The Trump administration would like Americans to trust their handling of the Coronavirus, although they’re currently led by the guy — President Donald Trump — who freely insisted that he’s “never understood wind.” Trump has claimed that coverage of the negative aspects of the Coronavirus situation is perpetrating some kind of “hoax” and constituting a conspiracy to make him look bad — which is, quite simply, a lie. Yet, this weekend, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who’s on the Coronavirus response team, defended Trump’s derision of Democrats’ supposed “hoax.”
ABC host George Stephanopoulos asked the straightforward question:
‘Is it appropriate for him in any way to be using the word hoax in the context of this crisis?’
The correct answer, of course, is that no — it’s not appropriate! It’s not appropriate for the president of the United States to stand in front of the nation and mock coverage of the situation as a hoax, no matter whether or not he specifies that his “hoax” idea just covers the coverage and reaction rather than the actual disease.
Azar said none of this. Instead, he suggested that the president is some valiant white knight just trying to defend the American people. He commented, referring to Trump’s “hoax” commentary:
‘Well, he’s talking about the partisan sniping that we’re seeing, and that’s just unnecessary. We don’t need to have this made a political issue. We’re in a public health crisis here; we need to all be banding together. And you know, we’re working on this emergency supplemental bill in Congress, and we’re getting bipartisan support on that, so I’ve got a lot of hope that we can get things back to us all working together on this.’
Watch:
.@GStephanopoulos: Is it appropriate for President Trump to be using the word “hoax” in criticizing Democrats’ criticism of coronavirus response?
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar: “He’s talking about the political sniping that we’re seeing.” https://t.co/PRDknSv9hw pic.twitter.com/a27yGRfqzz
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) March 1, 2020
Talk about hypocrisy. Has Azar observed his team’s response for any amount of time? Has he observed the president? Don Jr.? The other day on Fox, Donald Trump Jr. claimed that Democrats want the Coronavirus to kill millions of Americans just so that they can stick it to the president. And yet, Azar has the arrogant hypocrisy to blame others for the “politicization” of the issue.
Trump himself has rattled off on Twitter:
‘Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible. Likewise their incompetent Do Nothing Democrat comrades are all talk, no action.’
Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible. Likewise their incompetent Do Nothing Democrat comrades are all talk, no action. USA in great shape! @CDCgov…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 26, 2020
And Azar has the gall to insist that others should watch their own politicized talk? Seriously?
He went on from the above to insist that the situation is overall not that treacherous for the American people in general. He commented:
‘The most important thing is that we’re all communicating to the American people so they understand what we’re dealing with — that the risk to any individual is low, that we’re going to keep it low, that we’re going to see more cases, we’re seeing some community-spreading, but they’ve got the finest public health system in the world, and the finest public health experts who are on it. This is what we do.’
Yet, he and his team are failing to actually inspire confidence among Americans.
