'What about Guantánamo?': Donald Trump wanted to send Covid patients to offshore prison, new book claims

Former US President, Donald Trump, took ‘isolation’ a little too seriously as he proposed shipping off Covid patients to "an island", a new book claims.

Two Washington Post reporters have revealed shocking details of how the former President handled the coronavirus pandemic from within the White House while running the country.

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In the book titled, 'Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History', by Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta, the former TV reality star proposed shipping off all Covid patients to Guantánamo.

Reportedly, during a meeting in the White House Situation Room in February 2020, Donald Trump asked his consultants, "Don't we have an island that we own? What about Guantánamo?"

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Trump’s aides immediately blocked the idea, but it was difficult for him to understand the reason and he defended his argument with, "We import goods. We are not going to import a virus".

The book also alleged that Trump was against the testing of coronavirus solely because he believed it negatively affected his chances of winning the US election 2020. "I'm going to lose the election because of testing!," he yelled at his health secretary Alex Azar. "What idiot had the federal government do testing?"

However, the twice impeached president did not have any answer when Azar replied, "Uh, do you mean Jared?", referring to Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and his chief advisor who had started and taken control of testing in the country.

As per the book, Trump also believed that it was "gross incompetence to let [federal health agency] CDC develop a test" against the deadly coronavirus.