I never said he called the virus itself a hoax. He calls _reporting on COVID-19 and criticism of the US response_ a hoax intended to discredit him, and that is backed up by the quotes from the snopes article the other commenter linked.

Yeah, agreed, the parent phrasing definitely confused me. First 3 sentences make it seem like he is trying to head-on rebut the comment he is replying to, and then the last sentences of the 1st paragraph just reiterate and expand on what the grandparent comment said and agree with it. While what the parent said makes sense, reading it definitely threw me off a bit.

But katmannthree didn't say "Trump called COVID-19 a hoax". So airstrike is arguing a strawman and katmannthree is simply reiterating what he originally said with quotes from the primary sources.