Amidst the Coronavirus crisis, which has claimed the lives of well over 12,000 Americans and counting, President Donald Trump has proven able to be counted on for dismal behavior like endlessly lashing out at his political opponents, even as Americans have been suffering and dying. Meanwhile, leaders like former President Barack Obama have been helping to pick up the slack. This Tuesday, on the day that the state of New York reported its highest daily death toll so far, he shared a message of support for medical workers to his over 115 million Twitter followers as those on the front lines — in stark contrast to the president — seek to deal with the onslaught of Coronavirus cases.
Obama commented:
‘It’s World Health Day, and we owe a profound debt of gratitude to all our medical professionals. They’re still giving their all for us every day, at great risk to themselves, and we can’t thank them enough for their bravery and their service.’
It’s World Health Day, and we owe a profound debt of gratitude to all our medical professionals. They’re still giving their all for us every day, at great risk to themselves, and we can’t thank them enough for their bravery and their service.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) April 7, 2020
World Health Day is a project of the World Health Organization — which Trump actually publicly complained about on the very same day that Obama posted the above message. Because the organization dared to seek to exercise careful caution in the early days of the outbreak, he insisted that they “really blew it.” His justification for this claim is that they cautioned against a rash border closure, but at the very same time that they issued that caution, they were working on numerous other fronts to get the virus under control, as they’ve done in the time since.
The W.H.O. really blew it. For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look. Fortunately I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on. Why did they give us such a faulty recommendation?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 7, 2020
Meanwhile, as late as the end of February, Trump publicly proclaimed that Coronavirus concern was a hoax — and, on top of that, his supposedly oh-so-great travel ban didn’t even work that well.
As MSNBC political analyst Rick Tyler explained:
‘400k+ flew from China before the US became the 39th country to impose travel restrictions. 40k+ came after. Since CV was already here and the fact that the US now leads in cases and is 3rd in deaths makes Trump’s claim of early decisive action meaningless.’
400k+ flew from China before the US became the 39th country to impose travel restrictions. 40k+ came after. Since CV was already here and the fact that the US now leads in cases and is 3rd in deaths makes Trump’s claim of early decisive action meaningless. https://t.co/nQj5Bq3thg
— Rick Tyler-Still Right (@rickwtyler) April 7, 2020
On top of that, Trump’s suggestion that the World Health Organization blew it but he was some kind of victorious virus fighter is a staggering joke.
Check out Twitter’s response to Obama…
