- Update:–Trump’s actions exacerbated the pandemic that has killed more than 400,000 people in the United States in 2020, rolled back environmental and public-health regulations and undermined science and scientific institutions. The ex-president has lied about the dangers posed by the coronavirus and undermined efforts to contain it, some of the damage could take decades to recover from, some could be permanent.
- –June, 2021– The Biden administration returned to the Pentagon more than $2 billion in military funds that Ex-president Trump had diverted for border wall construction, denouncing the transfers away from the Defense Department as wasteful. The funds — the unspent balance of $3.6 billion in Pentagon construction funding reprogrammed during the Ex-president Trump administration — will now be used as originally intended, for over 60 projects at military installations in the U.S. and overseas.
I am just one of the thousands of American tourists within Puerto Vallarta. And even though I am here legally, roughly one million Americans live in Mexico illegally —but they do so in total comfort. Their presence is welcomed by the Mexican government, who turn a blind eye in return for the tourists’ steady and generous contributions to the Mexican economy.
Meanwhile, Mexican “tourists” in America languish in concentration camps where children are deliberately separated from their families and disease runs rampant. As a direct result of Trump’s child separation policy, seven children have died in the past year. No “tourist” had died in US custody in the previous ten years.
But let’s not let the rising body count distract us from the fact that American tourists are happy in Mexico. Americans are flocking to Mexico to buy property. Over 30 million Americans visited Mexico last year. In Mexico, the sun is shinier, the water is warmer, and the air is cleaner. But our Mexican neighbors are concerned about the large influx of Americans—especially due to the rise of coronavirus.
Trump has tried to cut funding to the CDC. Thankfully, because Congress controls funding, the CDC’s budget has actually increased, but it should be obvious that Trump poses a clear danger to our nation’s wellbeing. The US response to the threat of coronavirus has been disheartening. In Mexico, I am wholly unable to test myself to see if I have the virus.
The Mexican response has been unequivocal: “We want the wall.” The wall will ensure Trump’s foundering efforts to contain the virus remain America’s problem. The thousands who may die from the disease will remain America’s problem. The money spent on housing thousands of Mexicans in concentration camps? The prime example of America’s problem—a country that willingly spends millions on the incarceration of nonviolent tourists instead of preventing the spread of disease.
| Timeline: How Trump Handled The Pandemic, Damaged Science And The Economy | |
|---|---|
| May 2018 | The Trump Administration disbands the White House pandemic response team. |
| Oct 2019 | “Currently, there are insufficient funding sources designated for the federal government to use in response to a severe influenza pandemic.” |
| Jan. 22, 2020 | “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.” |
| Jan. 30, 2020 | “The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak on US soil,…This lack of protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.” [Memo from Trump Trade Advisor Peter Navarro] |
| Feb. 2, 2020 | “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.” |
| Feb.10, 2020 | “I think the virus is going to be—it’s going to be fine.” |
| Feb. 10, 2020 | “Looks like by April, you know in theory when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.” |
| Feb. 24, 2020 | “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… the Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” |
| Feb. 26, 2020 | 2020 “The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” |
| Feb. 26, 2020 | “We’re going very substantially down, not up.” |
| Feb. 26, 2020 | “Well, we’re testing everybody that we need to test. And we’re finding very little problem. Very little problem.” |
| Feb. 26, 2020 | “This is a flu. This is like a flu.” |
| Feb. 27, 2020 | “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” |
| Feb. 27, 2020 | “The ineptness with which the Trump Administration approached this problem is not only serious, it can be deadly if not changed in the approach.” – Rep. Lloyd Doggett During a hearing, Rep. Doggett questions HHS Sec. Azar on Trump’s refusal to take this virus seriously, warning about mask and test shortages |
| Feb. 28, 2020 | “We’re ordering a lot of supplies. We’re ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn’t be ordering unless it was something like this. But we’re ordering a lot of different elements of medical.” |
| March 2, 2020 | “A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.” |
| March 4, 2020 | “If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work — some of them go to work, but they get better.” |
| March 6, 2020 | “I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down.” |
| March 6, 2020 | “Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They’re there. And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.” |
| March 6, 2020 | “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.” |
| March 7, 2020 | “No, I’m not concerned at all. |
| March 10, 2020 | “Just stay calm. It will go away.” |
| March 12, 2020 | “The system is not really geared to what we need right now…That is a failing. Let’s admit it.” (Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to Congress) |
| March 12, 2020 | “You know, you see what’s going on. And so I just wanted that to stop as it pertains to the United States. And that’s what we’ve done. We’ve stopped it.” |
| March 13, 2020 | “I don’t take responsibility at all.” |
| March 14, 2020 | “I’d rate it a ten,” [Trump’s rating of his coronavirus response] |
| March 15, 2020 | “Relax…This is a very contagious virus. It’s incredible. But it’s something that we have tremendous control over.” |
| March 16, 2020 | “Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment-try getting it yourselves,” |
| March 17, 2020 | “The only thing we haven’t done well is get good press.” |
| March 17, 2020 | “I felt like it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” |
| March 19, 2020 | I intended “to always play it down.” (Trump in a private taped interview with Bob Woodward, made public on September 9) |
| March 20, 2020 | “I say that you’re a terrible reporter, that’s what I say. I think it’s a very nasty question, and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people.” (Response to reporter’s question: “What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?”) |
| March 24, 2020 | “They have to treat us well, also. They can’t say, ‘Oh, gee, we should get this, we should get that.’” |
| March 26, 2020 | The United States becomes the country with the most confirmed coronavirus cases. A title it keeps for the remainder of Trump’s time in office. |
| March 26, 2020 | “Congratulations AMERICA!” (On Senate passage of third relief bill) |
| March 26, 2020 | “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You go into major hospitals sometimes, and they’ll have two ventilators. And now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’” |
| March 27, 2020 | “I love Michigan, one of the reasons we are doing such a GREAT job for them during this horrible Pandemic. Yet your Governor, Gretchen “Half” Whitmer is way in over her head, she doesn’t have a clue. Likes blaming everyone for her own ineptitude!” |
| March 27, 2020 | “I want them to be appreciative. We’ve done a great job.” |
| March 27, 2020 | “We’re doing a great job for the state of Washington and I think the Governor…he’s constantly chirping and I guess complaining would be a nice way of saying it.” |
| March 29, 2020 | “Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door? How do you go from 10,000 to 300,000?” |
| March 29, 2020 | “Unfortunately the enemy is death. It’s death. A lot of people are dying. So it’s very unpleasant.” |
| March 30, 2020 | “I think New York should be fine, based on the numbers that we see, they should have more than enough. I mean, I’m hearing stories that they’re not used or they’re not used right.” |
| March 31, 2020 | “…it’s not the flu. It’s vicious.” |
| April 1, 2020 | “They have to treat us well, also. They can’t say, ‘Oh, gee, we should get this, we should get that.” (Trump’s response to governors who were pleading for medical gear and ventilators to treat surging coronavirus hospitalizations) |
| April 2, 2020 | “Massive amounts of medical supplies… are being delivered directly to states…Some have insatiable appetites & are never satisfied (politics?). The complainers should have been stocked up and ready long before this crisis hit.” |
| April 3, 2020 | “I’m feeling good. I just don’t want to be doing — somehow sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful resolute desk, the great resolute desk, I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don’t know, somehow I don’t see it for myself. I just don’t. Maybe I’ll change my mind.” |
| April 5, 2020 | “FEMA, the military — what they’ve done is a miracle…And you should be thanking them for what they’ve done, not always asking wise-guy questions.” (Trump’s response to a reporter when asked about slow government response to coronavirus) |
| April 6, 2020 | “LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL!” |
| April 6, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 10,000 |
| April 7, 2020 | “So, you know, things are happening. It’s a — it’s — I haven’t seen bad. I’ve not seen bad.” |
| April 7, 2020 | 2020 “You are not going to die from this pill…I really think it’s a great thing to try.” (Trump promoting Hydroxychloroquine, not FDA approved to treat coronavirus) |
| April 7, 2020 | “That was a flu. OK. So you could say that I said it was a flu, or you could say the flu is nothing to — sneeze at,” (Regarding Spanish Flu) |
| April 8, 2020 | “I read about it maybe a day, two days ago,…It was a recommendation that he had, I think he told certain people on the staff, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t see it.” (Trump referring to Peter Navarro’s January warning) |
| April 9, 2020 | “I couldn’t have done it any better,” (When asked if his coronavirus response could have been better) |
| April 11, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 20,000 |
| April 13, 2020 | “But I guess I’m doing OK, because, to the best of my knowledge, I’m the President of the United States, despite the things that are said.” |
| April 14, 2020 | “Enough!” (When a reporter questioned his claim that his authority as president is “total”)…When somebody’s the president of the United States, the authority is total.” |
| April 15, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 30,000 (As Trump focuses on reopening, a leaked CDC and FEMA report warns of “significant risk of resurgence of the virus” with phased reopening.) |
| April 19, 2020 | “Now we’re going toward 50, I’m hearing, or 60,000 people (dead from the coronavirus)” |
| April 20, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 40,000 |
| April 23, 2020 | “I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.”…. “So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether its ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said, that hasn’t been checked but you’re gonna test it. And then I said, supposing it brought the light inside the body, which you can either do either through the skin or some other way…” |
| April 23, 2020 | Over 26 million jobless claims have been filed |
| April 24, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 50,000 |
| May 8, 2020 | “This is going to go away without a vaccine. It is going to go away. We are not going to see it again.”…“This is going to go away without a vaccine |
| May 11, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 80,000 |
| May 16, 2020 | “We’ve done a GREAT job on Covid response, making all Governors look good, some fantastic (and that’s OK), but the Lamestream Media doesn’t want to go with that narrative, and the Do Nothing Dems talking point is to say only bad about “Trump”. I made everybody look good, but me!” |
| May 18, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 90,000 |
| May 19, 2020 | “When we have a lot of cases, I don’t look at that as a bad thing, I look at that as, in a certain respect, as being a good thing,…Because it means our testing is much better. I view it as a badge of honor, really, it’s a badge of honor.” |
| May 22, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 100,000 |
| May 29, 2020 | “We will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization” |
| June 6, 2020 | U.S death toll passes 110,000 |
| June 18, 2020 | 2020 “And it is dying out. The numbers are starting to get very good.”…”Testing is a double-edged sword,…When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases, so I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.'” |
| June 22, 2020 | U.S death toll passes 120,000 |
| June 25, 2020 | “The number of ChinaVirus cases goes up, because of GREAT TESTING, while the number of deaths (mortality rate), goes way down. The Fake News doesn’t like telling you that!”…..“Coronavirus deaths are way down. Mortality rate is one of the lowest in the World. Our Economy is roaring back and will NOT be shut down. “Embers” or flare ups will be put out, as necessary!” |
| July 6, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 130,000 |
| July 7, 2020 | The president predicted that in the next two to four weeks, “I think we’re going to be in very good shape.” |
| July 18, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 140,000 |
| July 19, 2020 | “Many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day” “They have the sniffles, and we put it down as a test” |
| July 28, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 150,000 |
| Aug. 5, 2020 | “It will go away like things go away” |
| Aug. 16, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 170,000 |
| Sept. 4, 2020 | There will be a vaccine “before the end of the year and maybe even before Nov. 1. I think we can probably have it sometime in October.” |
| Sept. 16, 2020 | “If you take the blue states out, we’re at a level I don’t think anybody in the world would be at.” |
| Sept. 19, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 200,000 |
| Sept. 29, 2020 | “Well, so far we have had no problem whatsoever. ” [Trump referring to the thousands of people attending his rallies] |
| October 2, 2020 | Trump and the First Lady test positive for Coronavirus. More than a dozen White House staff and aides test positive shortly thereafter. |
| Oct. 30, 2020 | Nine million Americans have now been infected by the coronavirus. |
| Nov. 18, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 250,000 |
| Dec. 8, 2020 | Trump continues holding White House holiday parties despite guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to limit indoor gatherings and curtain travel amid the spike in virus infections. Masks are not required, according to guests. |
| Dec. 31, 2020 | U.S. death toll passes 340,000 |
| January 20, 2021 | Trump’s term in office saw over 25 million confirmed cases, over 400,000 of which resulted in death. |