More than 3 million Americans have now contracted the Covid-19 coronavirus; nearly 132,000 have died.

Despite that, President Trump is pressing governors and school districts across the country to reopen public schools, putting students in classrooms that could quickly become virus incubators. And he threatens to cut off federal funding if they don’t (there’s little, if anything he can do).

In other words, Trump is willing to risk the health and lives of millions of American children and their teachers, even as he continues to downplay the threat. Not only that, imagine any sane parent forcing their children to march off to school because Donald Trump says so? Just so we understand, Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort are released from prison because of coronavirus, but it’s okay to pack kids in schools? Got it.

Look, there’s no doubt parents need kids back in school so they can return to work. But bullying them back? He even thinks his opponents believe closing schools “is good for them politically.”

Former Obama adviser David Axelrod begs to disagree:

.@realDonaldTrump: “They think it's going to be good for them politically, so they keep the schools closed. No way.”
This is idiotic and self-serving on the face of it. There isn’t a politician alive who thinks keeping schools closed is good politics. https://t.co/Rwj5HYAAWz

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) July 8, 2020

Why does he do it?

Many health experts and other observers say Trump is “in denial” about the virus, that he’s learned nothing over the past few months about the hazards of moving too quickly to life restrictions on Americans’ behavior during the pandemic.

But Washington Post opinion columnist Greg Sargent says, in effect, that’s a lot of hooey.

Sargent suggests that Trump is not “incapable of learning, or that he’s deceiving himself, or that he’s closed his eyes to reality” — it’s something  far worse.

“Trump has been widely and repeatedly informed by his own and other experts for many months that his failure to take coronavirus more seriously could have utterly catastrophic consequences, that it could result in widespread suffering and needless deaths,” Sargent writes.

“It isn’t enough to point out that Trump repeatedly ignored that advice. What’s more important is that Trump has repeatedly seen the predicted consequences of those failures come to pass, and is seeing that right now.”

And there is enormous potential for things to get much worse for Trump. He’s reportedly ignoring the advice of advisers and instead is “going with his gut.” But as the virus number go up, his poll numbers go in the other direction.

If going with his gut means forcing children into dangerous and unhealthy environments, that’s not a strategy known to win many elections.

But wait, there’s more. The Trump campaign is floating the idea of bringing statues to Trump rallies. Seriously? The Biden campaign just got giddy. Please bring statues, lots of them.

Dems should also love this: Jared Kushner is reportedly in line to take over faltering campaign if Trump decides to toss 2016 campaign guru Brad Parscale under the nearest bus.

And we can’t forget about Roger Stone. What would be the political fallout from pardoning Trump’s old pal Before he reports to prison next week? Reportedly Attorney General Bill Barr, according to Vanity Fair, is among those who think it’s a terrible idea, which means it will probably happen.

And in case you’ve forgotten, here’s are just some of the highlights from the last few months dumpster fire at the White House as collected by Rolling Stone.

“Shooting rubber bullet grenades at protesting priests. Catastrophically botching the pandemic response, resulting in a public health and economic calamity. Tweeting “white power” memes. Ranting in front of empty arenas about how he navigated a “slippery ramp.” Being MIA while his Russian benefactors put out a hit on American soldiers in Afghanistan.”

So, back to Sargent:

“Once we dispense with the idea that Trump remains “in denial,” we’re left with a few interpretations. The most charitable is that Trump continues to have principled disagreements with experts over these matters, but there are zero indications he has any substantively grounded views on them of any kind.

“A far less charitable interpretation is that he’s merely indifferent to the catastrophic consequences that are resulting from these failures — and will continue to do so — and that he’s prioritizing nakedly self-interested political calculations over any such concerns.”