President Donald Trump held an especially bizarre press conference on Wednesday, in which he — among other things — suggested that the Coronavirus might just go away on its own and flippantly speculated that a recent explosion in Beirut, Lebanon, may have been some kind of intentional attack, although there’s no apparent evidence for this suggestion. (Local authorities have blamed a storage facility of explosive material that apparently ignited.) It’s absolutely ridiculous for the president of the United States to behave in such a bellicose fashion that he feels free to suggest the incident may have been a terrorist attack or even war-like provocation without any evidence.
As for the Coronavirus, Trump self-confidently told a reporter:
‘It’s going away. It’ll go away like things go away. Absolutely. No question in my mind — it will go away.’
Trump dismisses the reality that children can get seriously sick and die from Covid pic.twitter.com/wsox4KE1rS
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 5, 2020
This statement is ridiculous on its face. Months ago, towards the start of the pandemic, as the Coronavirus first began to spread, Trump suggested that the virus might just go away on its own and claimed, simultaneously, that those who were concerned about the virus were just trying to make him look bad with their efforts to close down certain segments of the economy and thereby keep Americans safe. He has continued to make both of those claims throughout tens of thousands of American deaths, and neither claim has ever been true.
Meanwhile, he also fumbled his response to the recent explosion that rocked the city of Beirut, which has claimed dozens of lives and left huge numbers of people injured. Trump continues to freely imply that the incident may have been a terror attack or war provocation, but these claims don’t have apparent evidence.
He said:
‘They don’t really know what it is. Nobody knows yet. At this moment, they’re looking — I mean, how can you say accident? Somebody left some terrible explosive-type devices and things around, perhaps. Perhaps it was that. Perhaps it was an attack.’
Again — there is no apparent evidence for his claims, but Trump seems ready and willing to stumble into potential provocation anyway.
"Somebody left some terrible explosive-type devices and things around, perhaps. Perhaps it was that. Perhaps it was an attack" — Trump is just out here conjecturing about the Beirut explosion. Absurdly irresponsible. pic.twitter.com/lLBKD9q89O
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 5, 2020
