Trump says the US leading the world in coronavirus cases is 'a badge of honor'

• President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed that the US is only leading the world in coronavirus cases because "our testing is much better."
• "When we have a lot of cases, I don't look at that as a bad thing, I look at that as, in a certain respect, as being a good thing. Because it means our testing is much better," he said.
• "I view it as a badge of honor," he added.
• Trump has faced widespread criticism for his slow response to the pandemic and his administration's failure to efficiently mobilize testing across the country.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday argued that the US leading the world in coronavirus cases is only evidence that the country is testing more people than other nations and, for that reason, is actually "a badge of honor."

"When we have a lot of cases, I don't look at that as a bad thing, I look at that as, in a certain respect, as being a good thing," Trump told reporters. "Because it means our testing is much better."

He added, "I view it as a badge of honor, really, it's a badge of honor."

The president has repeatedly insisted that the number of US covid-19 infections — the highest in the world — is a function of abundant testing, rather than a failure to contain the virus' domestic spread.

Democrats quickly attacked Trump's Tuesday remarks, calling the US infection numbers "a complete failure of leadership."

Trump has faced widespread criticism for his slow response to the pandemic and his administration's failure to efficiently mobilize testing across the country.

Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, called the Trump's administration's record on coronavirus testing "nothing to celebrate whatsoever" during a Senate hearing last week.

The president and his aides have also misleadingly claimed that the US's testing abilities are more robust than South Korea's. In fact, South Korea ramped up its testing far more rapidly than the US did and now its per capita infection rate is just a fraction of this country's. At the same time, the US population is about six times as large as South Korea's and yet the US has had about 300 times as many coronavirus deaths as the Asian country.