In his ‘Keeping Them Honest' segment on Tuesday night, Anderson Cooper blasted Donald Trump for his ridiculous assertion to Greta van Susteren that the U.S. is “in a good place” when it comes to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Does that sound like reality, that we're in a good place?” asked Anderson. “Those are his actual words. I didn't actually believe it when I first heard it, but it's on tape.”
“California, Hawaii, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma and Texas on Tuesday shattered their previous daily record highs for new cases,” Reuters reports. “The biggest jumps occurred in Texas and California, the two largest U.S. states, with more than 10,000 each.”
Yet Trump proclaimed he's ready to open schools.
“The man whose every decision is based on what will get him reelected, what will energize his base and appeal to people's most primal fears, is saying that governors and school officials don't want schools open because of politics, because it benefits them politically.” said Anderson.
“We're so deep down a well of lies it's hard to realize how dark this is,” Anderson continued. “There is no political benefit keeping schools closed and kids upset and parents angry and parents unable to work because their kids are stuck at home. Oh, yeah, politically that's going to serve you really well by doing that.”
Added Anderson: “Even as new modeling from the University of Washington today forecasts 208,000 people in this country may be dead of COVID-19 by Election Day. Which the president still does not seem to think is all that bad. Because he is still repeating the same falsehoods as ever about testing and mortality, which fell for a while, but is once again sadly, sickeningly, ticking up.”
Anderson then highlighted a statement from Trump on deaths, testing, and schools: “We have more cases because we're doing more testing. We have more cases. If we did half the testing, we'd have far fewer cases but people don't view it that way. What they have to view, though, is if you look at the chart … if you look at the chart of deaths, deaths are way down. What we want to do is get our schools open. We want to get them open quickly, beautifully in the fall.”
Anderson then pointed out Mike Pence's complicity in all this.
“Dr. Fauci calls the mortality claims a false narrative. And in any case, those numbers, they had begun rising. More than 600 fatalities compared to 250 a day over the weekend, but the vice president nodded, of course, and agreed, and praised the president for his leadership, because that's what he does, and he tried to spin the president's lie about 99 percent of COVID cases being ‘totally harmless.'”
Said Pence: “Look, the American people know President Trump is an optimist and believes in this country and believes the American people deserve to have the whole story.”
“What does that even mean?” Anderson gasped. “The president doesn't want you to know the whole story. If he wanted you to know the whole story, he wouldn't have stopped the virus task force daily briefings and silenced Dr. Fauci and others from appearing on television like he used to. He wouldn't claim that we are in a good place. President Trump is not an optimist, like the vice president is claiming, he's a fabulist. The president can call a ‘lie' a ‘hope,' but it doesn't make it so. It's lipstick on a pig, Mr. Vice President. The American people, they do deserve the whole story. They deserve the whole truth, as well.”
