We know for a fact that the panic is responsible for the official coronavirus death toll, not the virus itself. So any downplaying Trump may have done could have only saved lives, even if you have faith in the official stats.
Moreover, a researcher has looked at the real excess burden of death from all causes across the globe starting this year and going all the way back to the end of World War 2. And the data makes it abundantly clear that our reaction is what caused the extra fatalities we experienced in April of 2020, not some new killer virus.