Trump says it’s been ‘very hard’ to talk about coronavirus as a parent

President Trump said in a TV interview that as a parent, he finds it “very hard” to talk about the coronavirus pandemic — particularly with his youngest son, 14-year-old Barron.

“He is a wonderful young boy, but the others are old enough they can see for themselves,” the president told Sean Hannity on Fox News late Thursday, referring to his older kids, Donald Jr., 42, Ivanka, 38, Eric, 36, and Tiffany, 26.

“It’s very hard talking about a thing like this because it is so negative, it is death and you don’t like discussing it and you hope they can always handle it in some way, but people are — they grow up and nobody said — there has not been anything like this in this country,” Trump added.

“Swine flu is pretty bad, but it wasn’t to the extent of this. I think you probably have to go back a long ways to go to this one. Who would think — I read about the Spanish Flu — that was 1917 — which killed anywhere from 75 to 100 million people,” he said.

The president made his remarks as the number of coronavirus cases in the US surged to more than 86,000 — passing China and Italy with the highest number of infected people — and with more than 1,200 deaths.