'He choked like a dog': CNN panel pummels Trump for lying about COVID as 200,000 are dead
A CNN panel on Tuesday pummeled President Donald Trump for continuing to lie to his followers about the novel coronavirus even as the death toll in the United States hits 200,000.
During a panel discussion, CNN played a clip of Trump falsely claiming that the coronavirus only affects old people, despite the fact that thousands of people under the age of 65 have died from the disease.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, an epidemiologist based in Michigan, told CNN's Alisyn Camerota that Trump's lies aren't going to work on people who have lost family members to the disease.
"These people are dead," he said. "They left a hole in the hearts of their families and the people that they leave behind. To say that this disease doesn't affect anyone, virtually nobody, I think, just in keeping with that politicization. That's what he wishes, that's what he wants. And if you're a president who failed to act in the midst of the worst pandemic in over 100 years, you may just tell yourself that fib, but it doesn't make it true."
Reporter Abby Phillip had a similar take.
"I think it's really a president who is flailing to convince the American public that he has this situation under control," she said.
Camerota later in the panel chimed into to say that Trump himself would give any other leader who oversaw such mass death in his country a scathing review.
"If President Trump were critiquing this of any other leader and his job of trying to control this virus, he would say he choked," she said. "He choked like a dog."
Watch the video below.