President Donald Trump is being blasted for his apparent bragging about and celebrating “only” 60,000 to 65,000 coronavirus deaths. The actual number of Americans who have died so far is currently 37,095, but Trump is projecting a little less than twice that number will lose their lives to the virus he spent months ignoring until it was too late.
Friday evening Trump spent several minutes rattling off a long litany of numbers, comparing his projected coronavirus deaths to other possible horrific death projections, in a clear attempt to frame his disastrous mismanagement of the pandemic. As he did, many took to social media to slam the President’s callous lack of empathy.
“We’ve already built sufficient capacity nationwide so states can begin their re-openings. And I think you’ll be hearing a lot about re-openings in the coming weeks and months,” Trump told reporters during Friday’s coronavirus briefing.
“Most excitingly in the coming weeks I think you’re going to see some very, very dramatic steps taken – and very safely,” Trump bragged.
“When you look at the possible deaths at 2.2 million people – and it could have very well been that, it could have been more,” the president continued, as he continued to pat himself on the back. “Frankly I’ve been looking at numbers where it could have been higher than that. 2.2 million people dying. If you figure we lost 500,000, maybe 600,000 in the Civil War, 2.2 million people, a minimum if we did nothing would have been 1.6, if you cut that in half, you’re talking about 800,000 [to] 900,000 – a million people dying.”
“But we did a lot of work, and the people of this country were incredible, I have to say, I think we’re heading to the other category, that would be if we did work, and if it was successful they had between 100,000 and 220,000 to 240,000 on the upside, and I think we’ll be substantially, hopefully below the ‘100’ number, and I think right now we’re headed probably around ’60,’ maybe 65,000.”
Trump, amid all those numbers, was talking about human being dying from a virus he chose to ignore for months.
“I always say, ‘One is too many,'” Trump claimed. A Google search turns up no statement of Trump having ever said that.
“It’s a horrible thing that happened to our country,” he added, presumably referring to the coronavirus.
The President was immediately taken to task for praising himself and celebrating.