In a July 19 interview on Fox News, Trump shrugged off over 150,000 American deaths from COVID-19 by saying, “it is what it is.”

WALLACE: But I can tell you, the death chart is a thousand cases a day.

TRUMP: Excuse me, it’s all too much, it shouldn’t be one case. It came from China. They should’ve never let it escape. They should’ve never let it out. But it is what it is. Take a look at Europe, take a look at the numbers in Europe. And by the way, they’re having cases.

WALLACE: I can tell you cases are 6,000 in the whole European Union.

Trump went on to claim that the reason why cases were lower in the European Union was because they didn’t adequately test.

Trump repeated the remark in another interview with Axios on August 3 when asked about the daily deaths across the country.

TRUMP: Yeah. Under the circumstances right now, I think it’s under control. I’ll tell you what-

SWAN: How? 1,000 Americans are dying a day.

TRUMP: They are dying. That’s true. And it is what it is. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t doing everything we can. It’s under control as much as you can control it. This is a horrible plague that beset us.

During the same interview, he also objected to the use of deaths per capita as a metric of the severity of the virus in the United States.

Trump dismissed concerns about COVID-19 since it first began to spread in the United States.

Fox News – Transcript: ‘Fox News Sunday’ interview with President Trump
The Daily Beast – Trump Shrugs Off COVID Death Toll in Fox News Interview: ‘It Is What It Is’
The Hill – Trump on coronavirus death toll: ‘It is what it is’