No number of reported Coronavirus cases in the U.S. is enough to make President Donald Trump doubt himself, apparently. This Tuesday morning, as the confirmed case count in the U.S. continued to climb, he took to Twitter to both mockingly demean Democratic governors working on dealing with the crisis and, of course, lavish praise on the actually quite struggling response from his own administration. Neither one of the governors who he targeted — New York’s Andrew Cuomo and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer — even made remotely extreme claims or demands. They just want federal assistance — and all Trump has to offer are some sarcastic tweets.
Trump criticized Cuomo just for insisting that states should be getting equitable treatment from the federal government, since one state without adequate protections puts its neighboring states in danger, and so on. He went after Whitmer for her criticism of Trump’s suggestion that governors should just try to get crucial supplies like respirators on their own rather than expect federal assistance to fill in the gap — although of course, when it comes to pet projects like his southern border wall, Trump has not exactly hesitated before to dump out federal resources on a whim.
Trump insisted that Whitmer “must work harder and be much more proactive” — but what exactly does he even have in mind for her to do? She’s banned eating out and expanded state unemployment benefits.
Cuomo wants “all states to be treated the same.” But all states aren’t the same. Some are being hit hard by the Chinese Virus, some are being hit practically not at all. New York is a very big “hotspot”, West Virginia has, thus far, zero cases. Andrew, keep politics out of it….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2020
Failing Michigan Governor must work harder and be much more proactive. We are pushing her to get the job done. I stand with Michigan!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2020
After his mockery of those governors, Trump lavished praise on himself. He tweeted:
‘Federal Government is working very well with the Governors and State officials. Good things will happen! #KILLTHEVIRUS’
To be clear — just moments before that tweet, Trump admitted that his administration didn’t even have much of a response, because he insisted that it was all fine and dandy for him to say that governors around the country should just go it alone, essentially.
Federal Government is working very well with the Governors and State officials. Good things will happen! #KILLTHEVIRUS
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2020
Across the country, local officials have been picking up the slack left by the Trump administration. Many schools are closed, as are many restaurants, and in some areas, large gatherings have been outright banned in an attempt to stem the spread of the virus.
Check out Twitter’s response below…