MSNBC “Morning Joe” Joe Scarborough on Thursday reacted to the audio of President Donald Trump’s admitting to Bob Woodward about downplaying the severity of the coronavirus.
White House coronavirus task force member Dr. Anthony Fauci came out in Trump’s defense, saying, “I don’t think he ever distorted things that I spoke to him about.”
Scarborough opened his morning show by accusing Trump of not wanting Americans to panic because “he just wanted to sit by and watch them die.”
“We know Donald Trump knew the virus was deadly, that is was airborne. He knew millions would get sick and die. He knew it wasn’t just older people who would be killed by the virus. He knew early on this would be the greatest crisis America had faced in decades. Members of Donald Trump’s staff knew in January that a plague was coming to infect America, that half a million Americans could die, that millions more would likely lose their job, that the economy would be ravaged and that those staff members … had a responsibility to warn him, and they did. But Donald Trump chose instead to lie to you,” Scarborough emphasized. “And to lie to your family. And to lie to over 300 million Americans about the storm that was coming to lay upon this land. And even as he lied month after month, his staff remained silent.”
“Too many working-class Americans have had their lives destroyed while Wall Street traders and Donald Trump and his family get richer by the day,” he continued. “But Donald Trump says he didn’t want Americans to panic. No, he just wanted to sit by and watch them die, hoping the Dow Jones industrial and the S&P would stay healthy enough to get him reelected, but Americans got sicker by the day.”
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