Cher slams senators, agency heads and mega-donors for ‘turning their heads away as Trump kills Americans’
Pop icon Cher denounced "people around" President Donald Trump on Friday, April 17, accusing them of turning their heads the other way while the president "kills Americans" for financial gain. The singer was referring to Trump's plans of opening the American economy at a time when thousands in the country have died of the deadly novel coronavirus.
The 72-year-old singer took to Twitter on Friday and cited an article from Politico arguing that Trump's decision to suspend sizable funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) actually allowed China to increase its influence across the United Nations' agencies. Cher, in her tweet, accused influential leaders around the president for failing to call him out for killing Americans because they themselves are financially benefiting from loosening social-distancing guidelines.
"I always knew Trump’s stupidity and cruelty could put American lives in danger, but I didn’t think all the people around him would be accessories," the singer tweeted. "Senators, heads of his agencies, American businesses, mega-donors, all who have their hands in the till. These people turn their heads while Trump kills Americans."
The singer has insinuated that Republicans and Trump are risking American lives for their own benefit before this. The pop icon, earlier this month, had suggested that Republicans were so desperate to win the 2020 elections that they were willing to risk voters' lives in an attempt to do so. Cher's comments came after the Supreme Court struck down Wisconsin’s Democratic governor Tony Evers's attempt to postpone voting in their upcoming presidential primary and local elections because of the ongoing pandemic. The novel coronavirus has affected nearly 680,000 people in the United States and has claimed over 34,000 lives.
Cher, a fierce Trump critic, last month described Trump as a"liar and a murderer," suggesting the president had access to all the necessary protective equipment, like masks, gowns, and gloves for the health care workers but was not providing the essentials to them. She later deleted her tweet, saying this time she went too far.
"Trump has access to every mask, shield, gown, glove, bed, ventilator, respirator, test kit, national guardsman, soldier from army corps of engineers, nurses, doctors, techs, first responders needed to save the lives of coronavirus patients and caregivers," Cher wrote in her now-deleted tweet from last month. “Trump is a liar and murderer. Open your eyes."
She later added: "Rarely delete tweets, but sometimes my passion for (America) and Trump’s lack of empathy, emotion, intelligence, caring and his penchant for cruelty 'children locked in camps forever', states begging him for supplies and him saying, 'we're not shipping clerks' is last straw. But I went too far and am truly sorry."
The president's response to the coronavirus crisis has received a widespread backlash, with multiple celebrities weighing in. Comedian and co-host of ABC's 'The View' Whoopi Goldberg, last month, had also criticized Trump's response as a leader during the coronavirus pandemic.
Goldberg during a conversation with her co-hosts about the government response to the swiftly-spreading coronavirus said that the country currently does not have the leadership that is required to tackle such a grave situation.