President Trump and his surrogates are entering the crucial final stretch of the 2020 campaign insisting that the COVID-19 pandemic is on the retreat, even as the virus wreaks renewed havoc across the country.
In a blitz of well-attended campaign rallies in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota on Friday, Trump pressed the dubious case that the country’s “rounding the corner” of the pandemic and even floated the baseless charge that the U.S. death toll — which now tops 229,000 — is somehow inflated.
“Our doctors get more money if someone dies from COVID. You know that, right? I mean, our doctors are very smart people,” Trump said in Waterford Township, Mich., drawing laughs from a large crowd of supporters. “What they do is they say, ‘I’m sorry, but, you know, everybody dies of COVID’ … With us, when in doubt, choose COVID.”
There’s no evidence that the U.S. death toll is overstated, and public health experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, have repeatedly debunked the idea as a conspiracy theory.
But that hasn’t stopped Trump and his allies.
Donald Trump, Jr., the president’s oldest son, took the pandemic denialism a step further than his father on Thursday night.
“The number is almost nothing, because we’ve gotten control of this thing,” Trump, Jr., said of the U.S. coronavirus death toll during an appearance on Fox News, in which he also called medical experts “morons” for warning of a second COVID-19 wave.
More than 1,000 Americans died from the virus on the same day Trump’s son made those remarks, and the total number of infections in the U.S. soared above 9 million.
Joe Biden, who retains a slight lead over Trump in nearly all national polls heading into the last weekend before Election Day, urged supporters Friday to ignore the “lies” from the president’s team.
“Unlike Donald Trump, we will not surrender to this virus,” Biden said during a socially-distanced drive-in rally in Des Moines, Iowa.
“Folks, only four days left,” he continued. “In the final days, please keep your sense of empowerment. Keep your sense of optimism of what we can do together.”
The flurry of competing campaign activity comes as more than 80 million Americans have already voted early, either in person or by mail — an all-time record propelled by massive turnout among registered Democrats. Election experts predict that the total turnout for Tuesday’s election could dwarf any presidential contest since the 1950s.
Beyond his advantage in national polls, Biden trumps the president in surveys of several key battlegrounds, including Wisconsin, a state Trump won by a razor-thin margin in 2016.
An ABC News/Washington Post poll released earlier this week put Biden a whopping 17% ahead of Trump in the Badger State.
But Trump told voters during his second Friday rally in Green Bay, Wisc., that he doesn’t trust the polls.
“I don’t know how the hell I can be tied with this guy,” Trump said, referencing other surveys that have shown a tighter race. “He is shot, it’s absurd.”
Wisconsin has seen a particularly dramatic spike in COVID-19 infection rates this month, and Trump’s poor marks in the state are tied to voters’ distaste for his repeated downplaying of the pandemic.
Nonetheless, the Trump campaign allowed thousands of supporters to pack closely together for Friday’s rallies. Many supporters did not wear masks or socially distance in violation of federal COVID-19 guidelines.
Trump, who caught the virus himself earlier this month, hasn’t encouraged his supporters to follow his administration’s COVID-19 recommendations.
During Friday’s Michigan rally, Trump even mocked Fox News host Laura Ingraham for showing up to the event wearing a mask.
“I can’t recognize you. Is that a mask? No way, are you wearing a mask? I’ve never seen her in a mask,” he said. “Look at you, Laura. She’s being very politically correct. Whoa! Whoa!”
