Trump’s Surgeon General Wants Everyone To Shut Up About Trump Admin’s Pandemic Response — Nobody Is Having It
The COVID-19 pandemic could have hit under any administration, and would likely have been devastating even with the most perfect response. Still, health experts have indicated that the level of damage done could have been different with leadership that took the virus more seriously from day one — nor that a lot of folks in Donald Trump’s camp seem to be sick of hearing that fact.
The current complainant is Jerome Adams, who served as Surgeon General during Trump’s term. In a series of tweets Tuesday morning, he complained that he’s still hearing about Trump’s role in the pandemic, and blasted out a number of strawman arguments that other Twitter users were very quick to call out.
Every person who asks me (or anyone else) if Trump should do more to encourage vaccinations (while failing to ask what more could Biden do), is feeding the narrative that Trump is this God like figure who controls our fortunes, & is still more powerful than the current President.
— Jerome Adams (@JeromeAdamsMD) December 21, 2021
Biden is the President of the United States- not President of the Democrats. Continuing to accept/ feed the narrative that there’s nothing more he can do in “red” states, and that only Trump can convince people and change our trajectory is a) false and b) elevates Trump > Biden
— Jerome Adams (@JeromeAdamsMD) December 21, 2021
His arguments include the following notions:
- The left “can’t let go” of Trump.
- More should be expected of President Joe Biden, rather than the former president.
- Biden should credit Trump for vaccine development.
- Acknowledging the politicization of COVID-19 and that Trump has massive influence over Republicans actually grants him that influence.
Other Twitter users were quick to call out Adams on certain aspects of this, such as potentially having a personal interest, since he was Surgeon General under the Trump Administration, failing to acknowledge the impact of the initial response on the ongoing crisis, and seeming to ignore that the behavior of Trump and many of his political allies is still pushing supporters away from the best recommendations of science and medicine.
Of course, one of the most significant points is that, while Trump did indeed lose, and isn’t President of the United States at the moment, he’s still dangling plans to run again, and is expected to be the Republican nominee if he does so — making his behavior during his time in office, and his use of his influence now, extremely relevant.
Notably, Adams was willing to contradict Trump during his time in office. CNN reported on one such incident, for example, when Trump told the public that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) was falsely inflating the death toll, and Adams publicly disagreed, saying that there was “no reason to doubt” the numbers the CDC was reporting.
Other public health officials have shared about the pressure Trump put on them to help downplay the virus and promote unproven cures, though, and while Adams has been clear about the seriousness of the pandemic, he seems to be fighting hard to downplay Trump’s role in it.
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