Right, he had a chance to take the big shot and be a leader, and he passed the ball. When the country needed someone to step up and be a hero, he said, "Don't look at me."
Its the state governors job to take charge for their states. Trump and his admin are supposed to micromanage the response across 50 different states and a population of almost 350,000,000? That's retarded. That's not how its supposed to work.
And he didn't downplay it, his assessment seems fairly accurate actually. People were freaking THE FUCK out by march thinking that the mortality rate of this fucker is 5-7%.