Giuliani Declares ‘People Don’t Die Of This Disease Anymore’ Amid Rising COVID Deaths

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 01: President Donald Trump's lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani talks to journalists outside the White House West Wing July 01, 2020 in Washington, DC. Giuliani did an on-camera... WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 01: President Donald Trump's lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani talks to journalists outside the White House West Wing July 01, 2020 in Washington, DC. Giuliani did an on-camera interview with One America News Network's Chanel Rion before talking to other journalists about Vice President Joe Biden and the news that Russian intelligence may have paid Taliban operatives to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani went all in on President Trump’s efforts to portray himself as an all-powerful strongman who has beat COVID-19 (he has not) during an indoors Italians for Trump rally in Philadelphia Monday night.

Speaking to a crowd of about 75 Trump supporters at the campaign’s Northeast Philadelphia office space — which was originally scheduled to be held at the 15,000-square-foot 2300 Arena, but was forced to relocate when the arena’s owners canceled the night before after finding out the event was a Trump rally — Giuliani falsely declared victory over COVID-19 as the country tops more than 215,000 fatalities amid the pandemic.

“People don’t die of this disease anymore,” Giuliani said, before baselessly insisting that “young people don’t die at all” and that “middle age people die very little”

“And even elderly people have only 1 percent chance of dying,” Giuliani said, without evidence.

Giuliani’s latest rosy picture of COVID-19 comes amid Trump’s return to the campaign trail despite an outbreak among those in his orbit, which included a rally in Florida on Monday night when he doubled down on his unfounded assertion that he’s now immune to COVID-19 after being diagnosed and hospitalized for it less than two weeks ago.

“I went through it, now they say I’m immune,” Trump said at his Florida rally on Monday night. “I feel so powerful, I’ll watch into that audience, I’ll walk in there, I’ll kiss everyone in that audience. I’ll kiss the guys and the beautiful women.”

On the same day that Trump held his Florida rally, a new study published in the Lancet found that there has been at least one case of COVID-19 reinfection in the U.S. so therefore there is no guarantee of “total immunity” following previous exposure to the novel coronavirus.

“Thus, previous exposure to SARS-CoV-2 might not guarantee total immunity in all cases,” the scientists wrote. “All individuals, whether previously diagnosed with COVID-19 or not, should take identical precautions to avoid infection with SARS-CoV-2.”

Latest News
174
Show Comments

Notable Replies

  1. Just because you’re undead doesn’t mean everybody else is, bro.

  2. “People don’t die of this disease anymore,” Giuliani said, before baselessly insisting that “young people don’t die at all” and that “middle age people die very little”

    What? The? Actual? Fuck?

    When you “die very little”, it’s still dead.

  3. Avatar for mames5 mames5 says:

    Did he work 9/11 into this anywhere?

  4. Drumpf should first try to overcome his racism, rage, white supremacism, misogyny, stupidity, mendacity, obesity and greed, then take on the Trump-45 Virus.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

168 more replies

Participants

Avatar for paulw Avatar for meri Avatar for mattinpa Avatar for wordtoyamamma Avatar for cervantes Avatar for steviedee111 Avatar for teenlaqueefa Avatar for left_in_washington_state Avatar for thebishop Avatar for darrtown Avatar for tribalogical Avatar for tena Avatar for edhedh Avatar for ljb860 Avatar for Anarchy_Bunker Avatar for somethinghappened Avatar for erik_t Avatar for timorwig Avatar for godwit Avatar for txlawyer Avatar for filmknight Avatar for Hatmama Avatar for PicMover Avatar for El_Grupo

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: