Photo: A crowded, maskless Coronavirus Task Force meeting, early in the pandemic.
I don’t wish COVID-19 on anyone, including Trump, an obese 74-year-old with heart disease, along with possible dementia and other, still-undisclosed medical conditions. Or Melania. Even if she doesn’t “give a f*** about Christmas stuff.”
But like many others on Twitter overnight, my first reaction to Trump’s tweet that he and Melania had tested positive for COVID-19 was, “how do we trust him?”
I wasn’t alone, of course. As I said on Twitter: Trump has spent all year convincing one half of the country the virus is a hoax and the other half that he himself is such a fraud that even when he says he’s tested positive their first thought is not to believe him.
Trump has spent much of 2020 flouting his own Task Force guidelines, ridiculing masks and holding dangerous “super-spreader” rallies. Ex-Trump official Miles Taylor told CNN overnight that the White House takes COVID-19 safety less seriously than his local Starbucks. And Trump’s—and his White House team’s—behavior yesterday did not demonstrate best practices in the immediate aftermath of being told that senior aide Hope Hicks, already displaying symptoms, had tested positive for COVID-19.
As Kaitlan Collins reported on CNN, even after being given the news, Trump traveled to New Jersey for a closed-door fundraiser and a maskless Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who had also been exposed to Hicks, went ahead with a 25-minute propaganda show in the White House briefing room.
We need a President we can trust
In normal times, the idea that America is a country where anybody would doubt the President’s own announcement, confirmed by the White House physician, that he and the First Lady have tested positive for a potentially deadly disease is flabbergasting.
But these are not normal times. And I have to admit, “TRUMP FAKES AN ILLNESS” has been on my 2020 Bingo Card ever since Trump’s emergency visit to Walter Reed last November.
In March, after Trump and White House physician Sean Conley couldn’t get their stories straight about his initial tests for COVID, I wrote about Trump’s long history of lying about his health:
From the fake doctor’s letter (which we later found out he wrote himself) during the campaign to the raid on his doctor’s office to confiscate his medical files after he became President to his mystery trip to Walter Reed last November, Trump has been as secretive about the true state of his health as he is about his tax returns.
Based on Trump’s clear stupidity and consistently reckless behavior, I’m accepting that the diagnosis is real. But the earlier diagnosis discussed here in this newsletter with clinical psychologist Vince Greenwood, Ph.D. also remains real: Trump is a psychopath. And we have to expect a psychopath with COVID-19 could get even more frantic if he fears losing not only an election, but also his ability to protect the rest of his family for facing justice for their crimes.
The election is just weeks away—and all issues of this ad-free newsletter will be free until the November 3rd. So whether you sign up for free or support this effort with a paid subscription, today’s a great time to becoming a subscriber. Thanks!
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