The recently released Bob Woodward recordings from early 2020 underscore the reckless actions of our President in the early days of Coronavirus, and show the absurdity of more recent actions that have led so many close to the president to fall ill with Covid-19. Trump was recorded in early February acknowledging that the virus was highly contagious and more deadly than “even your strenuous flus.”
Then, in March 19th recordings, he praised National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci’s intellect and experience, but when asked if they had met one on one, he said, “Yes, I guess, but honestly there’s not a lot of time for that, Bob.” Trump told Woodward that he was not worried about contracting the virus in those interviews but would go on to contract it before October.
(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Trump’s actions have led to many American deaths by coronavirus, both indirectly and directly. Indirectly, he has caused deaths by inspiring Americans to forego precautions like masks and social distancing in the name of 1st amendment rights. Directly, he has hosted campaign rallies that have been called super-spreaders and are believed to have led to Republican luminary Herman Cain’s death.
During a June 5th visit to Puritan Medical Products in Guilford, Maine, Trump toured the facility without a mask, in violation of Governor Janet Mills April 29th, 2020 Executive order requiring cloth face coverings in public settings where other physical distancing measures are difficult to maintain. At one point during the visit, the president put his arm around an employee before saying, “I’m not supposed to do that.”
On August 17th, Trump held a rally for hundreds of people at an aircraft hangar in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Trump announced that he would make a trip to Kenosha, Wisconsin after the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Kenosha resident and father. In a letter to the president, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said, “I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together.” Trump visited Kenosha but refused to meet with the family of Blake because they wanted to have a lawyer present. In his most recent Wisconsin visit, Trump visited the city of Mosinee on September 17th. The 5000-person crowd outnumbered the city’s population.
An indoor rally in Henderson, Nevada on September 13th drew a crowd of several thousand people. Nevada’s current guidelines limit large indoor events to fewer than 50 people. Gov. Steve Sisolak called Trump’s actions “an insult to every Nevadan who has followed the directives.”
The Trump campaign hosted an event in Bemidji, Minnesota, on Friday, September 18, with a crowd size in the thousands, far outnumbering the current 250-person limit for large gatherings in the state. At a September 30th Duluth, Minnesota rally, Duluth Fire Chief estimated attendance at 3000. White House staffer Hope hicks was in attendance and her positive Coronavirus test was announced the next day.
On October 1st, just hours before Trump announced that he and Melania Trump had tested positive for Coronavirus, Trump hosted a fundraiser at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. An estimated 300 people attended. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy first enacted a 50-person cap for all gatherings, excepting some essential functions, in an executive order on March 16th and has confirmed that this limit is still in place through further executive orders, most recently on September 26th.
With such damning evidence of the president’s harmful, egregious behavior, what comes next? The ruling in the 1982 Supreme Court case Nixon v. Fitzgerald states that The President has absolute immunity from liability for civil damages arising from any official action taken while in office. Any damages imposed in a civil suit would be paid out by the US Government, not Trump. However, suits for injunctions to stop certain negligent behaviors may hold more water than those seeking damages.
Holding the president accountable for actions carried out while in office is a minefield. Executive privilege does still protect the President from facing criminal charges while still in office, and from facing criminal charges for acts committed in furtherance of his duties as president. Campaigning is not explicitly stated as one of the President’s official duties in the Constitution, but it would take some stomach-turning legal acrobatics to make the case that Trump is exposed to criminal suits for his campaign trail shenanigans. Until Trump leaves office by election or by impeachment, criminal charges for Trump’s bad behavior in office are a fantasy, and even then, proving he committed a crime beyond a reasonable doubt is a heavy burden for any prosecutor.
Well over 200,000 Americans have died of Covid-19 in 2020, including citizens in each of the 50 states. Attorneys General in each state should start thinking carefully now about how to redress grievous harm citizens in their jurisdictions faced as a result of Trump’s strategic spread of misinformation and propaganda, failure to adhere to national and local Covid-19 guidelines, and inviting citizens into harm’s way at his many political rallies.
However, as we enter October, we should not count on those aforementioned Attorneys General to address the issue at hand. We also cannot count on the Republican Senate to impeach. Whether or not he answers to the law, there is a group whom he will answer to this November: the American people. Grab your ballots. It’s voting time.
As a New York Times piece published during the Watergate scandal in October 1973 eloquently stated, “The nation is in the hands of a president overcome with dictatorial misconceptions of his constitutional authority.”
| Timeline Table: How Trump Handled The Pandemic, Damaged Science And The Economy | |
|---|---|
| May 2018 | The Trump Administration disbands the White House pandemic response team. |
| Oct 2019 | “Currently, there are insufficient funding sources designated for the federal government to use in response to a severe influenza pandemic.” |
| Jan. 22, 2020 | “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.” |
| Jan. 30, 2020 | “The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak on US soil,…This lack of protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.” [Memo from Trump Trade Advisor Peter Navarro] |
| Feb. 2, 2020 | “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.” |
| Feb.10, 2020 | “I think the virus is going to be—it’s going to be fine.” |
| Feb. 10, 2020 | “Looks like by April, you know in theory when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.” |
| Feb. 24, 2020 | “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… the Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” |
| Feb. 26, 2020 | 2020 “The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” |
| Feb. 26, 2020 | “We’re going very substantially down, not up.” |
| Feb. 26, 2020 | “Well, we’re testing everybody that we need to test. And we’re finding very little problem. Very little problem.” |
| Feb. 26, 2020 | “This is a flu. This is like a flu.” |
| Feb. 27, 2020 | “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” |
| Feb. 27, 2020 | “The ineptness with which the Trump Administration approached this problem is not only serious, it can be deadly if not changed in the approach.” – Rep. Lloyd Doggett During a hearing, Rep. Doggett questions HHS Sec. Azar on Trump’s refusal to take this virus seriously, warning about mask and test shortages |
| Feb. 28, 2020 | “We’re ordering a lot of supplies. We’re ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn’t be ordering unless it was something like this. But we’re ordering a lot of different elements of medical.” |
| March 2, 2020 | “A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.” |
| March 4, 2020 | “If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work — some of them go to work, but they get better.” |
| March 6, 2020 | “I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down.” |
| March 6, 2020 | “Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They’re there. And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.” |
| March 6, 2020 | “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.” |
| March 7, 2020 | “No, I’m not concerned at all. |
| March 10, 2020 | “Just stay calm. It will go away.” |
| March 12, 2020 | “The system is not really geared to what we need right now…That is a failing. Let’s admit it.” (Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to Congress) |
| March 12, 2020 | “You know, you see what’s going on. And so I just wanted that to stop as it pertains to the United States. And that’s what we’ve done. We’ve stopped it.” |
| March 13, 2020 | “I don’t take responsibility at all.” |
| March 14, 2020 | “I’d rate it a ten,” [Trump’s rating of his coronavirus response] |
| March 15, 2020 | “Relax…This is a very contagious virus. It’s incredible. But it’s something that we have tremendous control over.” |
| March 16, 2020 | “Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment-try getting it yourselves,” |
| March 17, 2020 | “The only thing we haven’t done well is get good press.” |
| March 17, 2020 | “I felt like it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” |
| March 19, 2020 | I intended “to always play it down.” (Trump in a private taped interview with Bob Woodward, made public on September 9) |
| March 20, 2020 | “I say that you’re a terrible reporter, that’s what I say. I think it’s a very nasty question, and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people.” (Response to reporter’s question: “What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?”) |
| March 24, 2020 | “They have to treat us well, also. They can’t say, ‘Oh, gee, we should get this, we should get that.’” |
| March 26, 2020 | The United States becomes the country with the most confirmed coronavirus cases. A title it keeps for the remainder of Trump’s time in office. |
| March 26, 2020 | “Congratulations AMERICA!” (On Senate passage of third relief bill) |
| March 26, 2020 | “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You go into major hospitals sometimes, and they’ll have two ventilators. And now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’” |
| March 27, 2020 | “I love Michigan, one of the reasons we are doing such a GREAT job for them during this horrible Pandemic. Yet your Governor, Gretchen “Half” Whitmer is way in over her head, she doesn’t have a clue. Likes blaming everyone for her own ineptitude!” |
| March 27, 2020 | “I want them to be appreciative. We’ve done a great job.” |
| March 27, 2020 | “We’re doing a great job for the state of Washington and I think the Governor…he’s constantly chirping and I guess complaining would be a nice way of saying it.” |
| March 29, 2020 | “Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door? How do you go from 10,000 to 300,000?” |
| March 29, 2020 | “Unfortunately the enemy is death. It’s death. A lot of people are dying. So it’s very unpleasant.” |
| March 30, 2020 | “I think New York should be fine, based on the numbers that we see, they should have more than enough. I mean, I’m hearing stories that they’re not used or they’re not used right.” |
| March 31, 2020 | “…it’s not the flu. It’s vicious.” |
| April 1, 2020 | “They have to treat us well, also. They can’t say, ‘Oh, gee, we should get this, we should get that.” (Trump’s response to governors who were pleading for medical gear and ventilators to treat surging coronavirus hospitalizations) |
| April 2, 2020 | “Massive amounts of medical supplies… are being delivered directly to states…Some have insatiable appetites & are never satisfied (politics?). The complainers should have been stocked up and ready long before this crisis hit.” |
| April 3, 2020 | “I’m feeling good. I just don’t want to be doing — somehow sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful resolute desk, the great resolute desk, I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don’t know, somehow I don’t see it for myself. I just don’t. Maybe I’ll change my mind.” |
| April 5, 2020 | “FEMA, the military — what they’ve done is a miracle…And you should be thanking them for what they’ve done, not always asking wise-guy questions.” (Trump’s response to a reporter when asked about slow government response to coronavirus) |
| April 6, 2020 | “LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL!” |
| April 6, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 10,000 |
| April 7, 2020 | “So, you know, things are happening. It’s a — it’s — I haven’t seen bad. I’ve not seen bad.” |
| April 7, 2020 | 2020 “You are not going to die from this pill…I really think it’s a great thing to try.” (Trump promoting Hydroxychloroquine, not FDA approved to treat coronavirus) |
| April 7, 2020 | “That was a flu. OK. So you could say that I said it was a flu, or you could say the flu is nothing to — sneeze at,” (Regarding Spanish Flu) |
| April 8, 2020 | “I read about it maybe a day, two days ago,…It was a recommendation that he had, I think he told certain people on the staff, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t see it.” (Trump referring to Peter Navarro’s January warning) |
| April 9, 2020 | “I couldn’t have done it any better,” (When asked if his coronavirus response could have been better) |
| April 11, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 20,000 |
| April 13, 2020 | “But I guess I’m doing OK, because, to the best of my knowledge, I’m the President of the United States, despite the things that are said.” |
| April 14, 2020 | “Enough!” (When a reporter questioned his claim that his authority as president is “total”)…When somebody’s the president of the United States, the authority is total.” |
| April 15, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 30,000 (As Trump focuses on reopening, a leaked CDC and FEMA report warns of “significant risk of resurgence of the virus” with phased reopening.) |
| April 19, 2020 | “Now we’re going toward 50, I’m hearing, or 60,000 people (dead from the coronavirus)” |
| April 20, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 40,000 |
| April 23, 2020 | “I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.”…. “So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether its ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said, that hasn’t been checked but you’re gonna test it. And then I said, supposing it brought the light inside the body, which you can either do either through the skin or some other way…” |
| April 23, 2020 | Over 26 million jobless claims have been filed |
| April 24, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 50,000 |
| May 8, 2020 | “This is going to go away without a vaccine. It is going to go away. We are not going to see it again.”…“This is going to go away without a vaccine |
| May 11, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 80,000 |
| May 16, 2020 | “We’ve done a GREAT job on Covid response, making all Governors look good, some fantastic (and that’s OK), but the Lamestream Media doesn’t want to go with that narrative, and the Do Nothing Dems talking point is to say only bad about “Trump”. I made everybody look good, but me!” |
| May 18, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 90,000 |
| May 19, 2020 | “When we have a lot of cases, I don’t look at that as a bad thing, I look at that as, in a certain respect, as being a good thing,…Because it means our testing is much better. I view it as a badge of honor, really, it’s a badge of honor.” |
| May 22, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 100,000 |
| May 29, 2020 | “We will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization” |
| June 6, 2020 | U.S death toll passes 110,000 |
| June 18, 2020 | 2020 “And it is dying out. The numbers are starting to get very good.”…”Testing is a double-edged sword,…When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases, so I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.'” |
| June 22, 2020 | U.S death toll passes 120,000 |
| June 25, 2020 | “The number of ChinaVirus cases goes up, because of GREAT TESTING, while the number of deaths (mortality rate), goes way down. The Fake News doesn’t like telling you that!”…..“Coronavirus deaths are way down. Mortality rate is one of the lowest in the World. Our Economy is roaring back and will NOT be shut down. “Embers” or flare ups will be put out, as necessary!” |
| July 6, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 130,000 |
| July 7, 2020 | The president predicted that in the next two to four weeks, “I think we’re going to be in very good shape.” |
| July 18, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 140,000 |
| July 19, 2020 | “Many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day” “They have the sniffles, and we put it down as a test” |
| July 28, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 150,000 |
| Aug. 5, 2020 | “It will go away like things go away” |
| Aug. 16, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 170,000 |
| Sept. 4, 2020 | There will be a vaccine “before the end of the year and maybe even before Nov. 1. I think we can probably have it sometime in October.” |
| Sept. 16, 2020 | “If you take the blue states out, we’re at a level I don’t think anybody in the world would be at.” |
| Sept. 19, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 200,000 |
| Sept. 29, 2020 | “Well, so far we have had no problem whatsoever. ” [Trump referring to the thousands of people attending his rallies] |
| October 2, 2020 | Trump and the First Lady test positive for Coronavirus. More than a dozen White House staff and aides test positive shortly thereafter. |
| Oct. 30, 2020 | Nine million Americans have now been infected by the coronavirus. |
| Nov. 18, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 250,000 |
| Dec. 8, 2020 | Trump continues holding White House holiday parties despite guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to limit indoor gatherings and curtain travel amid the spike in virus infections. Masks are not required, according to guests. |
| Dec. 31, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 340,000 |
| January 20, 2021 | Trump’s term in office saw over 25 million confirmed cases, over 400,000 of which resulted in death. |