Voting intention: Biden leads Trump by 15 points 1:38
(CNN) - United States President Donald Trump has just offered a revealing glimpse of his priorities as the coronavirus spreads its trail of death and disease.
Without bothering to hide his indifference and contempt for science, the president made it clear Sunday that it is more important to him to be right about the pandemic than to reconsider his disastrous approach that is doing little to stop its deadly spread.
Until then, the United States must endure crowded intensive care units (ICUs) in virus-ravaged states, thousands more deaths, and the possibility of cities falling back into economically crippling blackouts that crush hopes of a return to work. and to school with normal life as a simple memory.
Trump's passive leadership becomes more negligent the worse the crisis is, with more than 140,000 Americans dead so far.
“Eventually I will be right. Eventually I will be right. You know I said, 'It's going to go away.' I'll say it again, "Trump said in an interview on" Fox News Sunday. "
Ignoring how the coronavirus is spiraling out of control and that other nations have much better repressed its spread, Trump called the truth Dr. Anthony Fauci said "alarmist." Meanwhile, the White House is rejecting requests from Senate Republicans for more money for a late testing and tracking operation deemed critical to finally crush the virus and help the United States out of its nightmare.
Trump's willingness to accept a high level of casualties while leaving the impression that there is nothing to do but wait until the storm passes shows an unusually understated and callous interpretation of the duties of the presidency. It doesn't even seem to make much sense from an objective view of your own political interest. A poll by The Washington Post / ABC News published on Sunday, for example, showed that alleged Democratic candidate Joe Biden had a 20-point lead over Trump in public confidence in handling the pandemic.
MIRA : Polls show that Biden leads Trump by 15 points in voting intention
Even if he finds all the aspirations of the 2020 campaign blocked - the return to the rallies, a rebound in the polls, an economic rebound and attention for his assaults on Biden - Trump is unwilling or unable to admit the depth of the emergency.
While there is a strong desire in the country to return to normal life - a sentiment that Trump is playing with his demand to reopen all schools - the president ignores public concern about whether that step is safe. Similarly, his semantic objections to the case fatality rate show that he cares much less about the situation than his top priority: reelection.
In fact, as you intensify your campaign of fear and racial harassment, you are making it clear that you are betting that you can win in November while ignoring a disease that kills hundreds of Americans every day. To that end, the president is spending more energy making excuses, blaming others, and selling falsehoods about the crisis than directing his government to help alleviate the disaster.
His approach suggests that he does not believe he should triumph over a threat to the American people, but simply needs to convince enough of them that he has had a great victory. It is a bet that contradicts multiple surveys that show a collapse in support for their handling of the situation. And she's putting her fellow Republicans, who are still wary of alienating Trump's base, in a difficult situation.
"I have confidence in this administration," said the Republican governor of Ohio. Mike DeWine, on NBC's “Meet the Press,” carefully dodging when asked if he had confidence in Trump. Other Republican governors, watching the virus take over their states, have broken with Trump on issues like wearing masks.
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Trump attacks high public health officials
The president spent the weekend flipping misinformation and lies about the pandemic and mounting an increasingly extreme re-election campaign in a series of phone forums, including a warning that he might not accept the voters' verdict in November. He also redoubled his strategy of stoking fear of other races among white voters: "They are going to destroy our suburbs," Trump said, apparently referring to Democratic bureaucrats who are likely to uphold rules aimed at promoting housing unbundling and more suburban areas. diverse.
The latest data shows that coronavirus cases are increasing in 32 states, stabilizing in 14, and decreasing in just four, in the fifth month of a protracted crisis from states' sporadic efforts to combat the virus and lack of federal leadership.
New coronavirus cases have averaged over 60,000 per day in the past week. Deaths average 700 per day and increase. Although doctors are improving in the treatment of the disease, these figures guarantee many more deaths. Overflowing emergency rooms in states like Texas, Arizona and Florida mean that some people may not get the care they need and will die as a result.
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However, Trump's focus was not on the reality of the disaster on Sunday. He told Fox's Chris Wallace that "if we ran half tests, those numbers would be low." In a counter-logical argument, Trump attributed the suppression of the virus in Europe after a terrible time earlier this year to a lack of evidence.
Experts say the rampant spread of the virus in the United States belies those claims by the president.
Trump later rebuked Wallace for using data from Johns Hopkins University that contradicts his claims that the United States leads the world regarding covid-19 case fatality rates and attacked two of the country's top health officials.
When asked to respond to the director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, who warned of a bleak winter ahead, Trump said, "I don't know and I don't think he knows."
He described Fauci, who proved he was right when he said that the premature openings of the states could cause increasing infections, as "a bit alarming". And the president accused public health experts of believing the theory of which he has been the most prominent exponent: that warm weather would eliminate the virus.
"Then they were wrong," he told Wallace.
Why the case fatality rate is a strange argument
The true case fatality rate for the disease has been very difficult to pin down. But it is likely to end in 1% or less.
Trump supporters use those data to argue that it was unwise to shut down the economy because of a disease that is not fatal to nearly everyone who infects it. In addition to ignoring the human dimension of the disease, this view dismisses the highly infectious nature of the virus, which could theoretically infect hundreds of millions of Americans and cause a staggering death toll if left unchecked. Furthermore, the impact on the hospital infrastructure and on health workers who care for the sick could be terrible if it were not for the blockages and social distancing.
There's also mounting evidence of long-term health effects, including respiratory distress and organ damage among people who have suffered from the disease, even among younger patients, who Trump correctly says are less likely to die. from covid-19.
READ : CNN's Richard Quest: “I had covid-19 two months ago. I am still discovering new areas of damage. ”
The reality of the pandemic crisis as the week begins collides with Trump's comments over the weekend.
There are currently no ICU beds available at 49 Florida hospitals. The sunny state recorded more than 12,000 new cases of the virus on Sunday, the fourth time it reached that benchmark. Louisiana Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards said Sunday that the virus "is more rampant" in the state than ever. Arizona recorded its highest number of daily deaths from the pandemic, 147, on Saturday.
Los Angeles Democratic Mayor Eric Garcetti said on CNN's "State of the Union" show that he was "on the verge" of declaring new citywide confinement. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday, in response to a CNN question, that Trump wanted to "sweep the facts" of the virus under the rug.
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"Every time the president has tried to avoid the problem, like saying 'this will go away, this will not affect many people,' it gets worse," said the New York Democrat.
But Trump, the president who praised China for its handling of the virus before attacking Beijing and said it would never be a problem in the United States, has no regrets.
"I've probably been right more than anyone," he told Fox.
coronavirus