Trump 2020 Adviser Discusses Beirut Explosion and COVID-19

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Let me just first ask you, does it trouble you, as you’re trying to get, I guess, a coherent message around the president from the president in the campaign, that just about, you know, practically every day now he’s saying things that don’t quite tally with reality. Why do you think he said a bomb attack in Lebanon when nobody else, not even the Lebanese government or their own military, is saying that?

STEVE CORTES; SENIOR ADVISER FOR STRATEGY, TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN: Well, Christiane, you know, if you listen very carefully to that tape you just played, what he said there is that his generals feel, meaning it’s an educated guess on their part, they did not report to him that it’s a bomb, they didn’t say they have intelligence. It was a supposition, an educated guess from people whose entire lives and careers are dedicated to national security types of issues. So, I really don’t see anything controversial there. You know, he didn’t state something definitive. He stated — he was relaying to the public what the generals had told him. And, again, nobody knows, clearly, and the president didn’t act or did not suggest that he did know.

AMANPOUR: OK. So, we’re not sure the generals told him, because as I said, generals or Defense Department officials have told us that there was no indication. So, I guess, I’m just trying to figure out. Do you not worry that a lot of confusion is coming out from the mouth of your candidate, a lot of confusion where he contradicts experts? Let’s just move away from Lebanon for a moment, in the United States about coronavirus, about all the important things that matter to the American people?

CORTES: Right. Look, this president has been the most transparent president, and perhaps the most transparent politician, for that matter, in American history. His openness in terms of the lines of communication with the American people is so extensive that there are times that it can appear that he’s contradicting himself when, in fact, what the president is really doing is having, in some ways, an open debate. For example, you mentioned regarding coronavirus. There’s a lot of different voices within his administration, a lot of different voices within the medical community, more broadly here in the United States and globally, who disagree with each other. And the president welcomes — you know, I know this personally from some of my dealings with him, he welcomes those kinds of debates and disagreements, even within his own White House. So, the idea, though, that he is contradicting experts doesn’t — in my view, is not consistent with the reality. There is not a consensus agreement among experts, for example, when it comes to things that have become suddenly very controversial like hydroxychloroquine, for example.