There is undeniable evidence that President Donald Trump had been concealing the gravity of the pandemic from the citizens of the United States.
When asked for an update on the novel coronavirus back in February, just before his Marine One Departure, the president responded with a faulty perception: “Yeah, we’re very much involved. We’re very — very cognizant of everything going on. We have it very much under control in this country,” he said.
Throughout the growth of this unprecedented outbreak, he repeatedly reflected the circumstances lightly, downsizing the severity of the coronavirus while others were dying and saying this pandemic would soon pass like any other flu.
During an interview with Bob Woodward, which dated back to February and guided his book Rage, Trump relayed that the virus proved to be even deadlier than the flu, only to then publicly turn to national news and, once again, downplay the intensity of this pandemic. For several months without an end, the president reinstated the virus to be either a hoax or an overestimated contingency.
In a February 7 phone call with Woodward, Trump detailed the severity of the virus: “This is deadly stuff,” he said.
“You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flu.”
President Trump publicly admitted to Mr. Woodward that he has always wanted to downplay the virus. He demonstrated his knowledge of the virus’s deadly status and then went on to encourage the country to reopen in April.
“It’s so easily transmissible, you won’t even believe it,” he said. “I wanted to play it down. I still like playing it down — because I don’t want to create a panic,” the President continued during his session with Woodward.
He knew how much value and importance this information carried, but veiled this from the public. Over 900,000 people worldwide passed away from this pandemic, with over 194,000 deaths in the United States. When news broke that Trump had been lying in the face of Americans, he took to twitter and called the investigative reporter Bob Woodward a con to the public.
The president then takes the opportunity to shift the focus to election issues and targets democratic candidate Joe Biden tweeting, “With Biden, they only give him softballs, and let him read the answers from a teleprompter!”
He shifts the focus on to other people instead of accepting his wrongdoings.
After ABC News communicator Jonathan Karl questioned him as to the reason he had misled the people of the United States, President Trump responded by calling him a disgrace to his company.
Trump responded by calling him a disgrace to his company.
As president, when he first came into office, his duty was to abide by an oath in which he promised to protect this nation to the best of his abilities. By hiding valuable information from the public, however, he turned against that very promise.
Many citizens trusted in his words — and they had felt safe going out without a mask, thinking this was just like any other flu. Well, if the president had not adamantly miscommunicated the severity of this issue, then people would have taken the initiative to protect themselves better. Against his beliefs that the virus was just another hoax, people could have abided by guidelines set early on and protected not only themselves but others as well.
In the end, the president’s negligence cost America many lives and much misinformation.
