News of President Trump’s positive coronavirus test has drawn out critics who have eagerly jumped on his plight to launch attacks, mock, and lecture him.
The President announced his diagnosis, and that of First Lady Melania Trump, just after midnight on Friday.
“Tonight, [Melania] and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately,” he tweeted. “We will get through this TOGETHER!”
The First Lady also gave an update:
As too many Americans have done this year, @potus & I are quarantining at home after testing positive for COVID-19. We are feeling good & I have postponed all upcoming engagements. Please be sure you are staying safe & we will all get through this together.
— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) October 2, 2020
Most people sent well-wishes to the President, his wife, and White House aide Hope Hicks, who had tested positive for COVID-19 earlier on Thursday.
And yet, there were some fairly prominent influencers on social media who seized on the opportunity to jeer the President, believing in some ways that he is responsible for his own sickness.
RELATED: President Trump And First Lady Melania Test Positive For COVID-19
Critics Seize Opportunity to Mock President Trump Over Positive Coronavirus Test
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said the news was “very sad” but didn’t miss the opportunity to lecture President Trump.
“This is tragic, it’s very sad, but it also is something that going into crowds, unmasked, and all the rest, was sort of a brazen invitation for this to happen,” she said.
“Maybe now that people who see the president of the United States, with all the protection he has … still having this exposure … it might be, as you say, a learning experience.”
Speaker Pelosi says Pres. Trump’s behavior during pandemic “was a brazen invitation for something like this to happen,” adds that his positive test is “very sad” and that she’s “nonetheless hopeful that it will be a transition to a saner approach to what this virus is all about.” pic.twitter.com/mLHDag0kBe
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) October 2, 2020
Others chimed in, such as Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) who claimed that Trump still would refuse to wear a mask because “he only cares about himself and his life, NOT those around him or the people he took an oath to protect.”
He still won’t wear a mask.
He only cares about himself and his life, NOT those around him or the people he took an oath to protect.
Too many lives lost because of his deadly lies.
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) October 2, 2020
Earlier this week, President Trump pulled a mask from his jacket pocket at the debate to show he wears them “when needed.”
“I think masks are okay … I mean, I have a mask right here. I put a mask on when I think I need it,” he said. “Tonight, as an example, everybody’s had a test and you’ve had social distancing and all of the things that you have to, but I wear masks.”
Never-Trumper George Conway, husband of top White House aide Kellyanne Conway, also chastised the President.
“He failed to protect the country. He couldn’t even protect himself,” he wrote.
He failed to protect the country.
He couldn’t even protect himself.
— George Conway (@gtconway3d) October 2, 2020
RELATED: Chris Wallace Blames The President For Debate Disaster, Trump Responds On Twitter
More Hate For the President
The absolute moral decay on Twitter went even further.
Greg Pinelo, a Democratic strategist and former Obama ad maker, suggested Trump should relinquish his role as Commander in Chief.
“We know COVID can have significant effects on cognition. Donald Trump’s was already compromised,” he wrote. “He CANNOT remain in command of our military and nuclear arsenal.”
We know COVID can have significant effects on cognition. Donald Trump’s was already compromised. He CANNOT remain in command of our military and nuclear arsenal.
— Greg Pinelo (@gregpinelo) October 2, 2020
CNN anchor Don Lemon asked if the positive coronavirus test should be a “reckoning.”
Left-wing radio host Kyle Kulinski joked that the President was “popping hydroxychloroquine like skittles right now” and that getting COVID was a deep-state attack.
Trump is def popping hydroxychloroquine like skittles right now
— Secular Talk (@KyleKulinski) October 2, 2020
Actor Dominic West, best known for his role in The Wire, could hardly contain his glee.
Kate Garraway – Did you have an instinctive reaction when you heard Donald Trump had contracted coronavirus?
Dominic West – “Well I did slightly leap in the air with joy when I heard”#GMB pic.twitter.com/d2tqM3zyhR
— Haggis_UK ?? ?? (@Haggis_UK) October 2, 2020
Popular liberal Toure joined the fun:
What a despicable tweet from this former MSNBC co-host and contributor in response to Maddow’s tweet asking for her followers to pray for President Trump and the First Lady. pic.twitter.com/QEvd6Let4s
— Cameron Cawthorne (@Cam_Cawthorne) October 2, 2020
As did a former member of Elizabeth Warren’s campaign:
Trump did this to himself. He inflicted this same misfortune upon millions of others.
He’s a corrupt, white supremacist criminal who’s responsible for more American deaths than 9/11 and the wars in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq and WWI combined.
No one should feel bad for him.
— Popular Front 2020 (@maxberger) October 2, 2020
President Obama’s self-described “former healthcare head” didn’t want to be left out, either:
He must be quarantining because he doesn’t want to pass the hoax on to anyone else.
— Andy Slavitt @ ? (@ASlavitt) October 2, 2020
The media made some errors as well.
The Washington Post removed a tweet promoting op-ed column featuring a headline that read, “Imagine what it would be like to never have to think about President Trump again.”
The Post has removed a tweet pictured below, which was written Thursday and released through an automated program, because the subsequent news of President Trump’s infection rendered it tasteless. pic.twitter.com/yVsocNl2MG
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) October 2, 2020
The column was coincidentally written about Trump being voted out of office, however, and not about his positive coronavirus test.
Perhaps the most despicable example of Trump Derangement Syndrome can be seen in a since-deleted tweet by Zara Rahim, a former spokesperson for Hillary Clinton.
“It’s been against my moral identity to tweet this for the last four years, but I hope he dies,” she wrote according to Yahoo News.
Former CNN host Piers Morgan called the message “shocking [and] shameful.”
Shocking & shameful.
This now deleted tweet was the reaction to President Trump testing positive for Covid-19 from @ZaraRahim – former Obama White House staffer and Hillary Clinton’s former 2016 National Spokeswoman. pic.twitter.com/FKYGGPfWf9— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) October 2, 2020
Morgan took the anti-Trump left to task over their behavior.
“Interesting to see those who’ve spent the last few years screaming that Trump’s an uncaring, heartless empathy-devoid b*stard now spewing their gleeful joy that he [and] his wife have a deadly virus,” he railed.
“They’re no better than the man they loathe.”
