Trump defends coronavirus response after Woodward interview audio published: 'I don't want to scare people'

President Trump defended comments he made earlier this year about the coronavirus pandemic in interviews with journalist Bob Woodward, telling Fox News' "Hannity" Wednesday that he wanted to "show a calmness."

"I'm the leader of the country, I can't be jumping up and down and scaring people," Trump told host Sean Hannity. "I don't want to scare people. I want people not to panic, and that's exactly what I did."

Excerpts from some of the interviews, which form the basis of Woodward's forthcoming book, "Rage," were published by The Washington Post earlier Wednesday. In early February, Trump told Woodward that the coronavirus was "deadly stuff" while publicly comparing it to seasonal flu. More than a month later, on March 19, Trump admitted to Woodward that he "wanted to always play it [the virus] down.