More than a quarter of a million people in the United States have died from coronavirus, but that isn’t the number that Donald Trump is concerned with today. Instead, his Twitter feed is full of the number of votes he received (or didn’t receive) during an election that was now 16 days ago.
No. THIS is unbelievable. pic.twitter.com/5ygTxr3tfZ
— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) November 19, 2020
Once again today, Trump has no public events scheduled. And the president isn’t just staying silent on coronavirus, he’s also trying to block the president-elect from information that could help save lives. During a forum with health care workers on Wednesday Biden said, “One of the problems that we’re having now is the failure of the administration to recognize — the law says that the General Services Administration has a person who recognizes who the winner is. Which, unless it’s made available soon, we’re gonna be behind by weeks or months being able to put together the whole initiative.”
Trump “…hasn't appeared at a public event for days and has forbidden any members of his administration to talk to Biden's team.” https://t.co/Ivw8RaHBxs
— Dennis Herring (@dcherring) November 19, 2020
MSNBC’s Steve Benen reminds us “at one point, the president boasted that if the number of U.S. fatalities could be lower than 200,000, it would be proof that the White House did “a very good job.”
Two months ago, on Sept. 16, Trump told reporters that if the U.S. death toll remained below 240,000, that would also be proof that the administration did what he called “the good job.”
As the number of domestic fatalities crosses the 250,000 threshold, it seems inevitable that the outgoing president will both move the goalposts again and eagerly boast about how pleased he is with his performance.
March 29: “If we can hold that down…to 100,000 [coronavirus deaths]…we all, together, have done a very good job.” – Donald Trump
November 18: U.S. coronavirus death toll reaches 250,000. pic.twitter.com/qC5ZdVWiZz
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) November 19, 2020
Watch more from MSNBC above.