‘Deserter… Chosen to Go AWOL’: Anderson Cooper Calls Out Self-Described ‘War-Time President’ Trump for Abandoning Fight Against Covid Pandemic

On the 79th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Anderson Cooper called out self-described “war-time President” Donald Trump for having nearly abandoned any public interest in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic since the election.

The CNN host opened his Monday night show with an extended monologue drawing a contrast between the national unity that pulled the nation together to win World War II and the notable absence of the current president, even as the pandemic now claims, on average, ten times more lives than the lives lost at Pearl Harbor every single day.

“Seventy-nine years ago today, the country was reeling from the lost of lives of Pearl Harbor. President Roosevelt declared a war against Japan, 243 Americans died,” Cooper noted. “Right now, the United States averaging more than 2200 Covid deaths a day. That’s nearly one Pearl Harbor every two hours.”

In fact, the pandemic is currently at its worst point so far in the United States, even as trends strongly indicate it will continue to get worse for weeks, if not months. According to the Covid Tracking Project, the seven-day rolling average of the nation’s daily cases, hospitalizations, and deaths now all stand at record highs.

“President Trump is the one who likened this to a war. He called himself, in fact, the ‘war-time president,'” Cooper reminded viewers. “That was a long time ago. Those were the days he wanted to be seen as commander-in-chief, leading the effort, when he took over the coronavirus stress briefings and then stopped listening to the doctors who actually knew what they were doing. Now, the president doesn’t seem concerned about being a war-time commander. If anything he seems like a deserter. He’s absent. The American people have given him leave, voting him out of the ballot box, but he still has some weeks left. He has chosen to go AWOL.”

Indeed, a New York Times analysis of Trump’s public schedule and Twitter feed found that the president did not address the ongoing Covid-19 deaths at all since Election Day. Cooper then noted the irony of Trump signing a new order memorializing Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, even as he ignored the thousands of Americans currently dying every day.

“People around him don’t care anymore and they are looking for other jobs and looking to see how they can salvage of what’s left of the reputation,” Cooper added. “The president is pondering his next move and raking in a lot of money and letting him use as he liked by claiming it is going to be for battle against the election fraud that was never was.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!