Trump doesn't respect science, or the American people
- The president ridiculed safety precautions, held a superspreader event, contracted COVID, was hospitalized, is now back at the White House, and the American public has no idea if he's even been tested, much less if he's still contagious.
- Trump said COVID will "miraculously" disappear and rejected the reality of climate change, saying "It will start getting cooler, just you watch."
- He thinks basic science doesn't apply to him and the results of his COVID tests are none of our business. That's a threat to Americans' lives.
- This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
President Donald Trump has brazenly flouted even the simplest of COVID-19 safety precautions and encouraged others to do the same. On his watch, the White House became the hotspot responsible for a surge in DC-area COVID cases.
And even after it became clear that Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court nomination ceremony in the Rose Garden was a superspreader event, the White House instituted no contact tracing of the many guests who went back to their home states after being exposed.
Prior to testing positive for COVID two weeks ago, the administration sent contradictory messages about how often Trump gets tested.
Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in July that the president is tested "multiple times a day."
Trump, later that same day, said "I don't know about more than one … I do probably on average a test every two days, three days, and I don't know of any time I've taken two in one day, but I could see that happening."
You'd have to go all the way back to May 21 to find an instance of Trump or anyone in his administration confirming the president tested negative. Even after Trump returned to the Oval Office this week, The White House still won't say if he's being tested at all.
Just last night on Fox News, Trump sycophant Sean Hannity asked the president if he's been tested since he left the hospital, and Trump dodged the question.
"Yeah, I just saw the doctors today. They got me in great shape. I'm in great shape."
Trump never confirmed nor denied being recently tested for COVID, but he did say, "Well what we're doing is probably the test will be tomorrow … The actual test, because there's no reason to test all the time."
To reiterate, the President of the United States ridiculed safety precautions, held a ceremony that turned into a superspreader event, contracted COVID, was hospitalized, is now back at the White House, and the American public has no idea if he's even been tested, much less if he's still contagious.
Now Trump's personal doctor has released a note clearing him to hold rallies, which by all indications are shaping up to be crowded, loud events filled with people not wearing masks.
Trump is such a stable genius he thinks he's immune to science
The president does not believe in science. Full stop.
He's a climate change denier of the variety that a lot of conservatives want you to think no longer exists. It's not just that he's a "lukewarmist" who disagrees with the suggested remedies to adapt to climate change, he disbelieves the diagnosis.
So he's rolled back environmental protections and sidelined the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). And just as he did when predicting that COVID would "miraculously" disappear, when touring the West Coast's wildfire devastation last month he once again espoused his faith in magic over science.
Responding to California's Natural Resources Agency Secretary Wade Crowfoot's plea to the president to "recognize the changing climate and what it means to our forests," Trump said, "It will start getting cooler, just you watch."
The president added, "I don't think science knows, actually."
So sure is Trump of his superhuman abilities to think bigger, better, and stronger about things than the experts, he looked directly into a solar eclipse, despite one of his aides' best efforts to remind him to put on sunglasses.
When Trump tried to play meteorologist in 2019, tweeting that Alabama was about to be slammed by Hurricane Dorian, the National Weather Service's Birmingham office tweeted: " Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama."
But Trump's the president, and among the toys available to the senior man-baby is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Washington Post's Philip Bump described at the time:
"An ostensibly scientific organization — one that prides itself on providing accurate, validated information to the public — releas[ed] a statement obviously meant to bolster Trump's defense of his tweet."
Trump sets the tone for the White House, and he's made it very clear that he thinks the rules don't apply to him, even the rules of epidemiology.
His White House's secrecy about the status of his COVID illness is a slap in the face to an ailing country that has suffered terribly, and it's an insult to the millions of Americans trying to keep the virus from further ravaging their communities.
- Read more:
- The Trump administration is almost certainly going to get off the hook despite making the White House a COVID hotspot and an unsafe workplace
- Trump's constant lying has finally caught up with him
- Being a parent of school-aged kids during COVID is to be helpless in the face of failed 'leaders'
- Andrew Cuomo is shamelessly trying to memory-hole his coronavirus nursing home fiasco