President Donald Trump. | Win McNamee/Getty Images
President Donald Trump on Thursday offered his first expression of sympathy in observance of the milestone of 100,000 American coronavirus deaths, tweeting his condolences after drawing criticism for failing to reflect on the human cost of the outbreak in recent days.
“We have just reached a very sad milestone with the coronavirus pandemic deaths reaching 100,000,” Trump wrote online. “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 president’s social media post came after the number of reported fatalities in the United States from Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, climbed past six figures Wednesday, prompting public shows of mourning from various elected officials.
In a video message posted Wednesday afternoon, former Vice President Joe Biden addressed the death toll, remarking that “there are moments in our history so grim, so heart-rending, that they’re forever fixed in each of our hearts as shared grief. Today is one of those moments.”
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee went on to describe the 100,000 deaths as a “fateful milestone we should have never reached — that could have been avoided.”
Trump also invoked the somber turning point in a tweet earlier this week, but only to promote his administration’s handling of the public health crisis and defend his efforts to halt the spread of the highly infectious disease.
“For all of the political hacks out there, if I hadn’t done my job well, & early, we would have lost 1 1/2 to 2 Million People, as opposed to the 100,000 plus that looks like will be the number,” Trump wrote Tuesday. “That’s 15 to 20 times more than we will lose. I shut down entry from China very early!”
In a subsequent message, the president acknowledged that “One person lost to this invisible virus is too much,” but insisted he “made the right decisions” and ridiculed “Crazy Nancy” Pelosi, the House speaker.
Trump was roundly rebuked over the weekend, as the U.S. deaths continued to mount, for golfing at his Virginia club and leveling incendiary attacks at several of his perceived enemies via Twitter — even repeating his claim that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough murdered a congressional staffer in 2001. The president has offered no evidence to support the allegation, which has been widely debunked as a conspiracy theory that is not supported by facts.
As of Thursday morning, more than 1.7 million people have become infected with Covid-19 in the U.S., the global epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, and 100,467 Americans have died from the disease, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker.
