Experts, Victims Family Members, Media Figures Condemn The Astonishing Admission
Even GOP Lawmakers Acknowledge the Truth Could Have Made a Difference
President Trump knew how lethal the coronavirus was — but chose to publicly downplay it’s threat and mislead the American people rather than taking decisive action that would have saved lives. The results have been catastrophic – 190,000 people have now died and 6.3 million have been infected, the numbers growing every day.
Now, people across the United States — from those who have lost loved ones to the virus, to epidemiologists who tried to sound the alarm — are suffering the pain of knowing it never had to be this way. But because President Trump chose to ignore the facts, the coronavirus crisis has spiraled out of control.
Experts Are Enraged That Trump Downplayed the Virus Despite Knowing the Dangers It Posed
Eric Topol, Cardiologist And Professor Of Molecular Medicine: “So Enraged Listening To The Tape That I Can’t Type.” “So enraged listening to the tape that I can’t type. Play it down? Play down all measures to counter the virus that would protect the American people. Tests. Masks. Play down Science. Facts. Truth. Take down the CDC and FDA. And now with 200,000 people dead, countless number of people disabled, play up a vaccine. Without evidence.” [Twitter, @EricTopol, 9/10/20]
Marc Lipsitch, Harvard Epidemiology Professor: “This Reporting Suggests That The Decision To Avoid A Serious Response Was Deliberate.” “‘If accurate, this reporting suggests that the decision to avoid a serious response was deliberate,’ said Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiology professor at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in an e-mail message Wednesday. ‘We have lost 150,000 Americans and counting, and it increasingly looks as if others will have long-term health consequences of this infection. As a scientist, those are the facts. As a citizen, it is hard to know which is worse — that this was done out of ignorance, when there was so much clear information, or that, as this reporting suggests, it was done deliberately.’” [Boston Globe, 9/9/20]
Lipsitch: “Governments Around The World Took Decisive, Concerted Action, While The US Government, Led By The President… Lost Precious Time.” “‘Experts in January and February were loudly saying that COVID-19 was an exceptionally serious threat,’ Lipsitch wrote. ‘Governments around the world took decisive, concerted action, while the US government, led by the president, downplayed it publicly and lost precious time by not responding promptly. There has never yet been a comprehensive strategy. All those facts were clear, and it was a bit of a mystery how our government was almost uniquely ineffectual.’” [Boston Globe, 9/9/20]
Eric Feigl-Ding, Epidemiologist: “Orwellian… As An Epidemiologist, I Want To Vomit.” “‘ORWELLIAN,’ tweeted [Eric] Feigl-Ding, now a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C. ‘As an epidemiologist, I want to vomit.’ Most upsetting, he wrote, ‘is that we knew, and we tried to warn. And yet people tried to shout us January alarmists down. Feigl-Ding also reacted to a CNN interview with Woodward’s former colleague Carl Bernstein, who told the station the interview tapes are graver than the Watergate scandal. ‘The deaths here are graver than Watergate,’Feigl-Ding tweeted. ‘190,000 didn’t die from Watergate.’” [Boston Globe, 9/9/20]
Gregg Gonsalves, Yale Epidemiology Professor: Trump Made The Pandemic Worse “With Full Knowledge Of Seriousness Of [COVID-19]. “[Feigl-Ding’s] words were echoed by Gregg Gonsalves, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Medicine. Gonsalves tweeted that he and another researcher ‘documented @realDonaldTrump’s actions that made [the] pandemic far worse than it had to be. Now we know he did it with full knowledge of seriousness of #COVID19. @kayleighmcenany & @GOPChairwoman can lie through their teeth, but let the record show.’” [Boston Globe, 9/9/20]
Ashish Jha: “Distressing… The Administration Really Has Not Used Science To Guide Its Policy.” “It’s very distressing and it’s distressing because the administration really has not used science to guide its policy… They have downplayed the seriousness of this virus. And what it has meant… There is a massive misinformation campaign out there telling people ‘This is nothing worse than the flu’ — that the president himself iterated. And yet, we’re now learning that the president knew better… Instead of marshalling the forces
of the US government to protect the American people, we’ve had six months of immense suffering.” [Twitter, @TheLeadCNN, 9/9/20]
Family Members Who Lost Loved Ones to COVID-19 Condemned Trump For Not Taking Action When He Knew the Threat of the Virus
[Twitter, @itsmefi, 9/9/20]
[Twitter, @kdurquiza, 9/9/20]
[Twitter, @miami_realtor, 9/10/20]
[Twitter, @Tara_Krebbs, 9/9/20]
“Graver Than in Watergate:” Media Figures From Across the Political Spectrum Recognize the Immensity of Trump’s Negligence
[Twitter, @atrupar, 9/9/20]
[Twitter, @kathrynwy5, 9/9/20]
[Twitter, @JRubinBlogger, 9/9/20]
[Twitter, @benshapiro, 9/9/20]
And Even Republican Lawmakers Acknowledge the Impact of Trump Intentionally Downplaying The Threat Of The Virus
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah): “That Doesn’t Sound Ideal To Me.” When asked about Trump downplaying COVID, Romney responded, ‘That doesn’t sound ideal to me.’” [ABC News, 9/10/20]
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla): “A Little Bit Of Alarm About The Seriousness Early On Could Have Made A Little Bit Of A Difference.” “Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, said in response to Woodward’s reporting that if the President had made the decision earlier on to explain the dangers of coronavirus and the threat of the virus, it could have made ‘a little bit of a difference.’ ‘A little bit of alarm about the seriousness early on could have made a little bit of a difference,’ Rubio said. ‘Getting people to think earlier on about some of the protective things we ultimately had to put in would have been better looking back.’” [CNN, 9/9/20]
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla): “They Could Have Done A Better Job Of Putting Out More Information.” “‘I haven’t seen the book,’ Sen. Rick Scott of Florida answered when asked about Trump downplaying COVID-19. ‘I’ve not read it… I do believe at the federal level the state level and the local level they could have done a better job of putting out more information. Even today I think they can put out more information on transmission, but I haven’t seen that excerpt.’” [ABC News, 9/10/20]