You're viewing a single thread.
Did Trump even say it was a hoax? I remember him asking if you could cure it with bleach, and taking credit for the vaccine. He for sure was annoyed at how long it lasted and wanted to end mitigations early, but I thought it was mostly other grifters who took the "it doesn't exist" line.
He never corrected his dipshit followers and he argued against doing anything about it, so it doesn't actually matter that he technically never said it himself
It took him months to acknowledge it was a problem, but no he never flatly denied it like some of the republicans::
When he was asked by CNBC in an interview that aired January 22 if there were worries about a pandemic, he responded, “No. Not at all. And – we’re – we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
On March 9, Trump tweeted, “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. 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!” On March 10, the day before the WHO’s pandemic declaration, Trump said, “And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
He added: “It’s really working out. And a lot of good things are going to happen.”
Does it matter? I feel like at this point most people have got to understand Trump is a bullshitter and his words don’t mean anything
I think you grossly underestimate the stupidy, pettiness and selfishness of these people.
Did you seriously ask if the truth matters? Of course it does critiquing Trump for random fake BS only devalues meritorious critiques.
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/10/timeline-of-trumps-covid-19-comments/
Also snopes on the bleach thing:
During an April 2020 media briefing, Trump did ask members of the government's coronavirus task force to look into whether disinfectants could be injected inside people to treat COVID-19. But when a reporter asked in a follow-up question whether cleaning products like bleach and isopropyl alcohol would be injected into a person, the then-president said those products would be used for sterilizing an area, not for injections.
I think this is the context: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/trump-and-the-new-hoax/
I'm down to criticize him for saying it, regardless of if he presented a halfass correction or not. He refused to wear a mask, which his cult took as an example. He encouraged his cult to completely defy any attempt at public health measures as well.
He tried many times to prevent covid testing. Because if there's no testing, there's no covid.
So he was all about controlling the narrative about it, because he didn't think of it as a real problem. When the vaccine came out he took credit for it, but then when he got booed by his supporters for taking credit for it, he stopped talking about it.
So while he didn't explicitly say "covid isn't real" or anything, he didn't take it seriously, and didn't make an effort to argue against conspiracy theories promoted by his various minions.