Trump Reminds Us That Even in Midst of Human and Economic Carnage His Biggest Concern is Himself

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Another day and another Donald Trump attempt to deflect from his incompetent handling of the coronavirus and the resulting devastation of our economy. This time he’s now claiming that Democratic governors actually aren’t concerned with saving lives by closing certain businesses but are doing so to hurt him politically. Speaking in a safe space on Fox Business, Trump told us as much Thursday morning when asked by his staunch ally and one-time respected business journalist Maria Bartiromo: “Do you think your critics want you to keep it closed going into the election?” to which Trump replied, “Yeah, I do. I do,” adding, “I think it’s a political thing.”

Apparently, Trump’s media ally Rush Limbaugh and recent recipient of Trump’s Medal of Freedom — apparently for spewing racist and sexist BS freely — got the talking point too, because Tuesday he served up the same rancid red meat. Limbaugh declared on his radio show that, “All these blue state governors that want to keep their states locked down, it’s purely political.” He added, “The American left and the Democrat Party is going to do its best to keep this economy shut down, to extend and expand that shutdown — and blow up their own country’s jobs — just to ensure that Trump loses.”

In reality, Democratic governors are focused on one thing: saving lives. And once it’s safe to re-open, they will do so responsibly to save lives while being mindful of business concerns. Even in New York, the hardest hit state with nearly 28,000 deaths and more than 350,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced earlier this week that three regions of the Empire State will re-open this weekend since they met the health experts’ metrics to do safely. That’s how a leader not just opens a state, but builds confidence that it’s being done in a way that will make residents actually feel it is safe to venture out, go to stores, restaurants and more. That’s how you revive the economy for the long term.

Turning back to Trump, do I think the president wants more Americans to die? No, I don’t. But do I think he doesn’t care if more do, if it helps him politically? Absolutely. Trump only cares about Trump. This isn’t breaking news.  He has shown us that time and time again.

On Wednesday with the death toll from Covid-19 in U.S. crossing 85,000, did Trump express concern on Twitter for the family’s mourning loved ones? No. But he did tweet about the stock market dropping again, lashing out that some “So-called ‘rich guys'” are speaking badly about the stock market in hopes it goes down so that they can profit by betting against the market.

Why? Simple, Trump believes a strong stock market is an applause line at rallies and helps him win re-election.

Trump’s laser focus on his own political fortunes also explains his newest strategy: “Obamagate.”  What that means is still TBA as GOP strategists focus group the idea to see what gets traction with voters as an effective distraction from the human and economic carnage of the virus. If you doubt me, just look at Trump’s angry response Monday when pressed by a reporter on the exact crime President Obama allegedly committed that would be the basis for Obamagate: “You know what the crime is. The crime is very obvious to everybody.”

And during his interview Thursday with Bartiromo, his attempt to explain what “Obamagate” was turned into an SNL sketch, with Trump spewing out stale conspiracy tales. All that was missing was Trump screaming out at the end of his answer: “Live from New York, It’s Saturday Night!”

And by Thursday late morning Trump called on his GOP allies in the Senate to force President Obama to testify before Congress.

Every and anything that comes out of Trump’s mouth is designed to help one person: Trump. That is also pathetically true while more than one thousand Americans die daily from the coronavirus and as of Thursday morning more than 36 million have filed for unemployment in the past two months.

“Donald Trump is bad dog food,” former GOP strategist Rick Wilson — and now man who can easily trigger Trump — declared on my SiriusXM radio show last week. His point was that there’s an old rule in advertising that you can’t sell “bad dog food” because “dogs don’t read the advertising—they just don’t like the taste.”

Wilson is spot on. You don’t need to read the can to know that Trump’s “all about me” approach to a deadly virus that is wreaking havoc on our country is “bad dog food.” And come election day, I’m betting Americans reject four more years of the “bad dog food” that “president body bags” is peddling.

Dean Obeidallah, a lawyer, hosts SiriusXM radio’s The Dean Obeidallah show and is a columnist for the Daily Beast and a CNN.com Opinion Contributor.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.