The global COVID-19 pandemic has exceeded 67.7 million cases and 1.54 million deaths. Just this last week, the United States has recorded its most Covid-19 deaths over a week-long period with nearly 283,000 recorded (12/8/2020 The New York Times).
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, warned: “The vaccine is critical, but it’s not going to save us from this current surge. Only we can save us from this current surge. And we know precisely what to do.”
Birx urged Americans to follow the CDC coronavirus guidelines, including wearing a mask indoors when not at home. She continued …
“We have to listen right now to what we know works, which is masks, physical distancing, washing your hands, but not gathering. You cannot gather without masks in any indoor or close outdoor situation.”
Birx said …
“This is not just the worst public health event. This is the worst event that this country will face, not just from a public health side. Yet we know what behaviors spread the virus and we know how to change those behaviors to stop spreading the virus.”
Birx, who wore a pink mask during the interview, said the “fall/winter surge is combining everything that we saw in this spring with everything that we saw in the summer, plus the fall surge going into a winter surge.”
How did we get here? COVID-19 is ravaging America like never before. You undoubted have explored the answer to that question yourself. After dutifully examining the developments that began as early as January 5, 2020, when the World Health Organization published its first “Disease Outbreak News” on the new virus containing both a risk assessment and advice, you will discover a very disturbing answer. At least, I did.
To me, there is no doubt Trump and his administration mishandled the public health response. Trump's denial, bungled communication, and outright lies have failed the country and dramatically increased the horrific death toll. He knowingly withheld vital information and preached a false and dangerous narrative.
But, don't believe me. Please listen to some of the president's own responses to the virus – dangerous words he has proclaimed throughout the year. I hope you read this in its entirety and decide, for yourself, if Trump is complicit in the death and destruction caused by the coronavirus.
This blog entry features the words of the U.S. President – the leader of the free world – during the year 2020. I have not altered or changed any of the quotes. I simply present the words of Donald Trump here in a month-to-month review of the year.
2020 In Review
In January, Trump said that the virus wasn't a threat at all. Asked if he was worried about a pandemic, Trump said at the time, "It's one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It's going to be just fine."
In February at the White House, Trump said: “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” He said, “You know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat – as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April. But, Trump told journalist Bob Woodward: “But the air, you just breathe the air and that's how it's passed (the coronavirus). And so that's a very tricky one. That's a very delicate one. It's also more deadly than even your strenuous flus.”
Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”
Trump also said: “Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. They have no clue … This is their new hoax.” Adding – attacking the White House’s response to the coronavirus had become the Democratic Party’s “single talking point.”
In March, the White House declared the pandemic a national emergency, and Trump told Bob Woodward: "I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic." Also Trump predicted "packed churches all over our country" on Easter Sunday. “We’re opening up this incredible country. Because we have to do that. I would love to have it open by Easter.”
However, at a press conference with his coronavirus task force, Trump said, "This is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic."
Trump also tweeted: “The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it used to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the facts would warrant."
In April, Vice President Mike Pence claimed that "by Memorial Day weekend we will have this coronavirus epidemic behind us.” "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" and "LIBERATE MINNESOTA!" and "LIBERATE VIRGINIA," Trump wrote on Twitter. Within days he decided to shift responsibility for the pandemic to the governors, saying, "The federal government will be watching them very closely and will be there to help in many different ways."
On April 18, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner told Bob Woodward that the White House’s guidance for states to reopen amid the surging COVID-19 outbreak was “almost like Trump getting the country back from the doctors. Right? In the sense that what he now did was, you know, he’s going to own the open-up.”
In May, Trump said: “It’s going to go. It’s going to leave. It’s going to be gone. And, Jared Kushner – the president’s son-in-law – pronounced the country would be "really rocking again" by July because Americans were "on the other side of the medical aspect of this."
In June, Trump declared: “I always say, even without it [a vaccine], it goes away” and “If you look, the numbers are very minuscule compared to what it was. It’s dying out.”
In July, Trump said, “I'll be right eventually. I will be right eventually. You know I said, ‘It’s going to disappear.’ I’ll say it again. It’s going to disappear, and I’ll be right.”
On July 4, Trump
announced: “99%” of COVID-19 cases are “totally harmless.”
The
WHO has said that about 15 percent of COVID-19 cases can be severe,
with 5 percent being critical.
On July 6, Trump said: “We now have the lowest Fatality (Mortality) Rate in the World.” But the truth was the U.S. had neither the lowest mortality rate nor the lowest case-fatality rate when Trump made this claim.
And, despite Dr. Anthony Fauci's (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director) warnings of being “knee-deep in the first wave,” Trump said: "Well, I think we are in a good place. I disagree with him,"
In August, Trump announced: “And frankly, you know, we’ve had a tremendous – a tremendous market, you and I have talked about that, the stock market. Think of it, we’re almost back to where we were, and we’re still in the pandemic, which will be going away, as I say, it’ll be going away. And they scream, how you can you say that? I said, because it’s gonna be going away.”
Facebook removed a post from President Donald Trump's page for containing false claims about Covid-19. The post was a video of an interview the President gave to Fox News on Wednesday morning.
"This video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from Covid-19 which is a violation of our policies around harmful Covid misinformation," said Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone.
In September, the night before the United States exceeded 200,000 deaths, Trump said: “It affects virtually nobody. It’s an amazing thing. It affects … elderly people with heart problems and other problems – if they have other problems that’s what it really affects, that’s it.”
And, on September 29 at a presidential debate, after producing a mask from his pocket: “I wear masks when needed. When needed, I wear masks.” Ridiculing Democratic rival Joe Biden for wearing them regularly, he said: “I don’t wear masks like him. Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from them and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”
In October, Trump assured Americans: “Even without the vaccine, the pandemic’s going to end. It’s gonna run its course. It’s gonna end. They’ll go crazy. He said ‘without the vaccine’ – watch, it’ll be a headline tomorrow. These people are crazy. No, it’s running its course.” And the same month after being infected by COVID-19 himself, he told the country: “Don’t be afraid of Covid.” And, Trump tweeted:“The Fake News Media is riding COVID, COVID, COVID, all the way to the Election. Losers!”
"That's all I hear about now. That's all I hear. Turn on television—'Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid.' A plane goes down. 500 people dead, they don't talk about it," Trump told his supporters at a campaign rally in Lumberton, North Carolina, on October 24th. "Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid.' By the way, on November 4, you won't hear about it anymore.”
Trump also trained his ire on the U.S. medical system, falsely saying that doctors are somehow incentivized to drive up the death count."Our doctors get more money if someone dies from COVID," he said at a Waterford Township, Michigan rally.
Dr. Fauci called President Donald Trump's Rose Garden ceremony in September that announced Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court a "superspreader event." More than two dozen attendees — including Trump, first lady Melania Trump, and Republican Sens. Mike Lee and Thom Tillis — tested positive after attending the earlier White House celebration.
Facebook removed this post from Trump: "Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!"
A study out of Cornell, which analyzed 38 million articles about the pandemic in English-language media, found that Trump is the "single largest" transmitter of misinformation surrounding COVID-19, touting false "miracle cures" and giving credence to dubious claims about the origins of the virus. Mentions of the president or his words made up nearly 38% of the overall “misinformation conversation,” they found.
In November, Trump said, “Joe Biden is promising to delay the vaccine and turn America into a prison state—locking you in your home while letting far-left rioters roam free. The Biden Lockdown will mean no school, no graduations, no weddings, no Thanksgiving, no Christmas, no Fourth of July.” In addition, Trump said, “We have more Cases because we have more Testing!”
On November 21, Trump tweeted: “The Fake News is not talking about the fact that 'Covid' is running wild all over the World, not just in the U.S. I was at the Virtual G-20 meeting early this morning and the biggest subject was Covid. We will be healing fast, especially with our vaccines!”
At the virtual G-20 meeting, Trump left the White House shortly before 10 a.m. to visit his namesake golf club outside Washington, D.C., as other world leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and South Korean President Moon Jae-in spoke during a side event on "Pandemic Preparedness and Response.”
In December, The New York Times and the Associated Press reported the Trump administration passed up a chance last summer to buy millions of additional doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, a decision that could delay the delivery of a second batch of doses until the manufacturer fulfills other international contracts. The revelation came a day before Donald Trump aimed to take credit for the speedy development of forthcoming vaccines at a White House summit.
The White House has begun hosting large, indoor holiday parties – directly contradicting guidance from the CDC. Few of the attendees wear masks or practice social distancing.
Trump held a outdoor campaign rally in Georgia on December for two GOP candidates facing Senate runoffs. It appears was styled after the dozens he held in the final days of his reelection campaign, when thousands of his supporters crammed together and most did not wear masks.
The Future?
On December 6, Trump announced Rudy Giuliani, his personal lawyer, had tested positive for Covid-19, making him at least the 53rd person in the president’s inner circle to contract the virus, according to tallies by the New York Times and NBC News, a shocking number that is almost assuredly linked to administration officials’ lax approach to following Covid-19 safety recommendations.
Giuliani attended hearings in Georgia and Michigan last week in which he often did not wear a mask and advocated for one of his witnesses to remove their face covering.
The long and growing list includes: Trump himself, First Lady Melania Trump, two of his sons – Donald Trump Jr. and Barron Trump, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, adviser Stephen Miller, campaign manager Bill Stepien and former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.
73% of the members of Congress to test positive for Covid-19 are Republicans, according to a Forbes tally.
According to Jack Brewster of Forbes …
“Led by President Trump, Republicans have been slower to embrace masks as a tool to slow the spread of Covid-19 and have routinely flouted social distancing guidelines during campaign events. Many GOP lawmakers have turned Covid-19 restrictions into a political issue, criticizing Democrats for imposing orders they say infringe on Americans' 'freedom' and 'liberty.' In the weeks leading up to the election, Trump held massive rallies all over the country at which many attendees did not wear masks, bucking CDC guidelines.”
(Jack Brewster. “Republicans Make Up 70% Of The Members Of Congress Who Have Tested Positive For Covid-19.” Forbes. November 29, 2020.)
I have presented evidence to support Brewster's claim. As a concerned American, you can investigate further. I hope you do. The truth becomes evident in the research. And, it is this truth that matters more than anything else: indifference and blind allegiance are unthinkable stances during a national crisis that may total 539,000 deaths in the United States by April 1 according to some projections.
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