January 22, 2020: Asked if his administration is worried about a coronavirus pandemic, Trump says, “No, we’re not at all. And we have it totally under control.”
February 14: “We have a very small number of people in the country, right now, with it. It’s, like, around 12. … So we’re in very good shape.”
February 28: “You wonder if the press is in hysteria mode. Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. … You know that, right? … And this is their new hoax.”
March 10: “We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
April 11: The U.S. death toll passes 20,000.
April 25: “I never said the pandemic was a hoax! Who would say such a thing?”
May 8: A jobs report shows that 20.5 million jobs were lost in April. Trump says, “Those jobs will all be back, and they’ll be back very soon.”
May 18: One hundred and twenty days after their first coronavirus cases were announced, South Korea has had 262 deaths; the United States is expected to surpass 100,000 by June.
August 29: U.S. death toll, 181,143.
(From “Failed State” by Dave Gilson and Laura Thompson, Mother Jones magazine, July/Aug 2020.)
Jim Marquardt
Sag Harbor
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