Donald Trump still doesn’t know how to talk about his administration’s covid-19 response, as evidenced by a town hall Tuesday night. The President and the People, an ABC hour-long event hosted by George Stephanopoulos, gave Trump the opportunity to offer a group of Pennsylvania voters answers to their concerns in a way that could have differed from his hostile responses to the media and other adversaries. Instead, Trump parroted the same talking points he has spewed since the pandemic began: It’s China’s fault, the virus will magically disappear one day, and even with nearly 200,000 Americans dead, he wouldn’t do anything different.
The event kicked off with a question by a diabetic man named Paul Tubiana, who voted for Trump in 2016. He was pleased with Trump’s pandemic response until May, when he claims Trump took his “foot off the gas pedal.”
“I’ve had to dodge people who don’t care about social distancing and wearing face masks,” Tubiana said. “Why did you throw vulnerable people like me under the bus?”
“Well, we really didn’t, Paul,” Trump said. “We’ve worked very hard on the pandemic. We’ve worked very hard. It came off from China, they should have never let it happen. And if you look at what we’ve done with ventilators and now, frankly, with vaccines—we’re very close to having a vaccine.”
Trump continued: “If you want to know the truth, the previous administration would have taken perhaps years to have a vaccine because of the FDA and all the approvals. and we’re within weeks of getting it. It could be three weeks, four weeks…”
But many health experts, including the chief of covid-19 vaccine initiative Operation Warp Speed, have expressed doubt about Trump’s fortuitous timeline.
Trump also prattled on about excess mortality rates, boasting America’s numbers in this regard. When Stephanopoulos showed Trump a chart explaining that in terms of covid-19 deaths per one million people, the United States does not bode well compared to other highly developed nations. Trump challenged this portrayal.
“The excess mortality rate is among the best in the whole world,” Trump said. “Excess mortality rate is compared to Europe, compared to other places, it’s about 25 percent better. In one case it’s over 60 percent better. And we also have a very big country.” But these stats are misleading, a sloppy attempt to make the United States’ paltry covid-19 death toll appear less grisly.
Later, a young woman named Ajani Powell asked Trump, “If you believe it’s the president’s responsibility to protect America, why would you downplay a pandemic that is known to disproportionately harm low-income families and minority communities.
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