Mediaite reports:
“If you look at what we have done and all of the lives we saved,” Trump said, before showing an initial fatality projection of more than two million deaths if no mitigation measures would be taken. “We are below that. That was if we did a good job. If not so good, 1.5 million and two million. That’s quite a difference: two million. That’s quite a difference.”
But Trump then began to segregate out states by their 2016 presidential vote or governor’s party affiliation, not-so-subtly criticizing so-called Democratic states and suggesting the higher number of death rates here were the main cause of the country’s elevated fatality levels and were the only thing keeping the
“The blue states had tremendous death rates,” Trump, the President of the United States, said “If you take the blue states deaths out, we are at a level I don’t think anybody in the world would be at.”
Top 15 states: 8 run by Democrats, 7 run by Republicans https://t.co/mlFW5HhiQf pic.twitter.com/Xm9HL47Pua
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) September 16, 2020
The deaths in the blue states don’t count is one probably the sickest and most honest belief I’ve heard Trump express.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 16, 2020
Trump says that if you take out “blue states” from the death statistics, they’re much better. (He’s previously talked about removing New York in particular, which was itself ridiculous.)
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 16, 2020
Praising his own virus response as deaths near 200,000, Trump says, “if you take the blue states out, we’re at a level I don’t think anybody in the world would be at.” pic.twitter.com/ezAU5IJIcQ
— The American Independent (@AmerIndependent) September 16, 2020
Trump ludicrously claims that public health measures to slow the spread of coronavirus in blue states are “hurting people far more than the disease itself.” It’s like he’s trying to kill people. pic.twitter.com/uziJ8fIRw8
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 16, 2020
“Other than that, Mrs Lincoln very strongly enjoyed the play” https://t.co/5BgaRTrjfU
— Oliver Willis (@owillis) September 16, 2020