Trump uses 100,000 virus death milestone to brag about how “well” he’s done his job
As the United States reaches the grim milestone of 100,000 lives lost to the ravages of COVID-19, President Trump found it appropriate to insult the memory of those lost by using it as an opportunity to shower himself in praise.
Taking to Twitter on Tuesday morning, the President had the repulsive nerve to claim that the staggering death toll was evidence that he had done well in managing the virus, holding up worst-case scenario projections that showed up to two million potential deaths to prove his point.
He wrongly asserted that he shut down entry from China “very early,” implying that this had stopped the influx of COVID-19 into the United States, which it did not. Trace research shows that more virus cases arrived in the US from Europe, not China, but of course that doesn’t fit the xenophobic narrative the president is using to push the blame off of himself.
He even had the gall to assert that “complainers” like “Crazy Nancy” [Pelosi] said he was moving “far too fast,” which is anything but the truth.
….One person lost to this invisible virus is too much, it should have been stopped at its source, China, but I acted very quickly, and made the right decisions. Many of the current political complainers thought, at the time, that I was moving far to fast, like Crazy Nancy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020
The truth is that studies show that the implementation of social distancing measures and quarantine lockdowns just one week earlier would have saved tens of thousands of lives.
The testimony of government health officials and the scoops from investigative journalists show that President Trump and his team deliberately ignored the warnings of experts acted slowly to respond to the pandemic in a callously selfish and poorly-considered effort to minimize the damage to the economy and his 2020 election chances.
Throughout the entire pandemic, Trump has downplayed the severity of the crisis and pushed to re-open the economy before it is safe to do so, doing his damndest to ensure that even more people needlessly die so that he can once again take credit for gains in a stock market that almost exclusively benefits only the top 10% of Americans.
Having bungled the beginning and middle sections of the crisis, he is intent on doing the same to the recovery period. While far too much ink and bytes have been spilled on criticizing the monstrous behavior the president has displayed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, it still is shocking to see him claim 100,000 dead Americans as evidence that he’s done a good job when in reality it is an abomination that we must make him pay for at the first chance we get.
