President Trump was asked about the recent outbreak of hantavirus on a cruise ship, and his answer was not reassuring.
Speaking to press outside of the White House Thursday evening, Trump was asked if he had been briefed on the virus, and after calling the ABC News reporter who asked the question “fake news,” he said that yes, he had been. The reporter then asked what the president had learned in those briefings.
“Well, I think you’re going to be told everything, and you already have, uhhh, it’s very much, we hope, under control. There was the ship, and I think we’re gonna make a full report about it tomorrow. We have a lot of people, it’s a lot of great people are studying it. It should be fine, we hope,” Trump said.
The reporter then asked if Americans should be concerned that the virus was going to spread.
“I hope not. I mean, I hope not. We’ll do the best we can,” Trump responded.
Q: Have you been briefed on the hantavirus?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 8, 2026
TRUMP: Yes I have
Q: What have you learned?
TRUMP: Ahhh -- it's very much we hope under control
Q: Should Americans be concerned it's going to spread?
TRUMP: I hope not. We'll do the best we can. pic.twitter.com/6Kjz1Tw33M
Trump’s answer didn’t inspire a lot of confidence, especially considering how badly he handled the Covid-19 pandemic in the last year of his first term as president. His Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., happens to have laid off all of the cruise ship inspectors in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vessel Sanitation Program last year. The Trump administration also cut funding to study the hantavirus last year.
Trump has not given any detailed information on how he’s going to handle the recent outbreak. Let’s hope that this virus somehow gets contained, because if it spreads in the U.S., we’ll have an even worse pandemic.