But it would be a mistake to remember Trump only for all the vitriol he spewed from the White House and on Twitter. In fact, on a range of issues that called for presidential leadership, Trump routinely spoke and acted in his own interests rather than the country's. "No, that was a phone call to discuss other things, and frankly, that's an issue that many people said was fake news," Trump told Axios' Jonathan Swan. Trump told Axios he had not retaliated against Chinese Communist Party officials or companies about the camps then, so as not to upset a trade deal he was working on with Beijing. As Bob Woodward's book details, Trump never spoke publicly in the early days of the pandemic about how serious the virus was.

Source: CNN January 01, 2021 16:30 UTC