By Aaron Miller-
Former U.S president, Donald Trump, advocated shipping Americans who contracted Covid-19 abroad to Guantánamo Bay.The shocking revelation is contained in a new book, Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History, by Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta, two Washington Post reporters.
At a meeting in the White House Situation Room in February last year, before the onset of the pandemic in which more than 600,000 have now died in the US, Trump asked aides: “Don’t we have an island that we own? What about Guantánamo?”
The publication reports Trump to have said: “We import goods. We are not going to import a virus.”
White House aides blocked the idea when Trump brought it up again.
The prison in Guantánamo Bay hour terrorism suspects without trial and in extremely harsh conditions and since the 9/11 attacks has been a magnet for condemnation from human rights groups.
In 2019, the book A Warning by Anonymous, later revealed to be Miles Taylor- a former homeland security official – reported that Trump suggested sending immigrants to the base in Cuba.
According to Taylor, Trump proposed designating all migrants entering the US without permission as “enemy combatants”, then shipping them to Guantánamo.
Trump’s tenure as president of the United States was the most controversial in U.S history. The former president once indicated that bleach could cure the coronavirus, told two black members of Congress to go back where they came from, and incited a riot at the Capitol Hill on January 6, after telling protesters that former vice president, Mike Pence, did not have the courage to overturn the election results, even though Pence had no authourity to do so.
Excerpts of the book published today in the Washington Post, recounts an incident in March 2020, in which Trump shouted at his health secretary, Alex Azar: “Testing is killing me!”
Cases of Covid-19 were mounting at the time, with states entering lockdowns amid pubic confusion and fear.
“I’m going to lose the election because of testing!” Trump reportedly yelled. “What idiot had the federal government do testing?”
“Uh, do you mean Jared?” Azar is reported to have answered, referring to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and chief adviser who was in charge of testing.
Trump also reportedly said it was “gross incompetence to let [federal health agency] CDC develop a test”.
Kushner is reported to have called a staffer who oversaw a March plan to purchase 600m masks a “fucking moron”, because the masks would not be delivered till June.
Last week, El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego ordered Trump to pay his $570,000 (USD) debt to Texas if he wants to take part in a tour with Republican governor Greg Abbott on Texas’s border. The debt has been created by the ‘Make America Great Again’ rally that took place on February 11, 2019, at the El Paso County Coliseum.