We already knew that Donald Trump had deliberately crippled America’s coronavirus response because he thought it would be a good move to kill Americans in states with Democratic governors. But interviews and audio recordings from an upcoming book have revealed that Trump wasn’t ignorant of the deadliness of COVID-19, or how the threat extended beyond older Americans. Trump’s maddening insistence that COVID-19 was not as bad as seasonal flu and his declaration that it would “soon be down to zero” weren’t generated out of plain old ignorance. They were out-and-out lies, told by Trump in an effort to protect his political position.
By continually telling the nation that the pandemic was less deadly than he knew it to be, Trump created a disaster that did not have to exist. Ignorance and incompetence certainly contributed to the massive death toll and economic disaster in the United States, but the failure to mount an effective national testing strategy, provide a coordinated national system of restrictions on businesses and gatherings, and issue a federal mask mandate were deliberate decisions made by someone who knew the cost would be measured in lives.
The decisions that Trump made in February and March have cost nearly 200,000 lives. Still, incredibly enough, the worst could still be ahead. We could lose more people in the next three months than have died in the whole course of the pandemic so far. And the reason is because, even now, Donald Trump is still lying about the threat of COVID-19, especially when it comes to schools.
On Tuesday evening, 20-year-old California University of Pennsylvania football player Jamain Stephens died from COVID-19. This tragedy came less than a week after the medical director for the Big 10 revealed that a third of college athletes who had contracted COVID-19 showed lasting heart damage. That was true even with student athletes who had an asymptomatic case of the disease. It’s not just the blood clots caused by COVID-19 that are causing damage. The virus directly damages heart muscle along with lung tissue.
Also last week—Donald Trump called the commissioner of the Big 10 and pressured him to have the athletes play football. “We're pushing very hard,” said Trump. “I think they want to play, and the fans want to see it, and the players have a lot at stake, including possibly playing in the NFL.” As the sad story of Jamain Stephens shows, the players have a lot more at stake than NFL careers that are waiting for only a small fraction of those who take the fields in college.
But the pressure that Trump put on student athletes and colleges is only a fraction of what he’s applied to schools in an attempt to force them to open. That includes threats to withhold federal funds from schools that do not reopen “fully” and “in person.” The last pointless effort of Senate Republicans to put together a bill they had no intention of passing reflected this desire by restricting two-thirds of school funding only to schools that “physically” reopened.
Trump repeatedly insisted that young people were “virtually immune” to COVID-19. “They don’t have a problem,” said Trump. “They just don’t have a problem.” Trump’s official White House statements indicated that schools could “reopen safely” because “children are at an extremely low risk for a serious illness or death,” while Trump insisted that children “don't bring it home easily” to give to parents or others. That ignored 570 children who had already come down with COVID-19–Associated Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome by July, as well as studies that showed COVID-19 was spread by children just as well as by adults.
But as conversations with author Bob Woodward show, Trump knew better, right from the start.
Trump was lying to the nation in February. He’s lying to the nation in September. He lied to the nation every month, every week, every day, and every hour in between. He knew that COVID-19 was far deadlier than flu. He knew it was easily spread and highly contagious. He knew that a national system of testing, case tracing, and isolation was vital to effectively managing the pandemic.
He knew all that. He just decided it would be better if more Americans died.
Now Trump is making the same choice about schools and children. He knows that schools can’t open safely. He knows that children can suffer from COVID-19. He knows that children can transmit COVID-19. He knows that even young, fit, college athletes can suffer lifelong health effects from exposure to COVID-19.
But he still made the decision that lying about this thing is better—better for Trump—than protecting American lives.
