"You may ask about the coronavirus, which is very well under control in our country."
"The people are getting better. They're all getting better."
"There is a very good chance that you're not going to die. It's just the opposite. You're talking about one or two percent; whereas in the other case [ebola], it was a virtual hundred percent."
"They have studied it [coronavirus], they know very much. In fact, we are very close to a vaccine."
This is from a press conference that Trump spoke at in India in February 2020. I will never claim, as many others do, to know what thoughts or feelings guided Trump's actions throughout the plandemic. I can only speculate and draw conclusions based upon what I know. Trump usually says that is is HE who deserves credit for the COVID-19 vaccines, but he has at times said that "we" did this. In a way, he is right. Where do you think the billions of dollars that were given to vaccine manufacturers to fast-track that vaccine came from? And do you think that the trillions spent on stimulus to address our country's shutdown was "free money?" No. Just as it is with our elections, our government screwed us over and then sent us the bill. Though we were never asked, that was our part in it, as was our willingness to go along with the things our government was asking us to do that just never made good sense.
Was Trump's response to the plandemic justified? In February 2020, the taxpayer money to vaccine companies hadn't really started flowing yet, BUT we know that the plan for a COVID-19 virus was in the works and that some of our taxpayer dollars were already going toward the development of a COVID-19 vaccine. As I said, I cannot pretend to know things I don't or to know Trump's thoughts and feelings on any of this. But I do have a lot of questions, and I think I'm not the only one who does. Was Trump just getting ahead of his skis when he blurted out in this February 2020 press conference that we were "very close to a vaccine?"
What we do know is that a vaccine was being discussed by Trump and Fauci at least as early as 2020. There is evidence of that. Trump said that at that time the virus was essentially nothing to worry about, but also that a vaccine for it was under way. At the time of this press conference, Trump speaks of only a couple billion that had been put toward addressing the coronavirus--which he acknowledges is not a real threat. But a couple of billion wouldn't have gotten us to the point of being "very close to a vaccine," so that comment from Trump might have been hyperbole. I don't know. But I do know that Trump said that in February 2020, government funding was starting to be put toward a COVID-19 vaccine, and we know that Fauci has stated that the decision to make a coronavirus vaccine was made on January 10, 2020.
By May 2020, when Trump announced Operation Warp Speed, we had already "flattened the curve." For one brief blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, people started cautiously going out again and being less afraid. And then BAM! Mask mandates, social distancing, and plexiglass barriers arrived on the scene. Those actually came AFTER the "flattening of the curve." And Trump, who had previously been ridiculed by the media for not wearing a mask CAVED and wore one publicly around July 2020. And THEN, probably to cover for the embarrassment of the well-earned shaming Trump received for finally caving to the mask, the Trump administration started putting out the messaging that wearing a mask was the "patriotic" thing to do. No--it was the idiotic thing to do!
So why has Trump not been honest with us? No one is perfect. I get that. And we all make mistakes. Some mistakes are bigger than others. Trump is not the only one responsible, that's for sure. Every elected official who went along with the plandemic shutdown bears some responsibility as well for failing to speak the truth. But as POTUS, the buck stopped with Trump. The true test of integrity of a person is whether or not that person will own his or her actions. Trump wants to be selective when it comes to which credit or blame gets assigned to him. That is not integrity. If Trump truly cares about Making America Great Again, then he will tell us all the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He hasn't done that yet.
The full press conference can be viewed at the link below: