MSNBC host Joy Reid has suggested that President Donald Trump faked his COVID-19 diagnosis to “get out of the debates.”
“Here’s how wrecked Trump’s credibility is at this point: I’ve got a cellphone full of texts from people who aren’t sure whether to believe Trump actually has covid. ‘He lies so much,’ one friend just texted. ‘Is he just doing this to get out of the debates?’ others are texting,” Reid wrote on Twitter shortly after word emerged that Trump had been diagnosed with the virus.
The host’s comments came after Tuesday’s debate, in which Trump repeatedly interrupted his opponent, Joe Biden, and moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News had a hard time keeping the faceoff on track. Many mainstream media outlets declared that Biden won the debate.
Critics blasted Reid after Trump was transported to Walter Reed Medical Center as his condition worsens. “65K likes on this one from a national primetime host. Aged well with the president now on his way to Walter Reed,” The Hill media reporter Joe Concha wrote.
65K likes on this one from a national primetime host. Aged well with the president now on his way to Walter Reed. https://t.co/4wf51ThXvC
— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) October 2, 2020
“Your friends are basically Qanon but from the left, I’m not sure you’re doing you or them any favors by broadcasting this to the world…” Fourth Watch media critic Steve Krakauer wrote.
Reid’s suggestion followed one from film director Michael Moore, who dropped a conspiracy theory that the president could be “lying about having COVID-19 to prepare us and counteract his game” and to “gain sympathy” before the Nov. 3 presidential election.
In a lengthy Facebook post, the documentary filmmaker cited former FBI Director James Comey and former special counsel Robert Mueller, whose probed alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia before the 2016 election.
“Democrats, liberals, the media and others have always been wrong to simply treat him as a buffoon and a dummy and a jackass. Yes, he is all those things. But he’s also canny. He’s clever. He outfoxed Comey. He outfoxed Mueller. He outfoxed 20 Republicans in the GOP primary and then did the same to the Democrats, winning the White House despite receiving fewer votes than his opponent,” Moore said on Friday.
“He’s an evil genius, and I raise the possibility of him lying about having COVID-19 to prepare us and counteract his game,” Moore said. “He knows being sick tends to gain one sympathy. He’s not above weaponizing this.”
Moore claimed in his Facebook post that Trump thinks “he’s losing the election” and that he “needs this” to win.
“He’s losing the election. And he knows it,” Moore wrote. “It’s not 2016. He was hated in 2016, but he’s hated even more now. Millions of Americans are ON FIRE and on the verge of serving him up a major league ass-whooping and a record landslide defeat.”
“So he needs — badly — to totally change the conversation about this campaign,” Moore added. “And he just has.”
Related: Michael Moore: Possible Trump ‘Lying About Having COVID-19’ To ‘Gain Sympathy’