From the days of the 2016 Republican nomination campaign, to the 2016 election to when Donald Trump took office there were always some who predicted he would grow in office. In his response to the coronavirus crisis and markets nose-diving there is now an established fact:
While Donald Trump’s waistline has grown in office, he hasn’t.
Trump unleashed a 13 tweet tweetstorm over a three hour period that had little to do with calming, or informing the nation. Rather, it was a medley of resentments and conspiracy theories that in the 20th century would be called a “broken record.” It also seemed like a warped record. Huff Post:
While the bottom fell out, President Donald Trump was busy ? on Twitter. Trump sent 13 tweets over a span of about three hours Monday morning, ranting about everything from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) comments last week about abortion to the state of the Democratic primaries.
He also pondered having “outmastered the deep state,” baselessly accused former President Barack Obama of being “the most corrupt” in history, and, for good measure, threw in a racial epithet along the way.
(At the same time, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham appeared on Fox News and accused politicians and the media of unnecessarily politicizing things to spread fear.)
A couple of hours in, Trump turned to the matters of the day: oil and the coronavirus.
First, the president hailed the oil sell-off as good news because consumers will pay less at the pump.
Then, in his last tweet of the morning, the president sought to downplay coronavirus fears by emphasizing that “life & the economy” don’t shut down for the seasonal flu each year.
“So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu,” he tweeted. “It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”
While the flu and coronavirus are caused by vaguely similar pathogens, COVID-19 ? the disease caused by the coronavirus that popped up in Wuhan, China, in late 2019 — is less understood by scientists at this point so its full risks are unknown.
We have a vaccine for influenza, and per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the death rate in the U.S. of those who have been infected with the flu has been around 0.1% since 2010.”
This has led to Trump be lambasted on Twitter. Here’s just a small sample:
me me me me poor me
it almost makes you think he could have narcissistic personality disorder or something https://t.co/v0epmCOmkD
— George Conway (@gtconway3d) March 9, 2020
NEW YORK (AP) — Dow drops 7.8%, worst fall since 2008, as free-fall in oil price and worsening fears of fallout from virus seize markets.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 9, 2020
Trump is total meltdown. He told aides he thinks journalists want to get coronavirus on purpose to spread it to him on Air Force One. My latest:https://t.co/TTpT6sdnHS
— Gabriel Sherman (@gabrielsherman) March 9, 2020
I hesitate to rank anybody worse than Buchanan…
— Aaron Astor (@AstorAaron) March 9, 2020
This time, Trump really IS shooting people on Fifth Avenue https://t.co/WFFUJCfpIr
— Dick Polman (@DickPolman1) March 9, 2020
Hello, 25th.
“He’s Definitely Melting Down Over This”: Trump, Germaphobe in Chief, Struggles to Control the Covid-19 Story https://t.co/6RkuUhJmtX
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) March 9, 2020
tired of winning pic.twitter.com/iiVU9zscEL
— Oliver Willis (@owillis) March 9, 2020
Are we better off with Trump playing golf or actively running the response to a crisis? It's a ridiculous thing to say about a president, but I would choose golf every day.
— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) March 9, 2020
Remember, every time Trump screams about "fake news" regarding news programs, it means he is spending time during a public health & economic crises watching TV to see what people are saying about him, rather than speaking with experts and making decisions.
Oh, and he's golfing.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) March 9, 2020
Analysis: As markets tank over coronavirus, Trump’s sustained assault on his own credibility haunts him https://t.co/rKG7bSIBV9
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 9, 2020
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.