Chris Hayes Condemns Trump for Pushing Policies That Will Fuel the Pandemic: He Is ‘Objectively Pro-Virus’

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes analogized President Donald Trump’s ongoing apathy and misinformation in the face of the surging coronavirus pandemic to feckless pacifism in the battle against fascism during World War II before concluding that the president is now “objectively pro-virus” because of his actions and rhetoric.

During his Tuesday evening show, Hayes began by explaining the origin of a famous line by George Orwell, written in the autumn of 1942, that “Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist.” In other words, to do nothing in the face of certain evil or death is to effectively endorse it. The president, Hayes argued, is engaging in exactly that kind of negligent betrayal of the country.

“That line has been cited and repurposed throughout the years, often misconstrued and often misused and abused,” Hayes noted. “But right now it seems fitting. The battle against the virus is not a choice. We cannot opt out of it. So if you take the steps that President Trump is taking, not just refusing to combat the virus, you’re activity taking steps that will make people sick. You are objectively pro virus.”

“For instance, they’ve been dropping some of the precautions at the White House like temperature checks because they want to get back to the appearance of normal,” Hayes pointed out. “They’re calling federal workers back into the workplace where is they don’t have to be to make people think we’re over the virus. They’re doing big events, like sending Vice President Mike Pence indoors with choirs where no one is wearing a mask. They’re trying to browbeat schools into packing as many people in place as possible. This is helping the virus. Donald Trump’s actions are on the side of the virus.”

“Are we going to now join the pro-virus coalition instead?” Hayes asked, referencing Trump’s Tuesday announcement that the U.S. has taken steps to withdraw from the World Health Organization. “Are we going to found our own World Infection Organization? Because of all of this, things are bad in this country, very bad. Coronavirus hospitalizations are back up to where they were in May. And hospitalizations might be the best apples to apples look at where we are. Back in March, we were just not testing enough to put up the confirmed case numbers we are now. So hospitalizations are probably the hardest data point to fudge, because you know if somebody is in the hospital. Looking at that, we’re getting back now to the worst part of the outbreak.”

“ICUs in states around the country are beginning to hit their limits,” Hayes noted, before running through state after state where new Covid-19 cases are spiking. “Just the same story over and over and over again. And we know that story, because we have seen this story before. In some ways it never really ended. A lot of ways it is worse than ever. And the president has decided not just to surrender, but to switch sides, to join the ranks of the virus, to actually bolster the efforts of what he once called ‘the invisible enemy.'”

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.