- Presidential historian Michael Beschloss told MSNBC that the legacy of President Donald Trump will always be linked to the catastrophic COVID-19 death toll in the US.
- “Donald Trump is not going to change the record. He was largely responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans who did not need to die,” Beschloss said.
- As of Wednesday, nearly 339,000 Americans had died from COVID-19 deaths under Trump’s supervision. This is the highest number of COVID-19 deaths in the world.
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Michael Beschloss, a leading presidential historian, said in an interview with MSNBC this week that historians will need time to fully assess the legacy of President Donald Trump, but that he will never be able to escape the COVID-19 death toll.
“Donald Trump is not going to change the record. He was largely responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans who did not need to die,” Beschloss said. “Millions of others who have suffered from covid do not have to suffer … It really is Nero’s fumble while Rome is on fire.”
The US has the highest number of reported COVID-19 cases and deaths in the world.
According to Johns Hopkins, there were more than 19.5 million confirmed COVID-19 cases on Wednesday morning, and according to Johns Hopkins, nearly 339,000 deaths due to the virus were reported in the US. Public health experts have consistently criticized Trump’s handling of the pandemic, claiming that a more coherent response from the president could have prevented tens of thousands of deaths.
Beschloss and Mehdi Hasan, who interviewed the historian during the host of MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes,” also excited Trump about his recent actions that nearly derailed the latest COVID-19 stimulus bill.
Trump has slowed economic aid to millions of Americans by initially refusing to sign a $ 900 billion COVID-19 stimulus package this month. The president said he wanted direct payments to be pushed from $ 600 to $ 2,000 as part of the legislation.
But Trump’s last-minute demands were against what his own secretary of state and Republican leaders in Congress were pushing for in long, tedious negotiations over the stimulus with Democrats. Critics of the president said he really needed the help of Americans to get cheap political points.
Beschloss said that presidents of the best rank, such as Abraham Lincoln, were known for their compassion and empathy. But Trump does not qualify in this regard, he said.
“Donald Trump is the kind of person we have never seen in the presidency, and I hope we will never see him again,” Beschloss said. “If you have a president who has no empathy, and who has no compassion, you see a spectacle like the one we saw this week.”
Watch the clip below:
—MSNBC (@MSNBC) 29 December 2020