Trump admits the swine flu pandemic was 'far less lethal' — but claims Biden's management of it was a 'disaster'

At Thursday night's presidential debate, President Donald Trump was pressed on his management of the coronavirus pandemic — and pivoted to trying to claim that the swine flu pandemic of 2009 was a "disaster" when Joe Biden was vice president. Even at the same time, however, he admitted that that pandemic was "far less lethal."

"He didn't move quicker. He was months behind me, many months behind me," said Trump. "And frankly he ran the H1N1 swine flu and it was a total disaster. Far less lethal, but it was a total disaster. Had that had this kind of numbers, 700,000 people would be dead right now. But it was a far less lethal disease. Look, his own person who ran that for him who as you know was his chief of staff, said it was catastrophic, it was horrible, we didn't know what we were doing."

Trump also repeated his false claim that his administration's action saved 2 million people from dying of COVID.