Columnist Charles Blow issues reality-check about 'killer' Trump

New York Times columnist Charles Blow authored a reality-check about President Donald Trump's decision to pretend like the coronavirus is gone.

In his Thursday column, Blow noted that things must be bad if the European Union is banning Americans from coming into their countries because they will likely spread COVID-19.

“Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away," Trump said in February. As the U.S. enters a hot summer, the virus has grown to reach new records.

"Trump has consistently been resistant to testing, falsely claiming that an increase in testing is somehow linked to an increase in cases. But in fact, the more you test, the more you are able to control the virus by identifying, isolating and treating the infected, thereby reducing the spread of the virus. Testing is how you reduce your cases. It is also how you save lives," Blow wrote.

Still, Trump has convinced himself that if he can reduce the number of tests in the country then numbers will decrease. In fact, it will make things worse, with people being forced into hospitals if they can't get tested.

"What Trump is truly saying here is, let people get sick without proper surveillance," Blow explained. "He is saying, let them suffer out of sight. He is saying, some will die, but so what. He is saying vulnerable Americans are collateral damage in his image-making and re-election bid."

If there was to be a testing slowdown, more would get the virus, spread the virus and more would die. Taking medical advice from Trump isn't exactly the best idea, anyway. It was just months ago that he suggested people inject disinfectant into their bodies to fight the virus or somehow insert a disinfecting light source in their body to kill the virus. Cases of poisoning then increased around the U.S.

Then the president decided he was a pharmacist and was prescribing hydroxychloroquine without it being researched or sending it through clinical trials. The drug was ultimately found to have no effect and those who took it were discovered to develop an irregular heart rhythm, putting them in greater danger while fighting COVID-19.

Trump then lied about the stockpile of ventilators, claiming former President Barack Obama hadn't left any ventilators. In fact, 16,660 ventilators were available for use when Trump took office and when states started begging for help in March. Thus far, Trump has only distributed 10,760 of the ventilators, and states have had to figure out their own solutions.

Blow said that this doesn't even begin to explain away Trump being seemingly too afraid of using the Defense Production Act to quickly garner the necessary supplies while creating jobs at the same time.

"Trump then pressured states to reopen economically even before those states met the administration’s own guidelines for reopening. Now, many of the states that quickly reopened, no doubt in part to please the president, are the same ones in which cases are rising and more people than necessary are dying," wrote Blow. "Trump has even mocked the wearing of masks, which experts say is a proven way to reduce virus transmission."

The president held his first mask-free rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma last weekend, giving eight staffers the coronavirus. Dozens of Secret Service agents have been pulled out of rotation from work because of their exposure. Oklahoma experienced the largest number of COVID-19 cases in the two days leading up to the rally. Tuesday he held another mask-option event with screaming fans in Arizona, which is one of the worst places in the country suffering from the virus.

"It seems that in every possible way, Trump has willfully and arrogantly put more Americans at risk of getting sick and dying, and the results have been inevitable: More Americans got sick and died," wrote Blow. "There is no way to remove Trump’s culpability in this. If your feeble effort saves two lives when an earnest, robust, science-driven effort would have saved four, are you not responsible for the two deaths?"

It all made Blow wonder why Trump isn't being labeled a killer of American citizens from his "negligence, ignorance and incompetence?"