Donald Trump Allegedly Refused To Acknowledge The Need For Coronavirus Testing Because He Was Afraid More Cases Would Tarnish His Chances For Re-Election

#DonaldTrump allegedly hasn’t urged testing for the coronavirus because he was afraid that newly discovered cases would hurt his chances for reelection.

Trump has been getting widespread criticism over his inaction to launch coronavirus testing in the United States.

Less than 15,000 specimens have been tested in the States since the middle of January, according to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention.

According to Politico’s Dan Diamond, the lack of testing is because Trump has made his political advancement a bigger priority. Diamond told NPR that health officials were aware that the disease would strike the U.S. back in January, but that “infighting at the Department of Health and Human Services and the need to flatter Trump impeded the response to the coronavirus.”

Trump has been avoiding and deliberately ignoring the coronavirus pandemic and outright downplaying its severity. “The Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus,” Trump said during a South Carolina rally last month. “One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia.’ That did not work out too well. They could not do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. … They tried anything. … And this is their new hoax.”

Diamond went on to say that the Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar tried to alert Trump about the risks of the coronavirus. Trump allegedly ended up calling the warnings and requests for testing fake news because he believed it would ruin his chances at reelection. “He did not push to do aggressive testing in recent weeks, and that’s partly because more testing might have led to more cases being discovered of coronavirus outbreak,” Diamond said. “And the president had made clear—the lower the numbers on coronavirus, the better for the president, the better for his potential reelection this fall.”

Trump has finally declared the corona pandemic a national emergency, claiming that his administration is working to “dramatically increase the availability of tests.” “I am officially declaring a national emergency—two very big words,” Trump said. “The action I am taking will open up access to up to $50 billion of very important [funds]…and a large amount of money for states, territories, and localities.”