“Well, she’s over her head, and honestly she should have made the speech live, which she did not,” Trump said Tuesday morning. “She tapped it. And not only was it taped, it was taped for a long time because she had the wrong dead. She did not even name the candidate vice president.”
On his face there is no big surprise. This is a president who retaliates like an attacker. Always. Like, every time.
But if you read Trump’s attempt to read Obama more closely, you see that when he visits the former first lady, he resolves himself (bolding is me):
“She taped it. And it was not just tapestry, it’s tapestry a long time ago, because she had the wrong dead. “
Consider what Trump is saying here: Michelle Obama really refurbished her speech because she said 150,000 Americans had died of coronavirus when that fact is now well over 170,000.
Oh, I do not think that makes the point that Trump wants to make.
What’s worse, Michelle Obama has her speech pre-taped and quoted with the coronavirus numbers that were accurate at the time, than the fact that 20,000 more Americans died from Covid-19 under Trump’s watch?
And, yes.
“I can confirm @BarackObama will have the most current figures for his turn tomorrow night,”
noted Cody Keenan, the president’s 43rd presidential secretary, took to Twitter in response to Trump’s attempt on Michelle Obama.
What reinforces Trump’s remark is his belief that he bears no responsibility – and is not blamed by the public – for the country’s ongoing struggle to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
Remember that way back in March, when asked if he felt he deserved any blame for the effort to make test kits widely available, Trump replied, “No. I take no responsibility at all.” Trump also stated that he is not to blame for the rapid reopening of states like Georgia and Florida – aided by Trump acolytes – this spring that allowed both states to experience a major uprising in the virus. And zero blame for the politicization of mask-wear.
In fact, Trump has taken to insisting that he deserves credit for keeping the mortality rates. “I think it’s great what we’ve been able to do,” he said earlier this month. “If we did not close our country, we would have killed 1.5 or 2 million people already.” (That claim is very shaky.)
Asked Monday by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about the question of whether 1,000 Americans who still die from coronavirus every day could be considered a success, White House adviser (and sister-in-law Trump) Jared Kushner said:
“Well, look, you want to keep that number as low as possible. One American who dies every day is too many. But if you look at where we were back in April, we had 2,500 Americans die a day. And again, it was because the virus spread out of control. “
Unfortunately for Trump and Kushner, the American public does not agree with their views on how this administration has handled the pandemic. A flurry of recent national polls shows somewhere between 38% and 44% of voters agree with how Trump treats Covid-19. And in a CNN poll released on Monday, 52% said they trusted Joe Biden more to deal with the coronavirus crisis, while 43% voted for Trump.
Trump’s eroding numbers on coronavirus have corresponded to a decline in his numbers in head-to-head match-ups with Biden. According to CNN’s poll, Biden has a 51% to 42% margin over Trump.
People remember that in the relatively short period between when Michelle Obama delivered her convention speech and when it ran Monday night, an additional 20,000 Americans died from Covid-19 is a disastrous owner of Trump. And what’s less, he probably does not get that himself.
CNN’s Allison Gordon contributed to this report.
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