‘Looks innocent, not very complicated’: Trump brings coronavirus testing swab to briefing

President Trump on Sunday brought a coronavirus testing swab to the White House coronavirus task force briefing, and held it up in comparison to a basic cotton swab.

Video Transcript

DONALD TRUMP: We continue to procure millions of swabs. Test collectors-- I have something here, just having to swab. It looks innocent, not very complicated. Anybody like to see what it looks like? Should I open it? Does everybody--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

DONALD TRUMP: Open it up. I will. I will. This is what it's about, right. Is it-- does it remind you of something? It reminds you of this, right.

One's a swab. One's a Q-tip. It's actually different. It's very sophisticated actually. But it's a little bit like, so this is the swab.

And we've ordered a lot of them. They have a lot of them. Some of them-- some of the states-- they were shipped to states, and the states don't know where they are. And but that's it.

Why don't we give this to Karen. Perhaps you'll take an extra test. [LAUGHS] Right, but this is a big deal.

MIKE PENCE: It was reported to us that, at this moment, more than 746,000 Americans have tested positive for the coronavirus. And, fortunately, more than 68,000 Americans have fully recovered, but, sadly, more than 41,000 Americans have lost their lives to the coronavirus. And we always want to express our deepest sympathies to the families in their loss as well as to all the families who have loved ones that are struggling with this disease.

Today, we've seen encouraging news, again, about our progress as a nation. President Trump reflected on those momentarily, but the coronavirus White House Task Force today learned that our large metro areas continue to stabilize and even see progress. The New York Metro area, including New Jersey, and New York, Long Island, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, all appear to be past their peak.

The Detroit metro area also appears to be past its peak and is stable. New Orleans metro area actually is the most stable of all areas where we had a major metropolitan outbreak. And the Denver metro area is stable. We're dealing, in Colorado, with a meat-packing plant issue, and, of course, California and Washington remain low and steady.