Liberal commentator Joy Behar compared President Trump’s motorcade drive-by to greet supporters to the communication tactics of autocrats.
The View co-host criticized the optics of Trump’s decision to leave Walter Reed National Military Medical Center while recovering from the coronavirus. She also repeated a false claim that the president called the coronavirus pandemic a hoax. Trump called Democratic criticism of his administration’s response to the coronavirus a “hoax.”
“I’m watching that … parade yesterday with him in the car — that was right out of a dictator’s playbook, you know?” Behar said on the show Monday. “Parade the dictator around so that the world and America, the country, can see that he’s still alive and he’s still robust. But, you know, I thought to myself, usually, the hostages are not driving the car.”
“He suddenly gets it now. ‘Now that I get it, this coronavirus, it’s not a hoax anymore,'” Behar continued, doing an impression of Trump. “The fact that he has the virus prevents other people from getting it now because he’s in quarantine and he won’t be spreading it all over the place at his rallies to his supporters, who believe him and don’t wear masks. So that’s the good part of this.”
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Trump hinted that he was going to make a “little surprise visit” to the “patriots out there on the street” in a video statement released on social media before footage emerged of Trump, wearing a mask, waving at the cheering crowd from his motorcade. Footage of the event showed an agent wearing a full medical gown, a face mask, and protective eye gear.
Dr. James Phillips, the attending physician at Walter Reed, criticized the president for the stunt.
“Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days,” he tweeted. “They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity.”
“That Presidential SUV is not only bulletproof, but hermetically sealed against chemical attack. The risk of COVID19 transmission inside is as high as it gets outside of medical procedures. The irresponsibility is astounding. My thoughts are with the Secret Service forced to play,” he added.
There have been over 7.4 million people who have tested positive for the coronavirus in the United States, with over 209,000 deaths and 2.9 million recoveries, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
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