Major conservative paper slams Trump in brutal editorial blasting his coronavirus response
08 March 2020
In an absolutely scathing editorial in the conservative Washington Examiner, Executive Editor Philip Klein eviscerated Donald Trump for his handling of the growing coronavirus epidemic — saying the actions taken by his administration are proof the president is woefully unprepared to handle a crisis.
Under a blunt headline stating, “Coronavirus is exposing Trump’s unsuitability to handle a crisis,” Klein writes, “President Trump’s bombastic style has served him well through many stages of his political career, but as the coronavirus spreads rapidly throughout the United States, it is exposing how deeply unsuited he is to deal with a genuine crisis that he can’t bluff his way through.”
“It’s one thing for Trump to insist he had a ‘perfect’ phone call and have all his Republican minions fall in line. It’s another thing to downplay a growing epidemic as more and more Americans get sick,” he continued before criticizing the president for “patting himself on the back” for his efforts so far.
With that, he hammered the president over his CDC press conference of Friday which the editor said showed the president is way over his head.
“The most stunning part of Trump’s press conference came when he said that, despite the recommendation of health officials, he was reluctant to let Americans off of a cruise ship with 21 infected, because it would increase the reported numbers of cases,” Klein wrote. ” He said he would defer to the vice president, and there is now news that the passengers will be let off. Yet it was quite revealing into Trump’s thought process that he said, ‘I would rather — because I like the numbers being where they are. I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship. That wasn’t our fault, and it wasn’t the fault of the people on the ship, either.'”
“Trump appears to be more concerned with numbers that might make him look bad in the short-term, then he is with actually taking the most prudent measures to save lives over time,” he accused before pronouncing sentence: “The current crisis is revealing what many critics feared in a potential Trump presidency. He simply has not shown an ability to break out of his typical antics, and treat the moment with the seriousness with which it deserves.”
“Trump appears to be more concerned with numbers that might make him look bad in the short-term, then he is with actually taking the most prudent measures to save lives over time,” he accused before pronouncing sentence: “The current crisis is revealing what many critics feared in a potential Trump presidency. He simply has not shown an ability to break out of his typical antics, and treat the moment with the seriousness with which it deserves.”