President Donald Trump continues to try to spin coronavirus as far less dangerous and damaging than it is, in an attempt to inspire the markets to reverse course and regain some of the many thousands of points they have dropped in the past two weeks.
He is failing.
Tuesday afternoon the President went to Capitol Hill to meet with Senate Republicans to try to sell his payroll tax cuts plan and other attempts at economic stimulus, but spoke with reporters after and once again, began spinning a tale of lies.
“It will go away, just stay calm,” Trump told reporters about the coronavirus that is making its way across the globe.
“Be calm. It’s really working out. And a lot of good things are going to happen,” he insisted.
“We want to protect our shipping industry, our cruise industry. Cruise ships. We want to protect our airline industry. Very important,” Trump added, neglecting to talk about protecting the people across the country.
“We just had a great meeting. Tremendous unity in the Republican Party. And we’re working on a lot of different things. We also got some very good updates on the virus,” Trump continued, as if Americans care whether or not the GOP is united. “That’s working out very smoothly. Tremendous people. It’s a tremendous task force. They have done a great job. Not a good job, a great job.”
Trump also managed to get the number of coronavirus deaths wrong. He said 26. The real number is 28. Worse, however, is that he continues to compare coronavirus deaths to the flu. Coronavirus is new to the U.S., and because of the Trump administration’s incompetence testing has been minimal.