The blame for the second spike of the coronavirus that the US is currently enduring can be squarely laid on Donald Trump, said an ex-speechwriter for former US President George W Bush.
“The first coronavirus spike, in late April, can be blamed on President Donald Trump’s negligence. The second spike, in June, is his own doing,” David Frum argued Monday in a new column for The Atlantic, where he now works as a senior editor.
“This is Trump’s plague now,” he added.
Frum noted how the earlier sacrifices made by people mandated to stay-at-home for weeks had now been thrown away with the premature reopening of the country for the sake of economy, without the proper safety measures in place to combat the spread of the contagion.
What “has happened in the US in June, and what will happen in July, is entirely Trump’s fault,” said Frum.
“This time, though, reality will not be blustered away,” he continued. “Tens of thousands are dead, and millions are out of work, all because Trump could not and would not do the job of disease control—a job that includes setting a positive example to those Americans who trust and follow his leadership.”
“How lethal will this new peak be? We will learn that the way we seem to learn everything in this era of Trump: the hard way,” Frum concluded.