Opinion | Trump's unforgivable sin: His covid-19 lies killed Americans - The Washington Post
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
That President Trump lied to the American people about the danger of the novel coronavirus may not be shocking. More shocking is that he was willing to admit this to Bob Woodward, whose new book "Rage" includes damning new evidence of Trump's contempt for the truth and American lives.
The Post reports:
"You just breathe the air and that's how it's passed," Trump said in a Feb. 7 call. "And so that's a very tricky one. That's a very delicate one. It's also more deadly than even your strenuous flu." "This is deadly stuff," the president repeated for emphasis. … Trump admitted to Woodward on March 19 that he deliberately minimized the danger. "I wanted to always play it down," the president said.
"Play it down," in this case, means lie. He promised Americans the virus would disappear like magic. He argued covid-19 is akin to the flu. He insisted it was safe for governors to reopen their economies despite unacceptably high rates of infection and the absence of mask mandates. These claims were false, and worse, he knew they were false.
When the president deliberately lies to the American people — as multiple presidents during the Vietnam War did (as we learned from the Pentagon Papers) — and many Americans die as a result, even loyal members of his own party must condemn him and demand he step away. His actions cost critical time, prevented earlier lockdowns and provided a false sense of security to vulnerable people. In all likelihood, tens of thousands of dead Americans would be alive today if he had acted with minimal competence and honesty.
This situation is not unlike Trump's impeachment hearings. Overwhelming evidence, including the president's own words documented in the rough transcript of the July 25, 2019, call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, demonstrated that Trump had betrayed the United States by extorting an ally at war with Russia for his own electoral benefit. Senate Republicans are not stupid; they merely refused to acknowledge what was before their eyes.
Now, we have similar malfeasance — precisely the sort of noncriminal but impeachable behavior that the impeachment clause is designed to uncover. Once again, Republicans will claim up is down and night is day. They will refuse to accept Trump's own words confessing to a deception that cost thousands of American lives. They will not call for his resignation or call for him to withdraw from the election. They would rather continue to support a president demonstrably unfit than risk the wrath of Trump and his cult, just as they overlooked the threat to the lives of Ukrainians.
This remains true, even though in this case the victims have been Americans, and that thousands — multiples of the death count from 9/11 — have died even though simple precautions could have spared them. Imagine a president fully aware of a Category 5 hurricane near certain to hit a seaside community but who tells the residents, "No big deal. Don't listen to the experts telling you to evacuate." Surely, one would find him morally if not legally culpable for the deaths of anyone who made the mistake of listening to him. Covid-19 should be no different.
Appearing in Michigan, former vice president and Democratic nominee Joe Biden excoriated Trump. "The president of the United States has admitted on tape, in February, that he knew," Biden said. "He knew how deadly it was. … He knew and purposely played it down. Worse, he lied to the American people." Biden called it a "life and death betrayal of the American people."
We are interested in hearing about how the struggle to reopen amid the pandemic is affecting people's lives. Please tell us yours.
In his memorable summation at the impeachment trial, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) declared, "History will not be kind to Donald Trump. If you find that the House has proved its case, and still vote to acquit, your name will be tied to his with a cord of steel and for all of history." Republicans did not care. Now that Americans' lives have been sacrificed at the altar of Trump's ego, Republicans face another hinge moment: say nothing and join Trump in the dumpster of history, or speak up, call for his resignation and recapture a modicum of respect. Sadly, there is little doubt they will choose the former.
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Trump Lied. Americans Died...
His lax response to Covid and lack of leadership didn't help matters either.
Even if his lies only cost us only 5 American lives, wouldn't that be more than enough to warrant at least 9 congressional investigations? I believe Republicans felt 4 American lives in Benghazi were worth at least 8 investigation and they had far less evidence of any culpability since after 8 investigations they were forced to conclude Hillary couldn't have prevented it and wasn't responsible for their deaths.
Now we have a President, not just a Secretary of State, with clear evidence in their own words, lying to the American people with most estimates showing that if he hadn't lied or hidden the truth at a minimum tens of thousands of American lives could have been saved, some estimate as high as a hundred thousand lives could have been saved. That's nearly double the Americans killed in Vietnam. One President, one decision, one deception he claims was for the good of America because he "did not want to create a panic", may have already led to the death of 100,000 Americans. Where are Republicans with their fury and outrage over such a thing? They were going out of their minds with rage over 4 Americans they felt one of their Democratic opponents was responsible for, where are they now when there are at least tens of thousands of Americans dead due to a political leaders decision?
There is ZERO evidence that any sort of "panic" he might have caused by telling the truth would have caused any American deaths. He told a reporter on February 7th how deadly it was, how contagious it was, if he thought such news was going to cause a "panic" why would he be telling a reporter on the record such things and then publicly be telling a completely different story? Why wouldn't he be concerned the reporter would "panic" if the truth was supposedly so dangerous?
As we've seen on other seeds, the Ever-Trumpers will come and defend and deflect with any and all 'whataboutisms' and 'Dems', Liberals, progressives bad' bullshit narratives but you'll never see them honestly answer any of these questions I've raised in this comment. I've begun to wonder if any Trump supporter has any honesty, integrity or shame left so it's unlikely any of them will accept the facts and change their opinion of their chosen liar-in-chief no matter how much American blood he has on his hands.
Trump - The most prolific mass murderer in US History.
I thought the exact same thing over my coffee this morning Paula.... then I remembered Presidents Grant and Jackson and what they did to Native Americans by the millions.
Very good point. I stand corrected. I amend my comment to "One of". He has created his own Trail Of Tears.
Scary part is Trump's never ending quest to become Number 1. Hopefully he won't realize that he is only in 3rd place in this category.
We ain't out of the wood yet Ozzy.....
I'm thinking it through this morning.....
Are any of these thoughts of mine valid or was my coffee just a little weak this morning?
And some Americans put up monuments to them and still protect them to this day, so I wouldn't be surprised to see some monument to Trump put up in some deep red State even though he is now up there with those other infamous Presidents who committed genocide. Even Hitler was just another politician until his decisions started killing massive numbers of innocent civilians.
He will always be number 2 and all the prune juice in the world can't unblock him.
He will always be A number 2....
There are those here who say they'll name streets after Trump once he's done in office.
My bad. Thank you.