President Donald Trump is selling dangerous lies on the campaign trail about the deadly coronavirus pandemic. In private and in public he has admitted to lying, telling reporters he didn’t want to “panic” Americans by telling them the truth early on. But now his lies are dangerous, leading supporters to believe the pandemic is under control and almost over, likely causing many to lower their guard – if they ever raised it to begin with.
On Thursday the United States broke the record high for number of new cases recorded in a singly day: 77,640. The previous record was 75,723 set on July 29, NBC News reports. Another 921 people died from the coronavirus on Thursday as well. On MSNBC Dr. Peter Hotze announced the U.S. will likely see 80,000 new COVID-19 cases a day next week.
But according to President Trump, who is holding multiple potentially super-spreader rallies every day, everything is great – “we’re rounding the corner beautifully.”
On Friday Trump told his closely-packed and mostly-maskless supporters in Florida that his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden,”is not a man that can handle the job.”
Biden is actually one of the most accomplished public servants to hold elected office in modern times.
“No, he leaves his house this morning, gets up and – I’m going to talk about it – all he talks about is ‘COVID COVID COVID,’ is they want to scare people, and we’ve done so well with it,” Trump lied. “Now it’s 99.8%,” he added, not explaining what the percentage means. His fans howled and cheered anyway.
“I mean you look at what’s going on. And we’re rounding the corner we’re rounding the corner, we’re rounding the corner beautifully,” he lied.
By inauguration day nearly 400,000 Americans are projected to have died from the coronavirus pandemic.
The U.S. ranks first in total cases and total deaths, and 10th in deaths per capita.
On social media many were furious with Trump.