Donald Trump settled on fingering China for his epic coronavirus failures months ago, but as he tanks in the polls he has whittled down his gripes to an easily digestible campaign slogan: "It's China's fault."
Forget the "Keep America Great" slogan that originally anchored the rollout of Trump’s reelection bid a little over a year ago. The campaign has rightly concluded that slogan doesn't exactly fit the present state of play.
Now, as Trump works diligently to convince Americans he's already been robbed of reelection, he's also reminding them that the impending loss wasn't his fault. Asked about the expiring enhanced unemployment payments during Thursday's coronavirus briefing, Trump said he'd like to extend some kind of payment to Americans out of work.
"It's not their fault, what happened," Trump offered magnanimously, "It's China's fault ... it's not the worker who lost their job, it's China's fault."
During the same briefing, Trump blamed the COVID-related death of Republican Herman Cain—who got sick after attending Trump's Tulsa rally—on "the China virus." Seems the "Wuhan virus" of a couple months ago was too subtle.
On Friday, Trump seemed particularly excited about connecting the dots back to China. In an afternoon tweet, he reiterated that workers weren't at fault for loss of employment, but rather "it's the fault of China!"
And during a meeting in the Cabinet Room, Trump dropped his new slogan again.
"It's China's fault," he told reporters. "You want to know the truth, China should be paying for it and maybe they will, maybe they will."
Sure, why not? Mexico was going to pay for Trump's precious border wall before he illegally stole taxpayer money from the Defense Department to help fund it. And now China will be paying unemployment benefits to American workers, just like China is bearing the burden of Trump’s tariffs in his worldview—even though U.S. consumers have actually shouldered that cost. Really, anything is possible in Trump's addled brain, even if it's patently and provably false.
Anyway, vote “Trump 2020: It's China's Fault."
Now there's a winner.