Trump's Axios interview put his 'willful ignorance' on full display for the country: Ex-RNC official

In a column for the conservative Bulwark, the former spokesperson for the Republican National Committee said the interview Donald Trump participated in with Jonathan Swan of Axios should put to rest any doubts anyone might have had that the president is out of his depth.

Reacting to the interview done in conjunction with HBO, Tim Miller -- who is now an advisor to the Never Trumper Lincoln Project -- claimed the president's comments about the CoVID-19 pandemic and resulting U.S. death toll that has raced past 150,000 is a sign "Trump is fundamentally incapable of recognizing the true nature of what he calls the 'invisible enemy.'" 

In one stunning sequence the president and Swan go back and forth over the scale of deaths relative to population totals with the president unwilling -- or unable -- to comprehend the fact that the U.S. has a disproportionate number of COVID-19 infections.

According to Miller, the President was putting his "willful ignorance" on full display because he can't help himself.

"His malignant narcissism means that he is consumed by the need for constant praise. He is completely incapable of giving a shit about whether Americans are dying, since it’s so much less important than whether people are nice to him on TV," he wrote. "Then there’s the selective info he receives from his diet of Fox News propaganda, phone calls with random golfing buddies, and F-list aides who coddle him with happy talk and cherry-picked data."

Describing the COVID-19 sequence, Miller calling it "devastating " for the president.

"Trump thinks he has his interlocutor nailed when he provides charts that his staff has prepared about the percentage of COVID-19 deaths relative to the number of cases in the United States," Miller wrote. "On this largely worthless metric, the country appears to be doing well. Swan presses Trump on the more relevant metric, the number of deaths per capita and Trump is completely confused. He can’t even follow the premise of this very basic argument because he is an ignoramus who was either not prepped or simply refuses to acknowledge the troubling data provided to him."

You can read Miller's entire piece here as well as watch the exchange below.