President Trump finally referenced the grim milestone of 100,000 Americans dying of the coronavirus in a Thursday morning tweet.
‘We have just reached a very sad milestone with the coronavirus pandemic deaths reaching 100,000,’ he wrote at 9:37 a.m. ‘To all of the families & friends of those who have passed, I want to extend my heartfelt sympathy & love for everything that these great people stood for & represent. God be with you!’
The U.S. crossed the threshold Wednesday evening as the president was landing on Air Force One after spending the day at Kennedy Space Center in hopes to see the SpaceX rocket and craft hoist American astronauts into space from U.S. soil for the first time.
President Trump returned to the White House Wednesday night having skipped making public remarks after the rocket launch from Kennedy Space Center was scrubbed. He didn’t comment on the 100,000 American dead until Thursday morning
President Trump acknowledged the 100,000 dead Americans of the coronavirus Thursday morning, saying he wanted to extend his ‘heartfeld sympathy & love’ to their family and friends
President Trump later tweeted about China being responsible for the coronavirus. Calling it a ‘very bad “gift”‘ from the Asian nation
The mission was aborted due to weather and so Trump left Florida without making his planned public remarks.
He spent Wednesday night tweeting clips of Lou Dobbs’ Fox Business Network Show, including the host calling him ‘arguably the greatest president in our history.’
He spent most of Thursday morning retweeting messages about what he refers to as ‘Obamagate.’
He also teased a ‘social media’ executive order that aides told reporters he planned to sign later Thursday. The language of the executive order has yet to be made public.
‘This will be a Big Day for Social Media and FAIRNESS!’ the president tweeted at 8:37 a.m.
He referenced the coronavirus dead an hour later.
Trump then took a swat at China, where the virus originated.
‘All over the World the CoronaVirus, a very bad “gift” from China, marches on,’ he wrote. ‘Not good!’
Trump has shied away from the typical role of ‘mourner-in-chief’ despite his press secretary Kayleigh McEnany saying Tuesday that he takes that responsibility ‘very seriously.’
‘This is the hardest part of his presidency – going through this pandemic,’ she told reporters in the briefing room, adding that he had friends who perished. ‘It’s real to him, it’s personal to him.’
‘So he does see his role as that – comforting the nation,’ she added. ‘But reopening the country, giving the country hope at this time,’ she said was another role the president thought he needed to fill during the pandemic.
The presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden has made dealing with loss part of his political persona.
He lost his son Beau to cancer nearly five years ago. His first wife and baby daughter were killed in a car accident in December 1972.
He would often talk about his experiences with grief to those waiting on the rope line to talk to him after campaign events.
On Wednesday evening, in a short video, Biden talked to those who lost loved ones from COVID-19 and said, ‘I think I know what you’re feeling.’
‘You feel like you’re being sucked into a black hole in the middle of your chest,’ the former vice president described.
‘It’s suffocating. Your heart is broken, there’s nothing but a feeling of emptiness right now,’ he said.
Joe Biden marked the 100,000 Americans who died of the coronavirus Wednesday by tweeting a two-minute video he recorded. In it, he talked about grief and also hit the Trump administration for its response to the pandemic
Biden also used the video to take a shot at the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic.
‘It’s made all the worse by knowing this is a fateful milestone we never should have reached, it could have been avoided,’ the Democratic presidential candidate said.
Biden further blamed Trump by bringing up a Columbia University study that said 36,000 lives could have been saved had the U.S. gone into lockdown a week earlier.
Trump said the study was politicized.
‘Columbia is a liberal, disgraceful institution to write that because all the people that they cater to were months after me, they said we shouldn’t close it,’ the president said, referring to his late January partial travel ban from China that he credits with saving the lives of millions of Americans.
Last Thursday, Trump ordered flags around the nation to fly at half-staff for three days as the death toll crept toward 100,000.
‘I will be lowering the flags on all Federal Buildings and National Monuments to half-staff over the next three days in memory of the Americans we have lost to the CoronaVirus … On Monday, the flags will be at half-staff in honor of the men and women in our Military who have made the Ultimate Sacrifice for our Nation,’ the president tweeted.
The move came at the urging of Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer writing to Trump to encourage the gesture.
McEnany pointed to the move when she appeared on Fox News Channel Thursday morning.
‘He lowered the flag to half-staff for several days in anticipation of this number coming up,’ the press secretary said when asked about the milestone.
‘He grieves for the loss of life,’ she added. ‘And, you know, because of this president, we stayed far below that 2.2 million estimate that was initially out there. The extraordinary efforts of this administration and the work of the American people helped to keep this from being much worse than it could have been.’