It has been widely accepted since Trump’s poorly attended inauguration that he epitomizes a despicably bad human being. A pair of related stories late last week confirmed that Trump is inherently greedy, has no regard for American lives, has utter contempt for the law and a glaring predilection to provide aid and comfort to foreign nations hostile towards America.
Any sane human being knows it was no coincidence that at about the same time Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced plans to relax prohibitions on using a globally known and almost universally banned carcinogen, asbestos, a Russian asbestos producer released images of Trump’s face on asbestos packaged for export.
First, the EPA announcement about allowing asbestos back in America attempted to portray the administration’s “concern” for American lives with some bovine excrement claim that new uses of asbestos “would require manufacturers and importers to receive EPA approval before starting or resuming manufacturing, and importing or processing of asbestos.”
Despite EPA claims to the contrary, the new rule explicitly allows new uses for asbestos with the caveat that the EPA evaluate any new uses based on “risk evaluation, selected studies, and use the best available science.” However, the EPA evaluation process will not use “existing” science despite “the significant body of work around the inherent health risks associated with asbestos.” It is noteworthy that according to Russian asbestos producers, Trump and his former EPA chief Scott Pruitt have already deemed asbestos application “100 percent safe;” there will be no need for risk evaluations, selected studies, or any science.
The Russian asbestos producer, Uralasbest, is one of the world’s largest asbestos producers and included an image of Trump stamped on packaged asbestos with a caption: “Approved by Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States." An English translation of the text accompanying the Trump image read:
“Donald is on our side! … He supported the head of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, who stated that his agency would no longer deal with negative effects derived from products containing asbestos. Donald Trump supported a specialist and called asbestos ‘100% safe after application.’”
The prescient question that anyone with a pulse already knows the answer to is: if asbestos is safe, why is it banned in 55 developed and developing nations? The known carcinogen is still in use in Russia, Canada, China, India and the United States. To be fair, sometime in the 1970s America “had stopped” using asbestos in most buildings, and banned it from products like flooring felt and corrugated paper because it was too toxic to use around human beings. However, despite nearly 1 million Americans suing for asbestos-related diseases and deaths, Trump still claims the carcinogen is safe. So he directed his special interest running the EPA to do something he claims is “long overdue;” help asbestos make a comeback.
In one fell swoop Trump demonstrated again that he has no regard for established science or American lives, and that he will use Americans’ lives to repay his debt to Russia. By directing the EPA to pronounce asbestos “100 percent safe” for use in America, Trump confirmed to Russian asbestos producers that he is indeed “on their side.”
Trump, an expert in peddling snake oil, treasonous acts, and pathological mendacity concluded as far back as 1997 that asbestos is perfectly safe and the rest of the developed world was wrong to ban its use. He also asserted that “the mob” was responsible for promoting fake news that gave a known carcinogen negative press and a bad reputation. Trump said in a book he could not possibly have written:
“I believe that the movement against asbestos was led by the mob, because it was often mob-related companies that would do the asbestos removal. Great pressure was put on politicians, and as usual, the politicians relented. Millions of truckloads of this incredible material were taken to special ‘dump sites’ and asbestos was replaced by materials that were supposedly safe.”
Trump has also claimed several times that the only reason the two World Trade Center towers collapsed was because of the absence of asbestos. Chris Hayes provided a video clip of Trump defending the carcinogen in front of Congress in 2005. He was doing in 2005 what he has done regularly since Russia aided his ascendancy to the White House - parrot a claim by Fox News. Trump told Congress in 2005 what he heard on Fox News in 2001:
“A lot of people [Fox News] say that if the World Trade Center had asbestos it wouldn’t have burned down, it wouldn’t have melted. O.K.? A lot of people in my industry think asbestos is the greatest fireproofing material ever made.”
Trump lied, of course. According to Asbestos.com:
“Builders constructed the World Trade Center using asbestos in the structure’s insulation, drywall, fireproofing materials and steel because of the mineral’s affordability. The 9/11 terrorist attacks released the deadly toxin in a dust cloud across Manhattan.”
What Trump failed to tell Congress, and the only reason he is an ardent champion of a known carcinogen he claims is safe, is that like “a lot of people in his [hotel] industry,” he is furious that he was required to remove asbestos from his buildings to save lives. Trump has vehemently opposed any rule or regulation created to protect people, and because asbestos removal is an expensive and hazardous process, Trump naturally opposed paying to remove it to protect human lives because it impacts his bottom line.
In the late 1990’s “Trump fought a bill by ex-mayor-turned-presidential-lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, requiring all residential buildings to be retrofitted with sprinklers;” Trump claimed at the time that it was too costly to protect people living in buildings his corrupt organization owns. Just a few months ago, a Trump Tower resident perished because he lived in an upper floor residence where there were no working sprinklers. Trump has no regard for human life and relaxing America’s asbestos prohibitions as remuneration to his Russian facilitators will add to the 12,000 to 15,000 American deaths annually due to asbestos.
According to “The World Trade Center Health Registry,” about 410,000 people were exposed to toxic asbestos “during the rescue, recovery and clean-up efforts that followed 9/11.” As of two years ago at the 15-year anniversary of the WTC’s collapses, the greatest concern among medical professionals was the certain increase of cases of asbestosis, lung cancer, cancer of the larynx and ovary, and a rare but aggressive cancer with no cure, mesothelioma. It is exactly what medical professionals expect after nearly half-a-million people were exposed to over 400 tons of airborne asbestos long after the Towers collapsed.
There is no coincidence surrounding the EPA’s plan to help asbestos make a comeback and Russian asbestos producers stamping Trump’s image and approval on packaged asbestos likely slated for export to America. Obviously, the Russian asbestos company knew in advance that Trump’s EPA was going to help asbestos make a comeback and further the Trump administration’s goal of killing off Americans in the name of helping Russia. It is not exaggeration or hyperbole to claim Trump’s administration disregards American lives at the same rate Trump lies and disregards the law. In fact, a recent (2018) Harvard University analysis revealed that Trump’s EPA crusade to rollback and/or reverse environmental protections will, under the most conservative estimate, "cost the lives of over 80 000 US residents per decade and lead to respiratory problems for many more than 1 million people."
If any American is looking for one example to convince skeptics that Trump is greedy, a liar, supports Russia and has contempt for American lives, this one incident should serve to disabuse them of any doubts that Trump is a monster. In addition, it is noteworthy that “helping asbestos make a comeback,” like all of Trump’s assaults on the environment, will indiscriminately kill and injure American citizens regardless of their race, religion or economic station.
That is the problem with allowing a greedy, lying, inhumane and traitorous piece of work to occupy a place he has no right visiting, and why Trump’s legacy will feature his inclination to kill American citizens on American soil like homegrown terrorists Trump calls “fine people.” The primary difference between Trump and other homegrown terrorists is that the latter are driven by religion, racial animus and an ideology founded on hate. The former is driven by greed and allegiance to a hostile foreign state that happens to be the major producer of the toxic mineral Trump wants to impose on the American people.