President Donald Trump’s focus remains squarely with his public image amidst the Coronavirus pandemic. To that end, this Sunday afternoon, he took to Twitter to insist that supposedly, the intelligence community had actually failed to warn him about the threat of the Coronavirus throughout the early weeks of 2020. His contention is meant to undercut reporting from publications like The Washington Post, which outlined the many junctures at which Trump failed to take warnings about the Coronavirus seriously. Rather than accepting even a modicum of responsibility for his actions, Trump has opted to suggest that there’s some kind of huge gap in the entire intelligence community of the United States — but he’s the untrustworthy one here, by far.
He tweeted:
‘Intelligence has just reported to me that I was correct, and that they did NOT bring up the CoronaVirus subject matter until late into January, just prior to my banning China from the U.S. Also, they only spoke of the Virus in a very non-threatening, or matter of fact, manner. Fake News got it wrong again, as always, and tens of thousands of lives were saved by my EARLY BAN of China into our Country. The people that we’re allowed were heavily scrutinized and tested U.S. citizens, and as such, I welcome them with open arms!’
….Fake News got it wrong again, as always, and tens of thousands of lives were saved by my EARLY BAN of China into our Country. The people that we’re allowed were heavily scrutinized and tested U.S. citizens, and as such, I welcome them with open arms!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2020
There is no immediately apparent evidence for Trump’s contention that his restrictions on travel from China saved any lives whatsoever. Airlines had already begun restricting their own travel into and out of China before Trump ever stepped in, but he, then and now, has relied on the procedural pomp and circumstance of his own travel restrictions rather than develop the systematic response that the U.S. needed to avert the current crisis, with tens of thousands of Americans dead.
As for the part about the supposed failure of the intelligence agencies to warn Trump about the Coronavirus, MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin notes:
‘If you take Trump’s latest tweets at face value, which contradict reporting from the Washington Post, it would seem to imply an intelligence failure from his intel agencies that he wasn’t informed about the coronavirus threat until the end of January.’
If you take Trump's latest tweets at face value, which contradict reporting from the Washington Post, it would seem to imply an intelligence failure from his intel agencies that he wasn't informed about the coronavirus threat until the end of January.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 3, 2020
Who’s more believable — U.S. intelligence agencies or the incompetent serial liar Donald Trump? Obviously, the answer is the intelligence agencies.
Check out Twitter’s response below…
New: Intel community briefed Trump on coronavirus on Jan. 23 & 28, according to a senior White House official. Trump was informed in 2nd brief China was withholding key data about virus & that while virus spread outside, deaths were still confined to China
Story on @TheTerminal https://t.co/Sj4aBxWYlg
— Jordan Fabian (@Jordanfabian) May 3, 2020
He was holding rallies in March https://t.co/HxKEFGG1MO
— rabia O'chaudry (@rabiasquared) May 3, 2020
Obama's team warned you in 2017. They even gave you a playbook. Several others warned you. You warned Israel in November but failed to warn America. Bill Gates warned you. You were told many times, by many folks, from many different agencies and companies. https://t.co/j9eRUCiuGB
— JoeTrudeau (@IAmJoeTrudeau) May 3, 2020
Prove it. Betcha can't. https://t.co/CSXi1nRmy7
— Bob Cesca (@bobcesca_go) May 3, 2020
Even if this were true, YOU said this would be gone by April. It's May.
YOU said we would be back to zero when we had 15 cases. We have more than a million.
Do your job. https://t.co/AcMDgNuDcg
— Robert People (@PeoplesCourt79) May 3, 2020
