Joe Biden
says he was not surprised by Donald Trump’s coronavirus infection and delivered
a blunt rebuke to the president during a town hall event in Miami, Florida. The
Democratic presidential candidate drew a stark contrast with Trump, who on
returning to the White House just an hour earlier had instantly removed his
face mask for a photo op.
During the
NBC event, moderator Lester Holt noted that a recent poll found two in three
people think the president bears some responsibility for contracting
coronavirus. Biden agreed, saying: 'Anybody who contracts the virus by
essentially saying, masks don’t matter, social distancing doesn’t matter, I think
is – is responsible for what happens to them.'
Donald Trump's desperation to leave hospital
shows the dangers ahead
The president’s carelessness about others’ safety
shows he will do almost anything not to lose in November
Julian
Borger in Washington
Tue 6 Oct
2020 08.22 BSTFirst published on Mon 5 Oct 2020 23.54 BST
The
desperation that has driven Donald Trump to leave hospital prematurely and
theatrically pull off his mask on the White House balcony while in the throes
of coronavirus infection gives some measure of how dangerous the next four
weeks will be.
Many
students of Trump’s life and career have warned that he would be prepared to
sacrifice anyone – even those closest to him – to spare himself the humiliation
of a one-term presidency, but even they surely could not have anticipated how
literal that sacrifice would be.
It involved
creating a culture in the White House in which the wearing of masks was scoffed
at, and seen as a sign of disloyalty, the worst sin in the Trump court. Trump
drove home the message on Monday night, staging a spectacle of his return to
the White House maskless, with photographers forced to be in attendance. He has
produced a toxic workplace to the point of potential lethality.
A
super-spreader event was held there to make the most out of Trump’s nominating
Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court – exploiting the opportunity of Ruth
Bader Ginsburg’s death, and then the president and his considerable entourage
fanned out around the country in pursuit of campaign funds.
It included
Trump’s insistence on leaving hospital on Sunday night and driving around the
block to drink in the adoration of the small crowd of faithful that had
gathered at the gate. In so doing he obliged secret service agents to get into
a hermetically sealed armoured car with a patient showing full-on symptomatic
coronavirus.
The
bodyguards are there to take a bullet for the president, not to take one from
him, but that was in effect what Trump was demanding they do for a photo-op.
Amid the
ensuing outrage over his insouciance, Trump appeared not to appreciate the
point: that he had shown no heed of the safety of others, even loyal public
servants. His reaction only served to prove that same point. He did not grasp
that these people had significance.
“It is
reported that the Media is upset because I got into a secure vehicle to say
thank you to the many fans and supporters who were standing outside of the
hospital for many hours, and even days, to pay their respect to their
President. If I didn’t do it, Media would say RUDE!!!”, Trump tweeted.
What stands
out is the president’s sense that he was the victim once again – and the only
other people who mattered were those who had shown their personal allegiance to
him.
No one
really thought that Trump would emerge chastened from his brush with the virus
(if the encounter is truly over – his doctor has stressed he is not “out of the
woods”). But not only was he unrepentant about the White House’s cavalier
approach to masks and social distancing, he has reinforced it.
“Don’t be
afraid of Covid,” he tweeted. “Don’t let it dominate your life. We have
developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs &
knowledge.”
Entirely
absent was any acknowledgement of the more than 200,000 dead, the many more
suffering serious and long lasting symptoms – and the reality that some of the
“really great drugs” he was given at Walter Reed hospital were experimental and
way beyond the reach of ordinary patients.
These facts
are evident to most Americans. In a new survey commissioned by CNN from the
polling organisation SSRS, two-thirds of them said Trump acted irresponsibly in
handling the risk of infection to himself and those around him. Joe Biden’s
nationwide lead has widened further.
There is
now a very real danger of a vicious cycle. Desperation fuels Trump’s
unpopularity, which triggers more desperation. Americans are already exhausted
by October surprises, and the nation is only five days into the month. The calendar
is unfurling towards the 3 November vote with a president who has little to
lose from gambling.
The
principal victims of his lack of empathy so far have been the concentric
circles of supporters around him. In the coming weeks the collateral damage
from his panic is likely to spread further afield. The president is already
openly calling his supporters to gather at the polls as “watchers” on election
day, and primed them to expect a vote rigged against their leader.
No one
doubts now that he would take chaos and bloodshed over defeat, and the
implications may not stop at the nation’s shore, with the greatest fear being a
combination of a foreign adversary seeking to exploit a weakened
administration, and a commander in chief ready to do anything to avoid looking
weak.
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