Let’s time travel. What if Donald Trump had been president back in 1941?
“Yesterday, December 7, a day that was bad, but not as bad as the lying fake media says,” his famous speech might have begun. “And nobody’s even thanked me. Can you imagine if Obama was president? It would have been the worst day ever,” he continues.
“And most of the boats that went blub, blub were old anyway,” offers the commander-in-chief to head off panic. “Our younger ships are practically immune to kamikazes,” he adds. “Think about it. Hawaii isn’t even a state!” He concludes to thunderous applause from Charles Lindbergh.
Excerpts of Bob Woodward’s new book “Rage” quote President Trump admitting he knew how deadly the virus would be while purposely misrepresenting it to the American people. “I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told Woodward. “I still like playing it down.”
Now, with nearly 200,000 dead Americans, the president and his apologists scramble to play down the blowback. Along with the usual shoot-the-messenger and “fake” and “phony” flack, the president offered the following justification for lying instead of leading: “The fact is I’m a cheerleader for this country.”
Woodward didn’t trick the president. He didn’t double-cross him. He hasn’t twisted the president’s words. Donald Trump spoke with Woodward 18 times between Dec. 5, 2019 and July 21 of this year, often at his own instigation, and always on tape. The recordings, heard now by practically everybody, would spell doom for any other president, but this is not any other president.
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” said candidate Trump in 2016. But what if he shot 200,000 people?
The Woodward tapes prove Trump knew as early as January how deadly COVID-19 was. He knew it’s deadlier than a regular flu, and he knew COVID can infect the young as well as the elderly. Yet, he shunned face masks and continues to mock Joe Biden for wearing one while staging mostly maskless super-spreader rallies.
Most damning, in the first critical month, when containment was still possible, the president said by April the virus will “miraculously” go away.
Even if Trump had done everything right, thousands would undoubtedly have died. But Trump did almost everything wrong and continues to blunder Americans into premature graves with his mixed messages, pimping of dubious cures and attacks on the governors who filled the leadership vacuum created by his cheering rather than leading. Instead of aid, the President encouraged armed militias to “liberate” Michigan from Gov. Whitmer and called Washington Gov. Jay Insley “a snake” for shutting down his state when COVID first appeared.
Trump’s taped confession to Bob Woodward begs the question: How many of the nearly 200,000 dead would still be alive if he had laid out the facts truthfully and consistently? Instead he chose to tweet out whoopers: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.”Franklin Roosevelt famously inspired Americans with his iconic, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Even failed presidents have leveled with the American public in tough times. If Trump thinks we can’t handle the truth it’s because he can’t handle it, having had so little experience with honesty.
As Americans continue to die in unacceptable numbers, thousands more lie gravely ill in hospitals. Millions have been thrown out of work, while thousands of mostly small businesses have closed forever. It didn’t have to be this way. The curve could have been flattened long ago with many lives and jobs saved. Unforgivably, there’s only one job the president cares about saving. His own.
Doug McIntyre’s column appears Sundays. He can be reached at: Doug@DougMcIntyre.com.
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