Did Donald Trump state during a 2020 Tulsa campaign rally that he’d asked to slow COVID-19 testing to reduce reported case numbers?

President Donald Trump told the crowd at his June 2020 campaign rally in Tulsa, three months after the pandemic-prompted declaration of a state of emergency, that he had asked his administration to slow COVID-19 testing to avoid bad statistics, the Associated Press reported.

Trump said that the U.S. had tested 25 million people, far exceeding any other country, which he called a double-edged sword, the so-called bad part being that more testing yields more cases.

“So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please,” Trump said.

According to Our World In Data, at the time, the U.S. had conducted the second highest number of tests at 30.6 million, which, while at least 20 million more than most countries, was one-third of China’s number.

Per 1,000 people, the U.S. had the 11th highest number of tests at 90.7 and the 26th highest positive rate at 20.8%.