CNN host Jake Tapper excoriated President Donald Trump for what he characterized as his failed leadership amid the coronavirus during CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
“Many Americans are likely feeling both sympathy and anger today, emotions that don’t necessarily mix well,” Tapper began. “Sympathy for all of those suffering, including President Trump, who remains at Walter Reed Medical Center. But also anger because so much — so much of all this pain could have been avoided.”
“So many of us since March have been doing everything we can to preserve the health of not only ourselves and our families, but our communities, our neighbors, you,” Tapper continued. “Social distancing, wearing masks, holding events remotely, weddings have been canceled, jobs lost, children are missing out on in-person education, and their ability to see friends. It’s a real crisis. It’s going to leave scars. ”
“208,000 Americans have died,” Tapper pointed out. “Thousands of Americans have lost loved ones without being able to properly mourn or even say good-bye. But we’re in the middle of a once in century pandemic. Health experts say this is what we need to do in order to get to the other side.”
“Regardless of the sympathy we may feel, we also know the president has been undermining these efforts, expressing disdain for health regulations and those who abide by them.”
Tapper then played a clip of Trump scoffing at a reporter for wanting to be “politically correct” for wearing a mask during a May 26 press conference in the Rose Garden.
WATCH:
CNN’s @jaketapper: “Sick and in isolation, Mr. President, you have become a symbol of your own failures. Failures of recklessness, ignorance, arrogance. The same failures you have been inflicting on the rest of us … Get well and get it together" #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/XXA5uC91Ea
— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) October 4, 2020
Tapper continued:
The Americans who don’t listen to science or medicine who think masks are too intrusive, who pack bars, who willfully risk spreading the virus, you are making it worse for all of us. You are extending how long this pandemic will last. And it is tragic to say, many, if not most, of you are taking your cues from the leader of the free world.
Last weekend at an event held both inside and outside but with no masks required and no distancing President Trump introduced his Supreme Court nominee. So far, at least eight attendees of that event have tested positive for the virus.
Look at Senator Mike Lee at this event. My God. How are future generations going to try to make sense of these images of the Republican leaders of the nation acting like this during a once in a century pandemic with more than 200,000 Americans dead?
I wish everyone of these leaders, Senator Lee, President Trump, Kellyanne Conway, Chris Christie, I wish you all a full and speedy recovery. But do you not see? It’s not just through failed leadership or setting bad examples. You are all now literally risking spreading the virus yourselves.
The president and his team have been behaving as if the pandemic is over. This callous indifference to the wellbeing of the citizens the president swore to protect, it’s no longer just theoretical, it’s no longer well, they might get the virus.
After finding out Hope Hicks, a top aide with whom the president had been in close contact, after learning she was sick with the virus and actually showing symptoms, the president flew to a fundraiser in New Jersey and mingled.
Did anyone in the White House or on the Trump campaign consider at all the housekeepers and bartenders at Bedminster, the naval aviators who flew them there on Air Force One, the young interns or old donors with whom the president came in contact? Anyone? Anyone at all?
I wish you all health and recovery and a long life, but we have to note the tragedy here. It is horrible and awful and profound.
Sick and in isolation, Mr. President, you have become a symbol of your own failures. Failures of recklessness, ignorance, arrogance. The same failures you have been inflicting on the rest of us.
Get well, and please, for the rest of us who don’t get to go to Walter Reed, get well and get it together.
Related: Media Figures Mock, Attack Trump For Getting COVID-19: ‘He Couldn’t Even Protect Himself’