The South Carolina senator said he “encourages” the president to “make sure that the science is behind what he says.”
One of Donald Trump’s fiercest defenders urged the president on Thursday to pay attention to scientific facts instead of spit-balling a coronavirus death rate and insisting that up to “hundreds of thousands” of Americans could catch the virus with little ill effect and still go to work.
“I don’t know what he was talking about,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters after Trump explained to Sean Hannity on Fox News that he had a “hunch” the death rate for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, is less than 1%. The World Health Organization has reported that the death rate is 3.4%.
“I would encourage the president, if he’s going to report things, to make sure that the science is behind what he says,” Graham added, noting: “I listen to the scientists when it comes to the numbers.”