It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. I’m sure that’s what a lot of people were thinking when Donald Trump announced on Friday morning that he and his wife, First Lady Melania Trump, had tested positive for covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
No matter your politics, you can’t help but think this was a long time coming. There are only so many times you can tempt fate before fate decides to remind you that you’re human, too.
How could this happen to someone like Trump, you ask? Let’s revisit a bunch of pictures and quotes that obviously show Trump taking the pandemic seriously. You be the judge.
“It looks like by April, you know in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away — I hope that’s true.” – Donald Trump, Feb. 10, 2020
“It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” – Donald Trump, on the coronavirus, Feb. 27, 2020.
“I’m on a stage and it’s very far away… And so I’m not at all concerned.” – Donald Trump, on holding campaign rallies during the pandemic, Sept. 13, 2020.
“I don’t take responsibility at all.” – Donald Trump, on the lack of widespread access to testing early on in the coronavirus pandemic, March 13, 2020.
“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that.” – Donald Trump, April 23, 2020.
“So when we have a lot of cases, I don’t look at that as a bad thing, I look at that as, in a certain respect, as being a good thing because it means our testing is much better.” – Donald Trump, May 19, 2020.
“Testing is a double-edged sword… When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases, so I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.’” – Donald Trump, June 20, 2020.
“Many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day… They have the sniffles, and we put it down as a test” – Donald Trump, July 19, 2020.
“The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives!” – Donald Trump, Aug. 22, 2020.
“We’ve done a great job in covid but we don’t get the credit.” – Donald Trump, Aug. 21, 2020.
“It goes through air, Bob. That’s always tougher than the touch. You know, the touch, you don’t have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed… And so, that’s a very tricky one,” – Donald Trump to veteran journalist Bob Woodward, Feb. 7, 2020.
“I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic,” – Donald Trump to Woodward, March 19, 2020.
“I don’t wear face masks like [Vice President Joe Biden]. Every time you see him he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 60.96 m away and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.” – Donald Trump, Sept. 29, 2020.
