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Of Course Trump Slowed Testing and Condemned Tens of Thousands of Americans

US President Donald Trump (2nd L) stands next to US Health and Human Service Secretary Alex Azar (L), CDC Director Robert Redfield (2nd R), and CDC Associate Director for Laboratory Science and Safety (ADLSS) Dr. Ste... US President Donald Trump (2nd L) stands next to US Health and Human Service Secretary Alex Azar (L), CDC Director Robert Redfield (2nd R), and CDC Associate Director for Laboratory Science and Safety (ADLSS) Dr. Steve Monroe during a tour of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 6, 2020. (Photo by JIM WATSON / AFP) (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images) MORE LESS
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June 22, 2020 3:50 p.m.
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As a man who above all things lacks discipline, Trump always tells on himself. People are rightly focusing on his casual claim to have told “his people” to “slow the testing down” to keep the COVID numbers low. The assumption has been that he’s possibly doing this now. And perhaps he is – we can never underestimate Trump’s depravity. But the US has now actually done a pretty sizable amount of testing relative to other major countries, even on a per capita basis. And the number of tests completed each day continues to creep up. There’s not a lot of clear evidence this is happening now. But there is a lot of evidence and has been for months that this is precisely what happened during the critical early weeks of the pandemic, from late January through the first weeks of March. That was the critical window of time in which the fate of tens of thousands of Americans was sealed.

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