As wealthy countries across the globe begin to reopen, the United States is still grappling with nationwide spikes of the virus that's upended daily life in the country.
The European Union announced that it would allow residents from over a dozen countries to begin traveling to Europe as the union eases flight restrictions from abroad. The United States is not one of those countries.
Nevertheless, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany took to the podium to claim that the U.S. is doing an exemplary job in its handling of the pandemic outbreak.
Watch below.
When asked how the rest of the world is viewing the United States, McEnany said:
"I think the world is looking at us as a leader...because the chart I showed you where you have the mortality rate in Italy and UK up here and across Europe, and you have the United States at a low case mortality rate, it's because of the extraordinary work that we've done on therapeutics, on getting PPE, and leading on ventilators and having excess ventilators that we were able to deploy around the world and help other countries."
In the early stages of the outbreak, the United States experienced a deadly shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other supplies. Due to a lack of federal response, governors were left to their own devices to acquire this equipment for their states, often resulting in bidding wars.
The United States, unlike other countries, continues to break its new case records. Deaths as a result of these new cases are expected to increase. States like Texas are facing the possibility of overflowing hospitals.
In a way, McEnany is right: the United States leads the world in both the number of cases and the raw number of deaths.
Many Americans sense that the rest of the world is laughing at the United States.
People watching from outside of the United States disagreed with her claim.
Cases and hospitalizations continue to rise across the country.
