On March 6, President Trump visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and declared: “Anybody that wants a test (for coronavirus) can get a test. That’s what the bottom line is ... As of right now and yesterday. Anybody that needs a test. That’s the important thing. And the tests are all perfect.”
Of course, it was a lie. It wasn’t true then and it’s still not true for most Americans today. Every American should know by now their president lies like he breathes. Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth, a new book by Washington Post factcheckers, documents 18,241 false or misleading statements by Trump in his first three years as president. That averages 15 lies a day, surely a new world record.
Earlier this month, however, after two White House aides tested positive for COVID-19, a tiny, select group of Americans suddenly gained daily access to rapid-results testing. That would be Trump, Pence and anyone meeting with them regularly. Such precious tests just aren’t for ordinary Americans.
It’s always been baffling why Trump placed so little emphasis on nationwide testing to determine the spread of the coronavirus that could allow public resources to be rushed to potential hotspots before they rage out of control. That seems even more important now with Trump urging states to reduce social distancing and other public health protections to reopen their economies as quickly as possible. The natural assumption has always been it’s simply evidence of the administration’s incompetence. But what if Trump’s failure to deliver widespread public testing is intentional?
Sinister Motive
Trump accidentally signaled a far more sinister motive in his recent complaint about the media reporting that 1.6 million U.S. COVID-19 cases were by far the most in the world. “But we do, by far, the most testing,” Trump said. “If we did very little testing, we wouldn’t have the most cases. So, in a way, by doing all this testing, we make ourselves look bad.”
|
|
Get that? If the U.S. did less testing, fewer Americans would be contracting COVID-19 and dying from it. That’s not remotely true. In fact, if we conducted fewer tests, the death toll and number of cases very likely would be much higher. Americans would know far less about the spread of deadly contagion in their communities and take fewer precautions to protect their health. It’s another bald-faced whopper that the U.S. is anywhere near the world leader in coronavirus testing of its population. Worldometer, an independent international data aggregation website, ranks more than 30 other countries higher than the U.S in per capita testing.
But, of course, protecting public health during the coronavirus pandemic has never been Trump’s primary concern. His first priority has always been preventing large numbers of coronavirus infections from reflecting badly on Donald Trump. Trump signaled this in early March when he opposed allowing 3,500 passengers, mostly Americans, from the Grand Princess cruise ship off the coast of California to come ashore for treatment. “I’d rather have the people stay (onboard)” Trump said, “I like the (U.S.) numbers being where they are. I don’t need the numbers to double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault.” Passengers were fortunate Trump didn’t order the Navy to sink the vessel offshore.
Trump has never really understood that the purpose of testing was to guide any kind of concerted national action to protect Americans. To Trump, the only thing that mattered was how the results would make him look. When the first 15 Americans were diagnosed with COVID-19, Trump publicly bragged about what a tremendous presidential achievement that was. “When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.” Trump gloated. It’s too bad 1.6 million cases and 100,000 American deaths since messed up such a terrific start.
Ignoring All Warnings
No one ever accused Trump of creating the worldwide pandemic the way he claims China did. The deadly coronavirus really did it. But Trump will go down in history as the president who ignored the warnings from his health experts and failed to organize a coherent national strategy to protect public health costing more than 100,000 American lives and destroying 10 years of economic expansion that began under President Barack Obama sending the U.S. economy crashing down to depression levels in the fourth year of his presidency.
It’s too bad Trump didn’t listen to the medical experts advising him that massive national testing for coronavirus could identify as many people as possible who were contracting the deadly disease so their personal contacts could be traced and isolated to halt the spreading pandemic and save tens of thousands of American lives. But then that would require a president who was capable of caring about Americans other than himself.
