Trump's 'incompetence, ignorance and dishonesty' over coronavirus is worse than the impeachment scandal: columnist

On Monday, writing for The Daily Beast, columnist Irwin Redlener argued that President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic is a bigger and more consequential than the events that led to his impeachment — and should be treated as such.

"Donald Trump and his administration did not create the worst biological threat that the world has experienced in more than 100 years, but the American president’s incompetence, ignorance and dishonesty in handling this crisis has been stunning," wrote Redlener. "One hundred and twenty-seven thousand Americans are dead already, and that number will continue to rise."

Redlener then outlined what he suggested as six “Articles of Incompetence, Ignorance and Dishonesty” that are more serious than the Ukraine scandal, in which he and his allies allegedly tried to extort a foreign president into announcing an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden and his family.

The first article, Redlener wrote, is "Dismantling of a working group established by President Obama after the Ebola outbreak in 2014 to help prevent or manage future epidemics or pandemics—in spite of Trump’s own experts’ warning that a pandemic was entirely possible."

The second, "Inexplicable failure to create reliable, widespread testing to look for cases of COVID-19 early in the outbreak when we really needed to know where the virus was, understand its prevalence and track its trajectory."

The third, "Deliberate deception of the American people by reassuring them, against all expert opinion, that the pandemic was totally under control in February, March and April and suggesting that the coming of Easter—or perhaps warm weather—would result in a miraculous disappearance of the outbreak."

The fourth, "Practicing medicine without a license by (a) repeatedly promoting Hydroxychloroquine as a drug he said would prevent and/ or treat SARS-CoV-2, but which can actually result in lethal heart disease, and (b) public musing about injecting bleach or bodily insertion of ultraviolet light as COVID-19 remedies."

"The fifth, "Repeatedly lying to the American people about the severity and extent of the pandemic, the amount of testing being done by the U.S. and the idea that it was safe to open U.S. businesses."

And finally, the sixth: "The unconscionable politicization of a lethal public health crisis for the purposes of supporting his own re-election."

Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic has been broadly rejected by voters, which has contributed to a decline of the president in the polls.

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