US Election 2020: Trump faces major embarrassment with Kushner tapes on pandemic handling

With less than the week to go for the US Presidential Election, the Trump camp finds itself amidst a new controversy. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser White House Jared Kushner boasted in an April interview how the US President had cut the doctors and scientists advising him on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic. The new Kushner tapes, seen by CNN, reveal how Trump prioritised his political goals early in the pandemic and ignored science, even when around 40,000 people in the United States had already died from the virus. 

While speaking to journalist Bob Woodward back in April, Kushner had said that Trump was "getting the country back from the doctors" in what he called a "negotiated settlement". The White House adviser had told Woodward that "Trump’s now back in charge. It’s not the doctors." Kushner had also proclaimed that the US was moving swiftly through the "panic phase" and "pain phase" of the pandemic and the country was at the "beginning of the comeback phase". 

Trump has validated a strategy that prioritised economics over health. While coronavirus tightened its grip, the US President has deviated and even tried to change the topic, seizing on violence in Philadelphia after another police shooting to blame Democrats for looting. While the scientists and new data showed a nationwide explosion in virus caseload, Trump said that it was going away. 

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Trump downplays the pandemic

The Republican leader has repeatedly downplayed the pandemic. He has also challenged several scientific conclusions about the virus made by his own administration, such as refuting the need for masks and face coverings in public places. From saying that the virus "affects virtually nobody" to implying the shutting down business was not necessary, the US President on several occasions has said that the threat to the US from coronavirus will be soon gone "magically". 

Now, with the US election just around the corner, Trump’s delusion about its failed response is consuming the US President as tens of millions of early voters cast ballots. Democratic nominee Joe Biden has also accused the Trump administration of surrendering to the virus and offering to shoulder the nation’s grief in the grim months to come. However, Trump still maintains that "people are getting better". While addressing the crowd in Bullhead, Arizona, the US president recently claimed, "We will vanquish the virus and emerge stronger than ever before. Our country will be stronger than ever before." 

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