Anderson Cooper eviscerates ‘deserter’ Donald Trump over preposterous ‘wartime president’ claim
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper tore into the president
The increasingly-exasperated CNN anchor Anderson Cooper has shut down Donald Trump’s claim to be a “wartime president.”
At the start of the pandemic, Trump repeatedly likened himself to the presidents who oversaw literal wars, telling reporters: “I’m looking at it that way… I view it as, in a sense, a wartime president.”
The claims feel a long time ago, given the leader’s months-long record of downplaying the pandemic and seeking to avert any major action against it.
On his show on Monday (7 December), Cooper reflected on the 79th anniversary of Pearl Harbour, noting that the daily death toll from COVID is now nearly as high as the total killed in the tragedy that spurred the US entry into the Second World War.
Anderson Cooper: President is AWOL in fight against COVID
He lamented: “That’s nearly one Pearl Harbour every 24 hours. By April of next year, the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projects the pandemic will have killed upwards of 100,000 more people in this country than all the American troops killed in three and a half years at the Second World War, more than half a million dead.
“President Trump is the one who likened this to a war. He called himself in fact a wartime president. That was a long time ago. Those were in the days when he wanted to be seen as a commander in chief leading the effort, when he took over the coronavirus press briefings and then stopped listening to the doctors who actually knew what they were doing.
“Now, the president doesn’t seem concerned about being a wartime commander. If anything, he seems more like a deserter. He’s absent.”
“The American people have given him leave voting him out of the ballot box but he still has some weeks left. He has chosen to go AWOL.”
“He’s declined to join the fight against COVID. He’s not rallying anyone to wear masks, he’s not talking about our dead, our hurt, our fear. It has been that way for months I know, but it is particularly galling giving given so many of us are now sick and dying. ”
CNN anchor tears into White House: ‘They just don’t care anymore’
He continued: “On Friday, the president signed an order, proclaiming today National Pearl Harbour Remembrance Day.
“It reads in part, ‘We solemnly honour and uphold the memory of the patriots who lost their lives that day.’ He had nothing to say, however, about the 2,879 Americans reported dead in this country of COVID.
“How many of them might have survived if more had been done if more of us were mass socially does social distance, if the president really was a wartime commander.”
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper reflected on Pearl Harbour
Cooper added: “He and the people around him just don’t care anymore. They are looking for other jobs, as we’ve been reporting, looking to see how they can maybe salvage what’s left of the reputations.
“The president is certainly pondering his next moves, and raking in a whole lot of money to let him use as he’d like, by claiming it’s going to be for his battle against the election fraud that never was.”
