In the middle of March, President Donald Trump claimed he and the rest of the federal government were caught off guard about the novel coronavirus, including its potential to spread outside of China and cause harm to other countries.

“Nobody knew there’d be a pandemic or an epidemic of this proportion,” Trump said on March 19. “Nobody has ever seen anything like this before.”

Those comments came just days after telling reporters at the White House that he viewed COVID-19 as “a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic,” adding at the time, “I’ve always viewed it as very serious.”

So did Trump know or not know about the threat COVID-19 posed — and if…