He did not cause these deaths. The U.S. has one of the higher incidence and death rates, but it also has the most mobile population and the best detection and recordkeeping
Did I say cause? No, and you are deliberately misconstruing my meaning. I said Trump has brought about the reality of the body count. Not because he “caused” their deaths directly. He only completely botched the federal management response.
His shut down of air travel first from China and then weeks later, from Europe was supposed to buy time to organize a critical response. I listened to the live calls he had with governors, not through press snippets, but the entire thing. Each time.
Every call, governors asked for supplies, explained that the feds (FEMA) were diverting testing supplies, and each time he replied, we’re not a supplier, find your own lines.
So, the government wasn’t a supplier, it was just hijacking states’ supplies and then telling the governors, “Not our problem.”
He pissed away valuable time playing this circular game, while undermining the efforts of many doctors and epidemiologists by telling Americans, it’s not that bad, it’ll disappear, hardly anyone will die.
He absolutely created the situation where this virus was not taken seriously, where the feds handicapped multiple state supplies chains, such as when FEMA “diverted” masks and testing assays from my own state, MN, back in March.
He introduced skepticism and called for states like MN to be “liberated” when our governor proved to be not so stupid as Kemp and Abbott and other Trump stooges and kept MN shut down.
He has caused this situation through his lack of scientific comprehension, his self-absorption with his frail ego, and inability to provide clear, consistent guidance.
Because of the way this virus was allowed to spread from a few cases to clusters to widespread outbreaks and epidemic, people I knew and cared about are dead. There’s no excuse for how badly this has been mishandled.
