Trump Wears "Keep America Great" Campaign Hat During CDC Visit, Makes False Testing Claims

President Trump visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta on March 6, 2020, wearing his red “Keep America Great” campaign hat and delivering a chaotic, politically charged performance that included false claims about testing availability, attacks on the Washington governor managing a major outbreak, and bizarre comparisons between COVID test accuracy and his “perfect” Ukraine phone call. The visit—which should have been an opportunity to demonstrate unified federal leadership during an emerging pandemic—instead became a showcase for Trump’s inability to separate his political interests from public health crisis management, with the president falsely insisting that “anybody who wants a test, can get a test” even as Vice President Mike Pence would contradict him shortly afterward by acknowledging tests wouldn’t be widely available for “weeks.”

Political Theater at Public Health Agency

Trump’s decision to wear his “Keep America Great” campaign hat during an official government visit to the CDC to address a public health crisis drew immediate criticism for mixing political messaging with crisis management. While the president was legally permitted to wear whatever clothing he chose, the optics of flaunting campaign slogans while discussing a deadly pandemic demonstrated Trump’s apparent inability to differentiate his role as president from his political campaign interests. CDC Director Robert Redfield compounded the inappropriate politicization by opening his remarks with effusive praise, stating his “most important thing” was thanking Trump for “decisive leadership”—a display of sycophancy that overshadowed the agency’s public health mission during a critical moment.

False Testing Claims and Pandemic Denialism

Trump’s most consequential false statement during the CDC visit was his insistence that “anybody who wants a test, can get a test”—a claim that contradicted the reality of severe testing shortages reported by medical professionals across the country. Vice President Pence would undercut this claim shortly after, indicating that widespread testing would only be available “within weeks.” Trump also compared coronavirus test accuracy to his Ukraine impeachment phone call, declaring “the tests are all perfect. Like the letter was perfect”—an bizarre conflation of a diagnostic medical test with his own political scandal. When asked about testing capabilities, Trump cited Fox News ratings as his source for coronavirus case data rather than relying on CDC information available to him at the agency’s own headquarters.

Erratic Behavior and Score-Settling

Rather than using the CDC visit to reassure Americans about pandemic preparedness, Trump engaged in partisan attacks and political score-settling. He called Washington Governor Jay Inslee “a snake” while Washington state faced the nation’s first major coronavirus outbreak and deaths. Trump also cut off Health Secretary Alex Azar mid-sentence, diverted from coronavirus discussion to ask reporters about his Fox News town hall ratings (claiming it “broke all ratings”), and stated he preferred cruise ship passengers remain aboard infected vessels to avoid inflating infection statistics—prioritizing the appearance of low case numbers over public health. The disjointed, self-absorbed performance raised serious questions about whether Trump was treating the pandemic as a genuine national emergency or merely another opportunity for political theater.

Significance

Trump’s March 6, 2020 CDC visit epitomized his administration’s failed approach to the COVID-19 pandemic: the prioritization of political messaging over public health guidance, the dissemination of false information about testing capacity that gave Americans a dangerously inaccurate picture of the federal response, and the inability to set aside personal grievances even during a national crisis. By wearing campaign materials to the CDC headquarters and spending his time attacking political enemies rather than communicating accurate public health information, Trump signaled that he viewed the pandemic primarily through a political lens—not as a genuine emergency requiring presidential leadership. The false claim that anyone could get tested when severe shortages persisted for weeks gave Americans false confidence about the government’s preparedness and contributed to the delayed, inadequate response that would allow the virus to spread unchecked throughout the United States. The CDC visit demonstrated that even as the pandemic accelerated, Trump remained fundamentally incapable of subordinating his political interests to the national welfare.