Analyst:

Trump a bigger ‘serial liar’ than his predecessors

US President Donald Trump has lied about the country’s full readiness to combat the novel coronavirus, an American political analyst says, adding that he is a bigger “serial liar” than his predecessors.

News ID: 449349

Date: 29 February 2020 - 10:37

RNA - Stephen Lendman, a political commentator from the US state of Massachusetts, made the remark in a phone interview with Press TV on Friday, while commenting on a Trump’s claim that the United States is “way ahead” on coronavirus response due to his administration’s actions taken to contain the disease.

In a tweet earlier in the day, Trump said the "Do Nothing Democrats" were placing blame on him and countered that the virus was spreading "very slowly in the US because President Trump closed our border, and ended flights, VERY EARLY."

This is while the US authorities are facing growing criticism for not doing enough to prevent the widespread outbreak of the flue-like pathogen, known as COVID-19.

“I've said time and again and I repeat it again now. Ignore what politicians say, follow only what they do; and what they do time and again is vastly different than what they say they'll do, which means they're liars,” Lendman told Press TV.

“I can't remember any of the US official at any level being more of a serial liar than Trump and that's a big statement because [former President Barack] Obama was a serial liar, maybe more egregiously than any of his predecessors, and Trump easily trumped him,” Lendman added.

“The US is very, very unready. Public health programs, budgets for public health programs have been slashed in each of the three years he's been in office, including to the various agencies of government that deal with things like a potential outbreak of an epidemic. The COVID-19 virus is not at an epic epidemic in the US, not anywhere else except China. But it certainly has the potential to become an epidemic and a pandemic. Instead of being ready for this, the US is not ready. The only thing the US can do is try very hard to catch up, which takes time,” the American political analyst went on to say.

Lendman underlined that the administration in Washington needed to follow what China is doing in the face of the deadly epidemic, saying, “China is the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis. It's performing heroically to contain it, providing free testing and free treatment for anyone infected in the US. Trump should come out and say, the US will provide free testing and free health care for anybody infected and literally throwing the unlimited resources, unlimited financial resources of the US against this issue to tackle it before it potentially becomes an epidemic. That's what a responsible administration would do but he's not doing it.”

In a news conference on Wednesday, Trump said the risk from the virus was “very low” in the United States, a claim that was denounced by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a "little incoherent."

More than 81,000 cases of COVID-19, an illness characterized by fever and coughing and in serious cases shortness of breath or pneumonia, have occurred since the new virus emerged in China.

The total number infected in the US reached 60 on Thursday, most of them evacuated from outbreak zones.

The new coronavirus has killed at least 2,800 — most in China— but scientists still don’t understand who’s most at risk or what the actual death rate is.

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