President Donald Trump’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic has been an abject failure by any reasonable measurement. The U.S. is fast approaching a full 100,000 Coronavirus deaths, but this weekend, Trump went golfing at a course in northern Virginia that’s a part of his own company. During a recent appearance on MSNBC, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) delivered a memorable takedown of the efforts from the president and his allies to distract Americans from the actual devastation at hand. Ahead of the November election, Trump seems desperate to rush into any kind of rhetoric except the reality of the situation.
Facts First: CNN's Daniel Dale digs into President Trump’s false claims about a hydroxychloroquine study, mail-in voting and saying he was named Michigan’s “Man of the Year” https://t.co/SCWu25vqbI pic.twitter.com/MH5Z0YlRoL
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) May 23, 2020
As Schiff summarized on Twitter:
‘Over 90,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. Our economy is in a downward spiral to Great Depression-levels. Trump doesn’t want the public to focus on his tragic failures. So, to paraphrase Steve Bannon, in order to distract: His people are flooding the zone with excrement.’
Over 90,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. Our economy is in a downward spiral to Great Depression-levels.
Trump doesn't want the public to focus on his tragic failures. So, to paraphrase Steve Bannon, in order to distract:
His people are flooding the zone with excrement. pic.twitter.com/WxUJzt9hZd
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) May 23, 2020
The conspiracy theories from the president and his allies have been numerous at this point. Towards the beginning of the crisis, the president even claimed that concern about the virus was a “hoax” and suggested that coverage of the then-growing crisis was some kind of plot to make him look bad. That obviously was not true. More recently, the president’s team’s conspiracy theories have included the idea that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is some kind of untapped goldmine for Coronavirus treatment, but a new study reveals that among tens of thousands of Coronavirus cases, usage of the drug was linked with a higher death rate across the board.
Hydroxychloroquine, the antimalarial drug touted by President Trump, is linked to increased risk of death in coronavirus patients, according to analysis of 96,000 patients published in the Lancet.
Hydroxychloroquine is unproven for fighting coronavirus. https://t.co/LpHS9CuEmL
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) May 23, 2020
Most recently, Trump staged a spectacle at a White House press conference on Friday when he claimed that governors must allow churches and other houses of worship to reopen this weekend or else he would “override” them and reopen the churches himself. Trump has no authority to “override” governors, and besides, religious and political authorities around the country have already been collaborating on the development of safe reopening plans for houses of worship. Trump’s spectacle was for show.
Breaking News: If the U.S. had begun imposing social distancing measures one week earlier than it did in March, about 36,000 fewer people would have died in the coronavirus outbreak, according to new estimates from Columbia University researchers https://t.co/phnyEgZice
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 21, 2020
Check out Twitter’s response to Schiff below: