Trump adviser: Trump 'took a gamble' that coronavirus would go away with warmer weather
So glad that Donald Trump decided to put all his chips on the table. Unfortunately, he was gambling with other people’s money — and lives.
In a CNN story on Trump’s coronavirus-related decision-making (honestly, I’d feel better if we fed llama fart noises into Google Translate, printed the translations on bingo balls, and made government decisions that way), a Trump adviser claimed that Trump “gambled” that the virus would go away on its own — you know, with the heat:
A Trump adviser working with White House officials on messaging for the pandemic response said Trump “took a gamble” that warmer weather would cause the virus to dissipate, siding with aides who were pushing back on the dire warnings coming from doctors on the coronavirus task force.
On February 10, Trump had said of the virus: “You know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April. We're in great shape though. We have 12 cases — 11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.”
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The adviser said the President took a gamble “and got it wrong” in reference to Trump's decision to ignore the predictions from the administration's own experts. “He analyzed the data and opinions of experts and sided with the one that said warm weather will likely slow the virus,” the adviser added.
A source close to the COVID-19 task force also said that enforcing better social distancing measures earlier could have lessened the severity of the pandemic in the U.S. Trump gambled there, too, apparently assuming community spread wasn’t already occurring: “If there were no infections out there, then there was nothing to mitigate,” said the source. “If there were infections under the radar, it might have made a difference.”
Given the easy transmissibility of this virus and its long incubation period, you’d think a smart man who doesn’t bankrupt casinos would have erred on the side of caution. But that’s not Donald Trump. As we’ve long known.
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