappear".

The virus will disappear. It will disappear.

Coronavirus will not simply "disappear", not least because it's not possible to vaccinate every single animal in the world against the disease.

17. You don't need to wear a mask in theory, but it's "patriotic" to do it anyway.

In theory, you don't need the mask. I'm getting used to the mask, and the reason is — think about patriotism. Maybe it is. It helps. It helps.

If anyone was hoping for clear messaging from Trump about how to handle the next stages of the coronavirus crisis, they were clearly mistaken.

Trump's "unhinged" claims didn't go down well.

People also pointed out that he found time to wish Ghislaine Maxwell well, but not the families of the thousands of people who have died of coronavirus.

Maxwell strongly denies all charges against her.

The return of Trump's coronavirus press conferences might give reporters a chance to hold Trump to account for his misleading and contradictory claims about fighting the virus.

But they seemingly won't be an opportunity for Americans to receive accurate and unbiased updates about how to tackle the virus.

With a presidential election looming in November, Trump's mind just seems to be elsewhere.