THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE: Megyn Kelly Asks Trump a Few Hard Questions. Trump has no good answers about his disastrous Covid response. He dodges Kelly’s questions and makes ridiculous accusations against DeSantis and ridiculous assertions (like claiming credit for saving 100 million lives). And he keeps pretending that he administration wasn’t pushing lockdowns and masks by allowing Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx to set administration policy. (Birx bragged about conning Trump into extended lockdowns.)
Covid was by far the biggest test Trump faced as president, and he flunked it. Not as badly as Biden, of course, but that’s a low bar. Jeffrey Tucker sets the record straight:
When Megyn Kelly pointed out that Trump made Fauci a star, he asked “You think so?” and then feigned a brief moment of internal reflection.
There ought to be some other phrase than “rewriting history.” This is Orwellian gaslighting on a different level, as if Trump truly believes that he can reconstruct reality based on what he wants to be true rather than what everyone knows to be true and all facts point to as true.
There are so many questions crying out for answers. In this interview, however, he says that he left it up to the states under a federalist idea. This is the line bandied about in Mar-a-Lago and no one around him dares question it.
It is demonstrably untrue. The one state that stayed almost entirely open – South Dakota – was in defiance of the White House in doing so. The first state to open up after that was Georgia under Governor Kemp, whom Trump blasted for the decision. Moreover, Trump has repeatedly bragged about how he shut down the country, as if that makes him awesome.
Even his discussion of which governors did well is disingenuous. The sole basis of his reasoning is a loyalty test, detached from the substance of Covid policies. He celebrates South Dakota’s Kristi Noem and South Carolina’s Henry McMaster because they have endorsed him for the 2024 election. Meanwhile, he derides the two governors who received the most backlash for opening up their states, Georgia’s Brian Kemp and Florida’s Ron DeSantis.
Read the whole thing.