TRUMP MINIMIZES DANGER OF SPIKE IN INFECTIONS
President retweets ‘Everyone is lying’ about COVID-19
With U.S. virus cases spiking and the death toll mounting, the White House is continuing to undercut its most trusted coronavirus expert, playing down the danger as President Donald Trump pushes to get the economy moving before he faces voters in November.
The U.S. has become a cautionary tale across the globe, with once-falling cases now rising quickly. However, Trump suggests the severity of the pandemic that has killed more than 135,000 Americans is being overstated by critics to damage his re-election chances.
Trump on Monday retweeted a post by Chuck Woolery, once the host of TV’S “Love Connection,” claiming that “Everyone is lying” about COVID-19. Woolery’s tweet attacked not just the media and Democrats but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and most doctors “that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election.”
At the same time, a new analysis shows that the pandemic stripped an estimated 5.4 million American workers of their health insurance between February and May, a stretch in which more adults became uninsured because of job losses than have ever lost coverage in a single year.
The study, to be announced today by the nonpartisan consumer advocacy group Families USA, found that the estimated increase in uninsured workers from February to May was nearly 40 percent higher than the highest previous increase, which occurred during the recession of 2008 and 2009, when 3.9 million adults lost insurance.
Against that backdrop, the president and top White House aides are ramping up attacks against Dr. Anthony
Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert. Fauci has been increasingly sidelined by the White House as he sounds alarms about the virus, a most unwelcome message at a time when Trump is focused on pushing an economic rebound.
“We haven’t even begun to see the end of it yet,” he said in a talk with the dean of Stanford’s medical school Monday, calling for a “step back” in reopenings.
Last week, Fauci contradicted Trump about the severity of the virus during a Fivethirtyeight podcast. While Trump contends repeatedly that he has done a great job against the pandemic, Fauci said, “As a country, when you compare us to other countries, I don’t think you can say we’re doing great. I mean, we’re just not.”
Trump later said Fauci had “made a lot of mistakes.” He pointed to Fauci’s early disagreement with him over the China travel ban and to the evolving guidance over the use of masks as scientists’ understanding of the virus improved — points the White House expanded on in statements to media outlets over the weekend.
Asked whether the president still had confidence in Fauci, a White House official on Monday insisted Trump did. The official said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was regarded as “a valued voice” on the White House coronavirus task force. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity even though the president has repeatedly railed against anonymous sources.
That supportive message was not echoed by Peter Navarro, a top White House trade adviser who has been working on the coronavirus effort.
In an email, Navarro continued to criticize Fauci to The Associated Press on Monday, saying the doctor has “a good bedside manner with the public but he has been wrong about everything I have ever interacted with him on.”