TULSA, Okla. – President Donald Trump called the coronavirus “Kung flu” during a Saturday rally in Oklahoma, employing a slang term that’s been criticized as racist while claiming increased diagnostic testing has driven up U.S. case totals.
The coronavirus outbreak, which has killed at least 119,000 Americans, was a significant talking point at Trump’s first rally in three months in Tulsa’s BOK Center, where attendance badly failed to meet Trump’s promises of a capacity crowd.
Trump said that he had “done a phenomenal job” with the U.S. outbreak and “saved hundreds of thousands of lives” by limiting travel from China and Europe as the pandemic spread overseas.
Trump last said the term “Kung Flu,” a pun on the Chinese martial art, at a White House news conference March 18, after a reporter asked whether it was true that an unnamed White House official had used the phrase, and if Trump thought it was wrong.
But he ceased using the terms “Chinese virus” or “Kung flu” for a time after criticism, resuming only recently as he has sought to pin blame for the U.S. outbreak on the government in Beijing.
