Apparently, rabid egomania runs in the Trump family. In a newly circulated clip of an appearance that Eric Trump made on a radio show, the president’s son and supposed Trump Organization business leader suggested that he’s a “super genius” for insisting on Twitter in late February that it was a great time to buy stocks. He posted the tweet as the Coronavirus crept up on the U.S., just hours before his father — President Trump — claimed that Coronavirus concern was a “hoax” at a South Carolina rally. Reality hit quick: within days, the stock market suffered repeated historic crashes. Eventually, the dip reached the point that 100 percent of the Trump era’s value gains were temporarily wiped out.
In other words — Eric spoke a bit too soon. He commented in a March 3 radio broadcast:
‘I wrote a tweet in the middle of the day, just my two cents: you know what? Right now, right this second would be an absolute great time to buy… Literally, I sent that tweet, the market comes back up another 700 points that day, right? And then obviously you go into yesterday where it was up 1,300 points, and today, etcetera etcetera. I feel like a super genius right now.’
Imagine the endless right-wing raging that would have ensued if anyone in the Obama family jokingly called themselves a “super genius.” Eric continued, in reference to Democrats:
‘Joking aside, they’ll do anything they can to try and use anything possible to take the man down, right? Something as awful as Coronavirus — started in China, clearly a worldwide pandemic — they’ll use to try and blame Trump for some reason. Oh, he’s not prepared — there’s never been an administration, there’s never been a country that’s more prepared than they are.’
Listen below:
I was listening to a clip of Eric Trump on the radio from March 3rd where he says he’s a “super genius” for predicting it was a great time to invest.
Saying he was “very proud of myself” for the tweet.
Eric later deleted the tweet when the market tanked. pic.twitter.com/980xqs1Evf
— andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) April 8, 2020
Apparently, then, Eric’s pompous confidence that barely shields complete incompetence extends to other areas as well. The testing and medical supply shortages that have rocked the United States as the Coronavirus has rapidly spread around the country in the time since Eric’s radio chat prove his claims of great preparation completely wrong.
South Korea conducted ten times as much testing as the U.S. did in the early days of the outbreak, and as of mid-Wednesday, their death toll stands at 200. The U.S. death toll, meanwhile, is fast approaching 15,000 following the highest single day spike yet in any single country anywhere on Monday.
Meanwhile, the stock market has begun to recover some of the lost value, but the Dow Jones Industrial Index alone is a full 6,000 points or so below a mid-February high, even after consistent and significant gains. More pointedly for millions of Americans, in the last two and a half weeks or so alone, some ten million new unemployment claims were filed, which is exponentially higher than any previous one-week record.
Congressional Democrats have been working to help stem the chaos through means like increasing benefits for unemployed workers and struggling small businesses. A forgivable loan program for small businesses meant to help keep people on payrolls opened up just the other day.
