Donald Trump made yet another presidential blunder while trying to explain away his consistent refusal to follow social distancing guidelines during the pandemic, appearing to suggest that he could have contracted the coronavirus from Gold Star families he was meeting with. He claimed that he “figured there would be a chance” of catching it after speaking face-to-face with these families on September 27.
“I’m the president of the country. I can’t hang around in a basement,” he said during a Fox Business call-in. “So, I figure there would be a chance I would catch it. Sometimes I would be in groups of… for instance, Gold Star families, I met with Gold Star families, I didn’t want to cancel that.”
Trump claimed that he “just can’t” tell people to stand several feet away from him while they talk, contradicting earlier reports that he had done exactly that at his last campaign rally before the announcement of his positive COVID-19 test.
“They “come within an inch of my face, sometimes,” he said. “They want to hug me, and they want to kiss me. And they do. And, frankly, I’m not telling them to back up. I’m not doing it.”
Thought it might appear that he was trying to say something good and nice for once, many people are noting that Trump essentially placed the blame for his getting the coronavirus on these families, who have lost loved ones to military service.
“Whether he intended it or not, the President has blamed an event with families who lost their loved ones in battle for giving him COVID. That is a shocking statement even for this President,” said Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed.
“He must immediately apologize. Failure to do so would be yet another example of his callous disregard and disrespect for the women and men of our Armed Forces who we ask to stand in harm’s way.”
White House spokesperson Alyssa Farah claimed it was unlikely that Trump caught COVID-19 from the meeting with the military families “based on contact tracing,” which the White House has reportedly declined to do, so who knows what happened.
The only certainty is that many people are not happy with Trump over this latest gaffe.
