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Making his first remarks on the latest grim milestone in the nation's battle with coronavirus, President Donald Trump on Tuesday lamented the loss of 200,000 Americans who have died from the disease, describing it as "a shame."  "It's a horrible thing," Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House as he left for a rally in Pennsylvania. "It should have never, ever happened." "It’s a shame," he added. (Fritze, Collins and Jackson, 9/22)

“I did the best I could,” President Donald Trump said. Huddled with aides in the West Wing last week, his eyes fixed on Fox News, Trump wasn’t talking about how he had led the nation through the deadliest pandemic in a century. In a conversation overheard by an Associated Press reporter, Trump was describing how he’d just publicly rebuked one of his top scientists — Dr. Robert Redfield, a virologist and head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Dearen, 9/23)

President Donald Trump claimed Monday at an Ohio campaign rally that the coronavirus poses little threat to young people and “affects virtually nobody,” as the number of Americans to have died from Covid-19 climbed toward 200,000 in the United States. “It affects elderly people. Elderly people with heart problems and other problems. If they have other problems, that’s what it really affects,” Trump told supporters at an airport outside Toledo. (Forgey, 9/22)

How other government officials marked the grim milestone —

As the U.S. passed a grim milestone of 200,000 coronavirus-related deaths, Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday sent his condolences to victims and their families while also saying things could have been worse. Six weeks from the election, Pence spoke at a Make America Great Again event in Gilford, N.H., to raise support for President Donald Trump in a state that he narrowly lost in 2016. Addressing the news of the new 200,000 death count midday, Pence called it a “heartbreaking milestone.” (Kim, 9/22)

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) visited a memorial on the National Mall and led a moment of silence on the House floor commemorating the 200,000 people in the U.S. who have died of COVID-19. The death toll in the United States surpassed the 200,000 mark on Tuesday, according to data provided by Johns Hopkins University. The country has faced 6.8 million cases over the course of the past six months. (Brufke, 9/22)

U.S. coronavirus deaths surpassed 200,000 on Tuesday, hitting a dismal milestone in the country’s troubled pandemic response as health officials worry the fall and winter could bring more devastation. The U.S. continues to lead the world in deaths and confirmed cases, with about 6.9 million infections since the coronavirus emerged in January, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker. Despite accounting for 4 percent of the global population, the U.S. has recorded about 20 percent of the world’s coronavirus deaths. (Wanneh, 9/22)