Trump called 'worst president in history' by conservative columnist for 'catastrophic mishandling' of coronavirus
Conservative columnist Max Boot recently branded President Donald Trump the "worst president" of all time in the United States' history. Boot came at his conclusion after witnessing the Republican leader's response to the ongoing coronavirus crisis, which has claimed thousands of lives in the country.
"With his catastrophic mishandling of the coronavirus, Trump has established himself as the worst president in US history," the columnist, who is a critic of the current president, wrote in The Washington Post on Sunday.
Boot wrote that he had attempted to avoid giving Trump the title of the worst president, saying that history generally required some time to put things into perspective. The columnist, instead, preferred to call Trump the worst “modern” president.
“That left open the possibility that James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, Warren Harding or some other nonentity would be judged more harshly,” Boot wrote. However, his opinion changed after he witnessed Trump's response to the pandemic in the country. Boot said that Trump's biggest rival for the title was Buchanan, who helped set the stage for the Civil War.
"But there is good reason to think that the Civil War would have broken out no matter what. By contrast, there is nothing inevitable about the scale of the disaster we now confront," Boot wrote.
President Trump was warned about the novel coronavirus crisis before it took hold of the United States; however, no concrete action was taken before the situation became grave. There is a shortage of COVID-19 testing kits, protective equipment, and respirators in the country at the moment. Boot suggested that a time when the president should have been working to secure the supply of the necessary equipment to combat the deadly virus, the Republican instead held rallies and played golf.
"In the days and weeks after [Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex] Azar alerted him about the virus, Trump spoke at eight rallies and golfed six times, as if he didn’t have a care in the world," Boot wrote. “But whatever happens in November, Trump cannot escape the pitiless judgment of history. Somewhere, a relieved James Buchanan must be smiling."
Coronavirus has claimed more than 9,500 lives in the United States within weeks, the total number of infections in the country has risen above 337,000, according to the John Hopkins University live-tracking dashboard. The US has been branded the worst affected country in the world amid the pandemic, with most number of infections and a rapidly-rising death toll.
President Trump, amid this crisis, has been severely criticized for his response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Republican, last month, had suggested easing federal guidelines on social distancing in an attempt to keep the country's economy running. He backed down after advice from leading immunologist Dr Anthony Fauci, who is assisting the federal Coronavirus Task Force.
It appears that Trump is again talking about lifting the lockdown across the country, arguing that the nation cannot be "destroyed" and "we have to get back to work."
"We have to get back to work. We don't want to be doing this for months and months and months," Trump said during his daily press briefing on Saturday, April 4.
The president had said reopening will be a "big decision". He has previously argued that the "cure cannot be worse than the problem."