As the coronavirus pandemic spreads through Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, concerns are growing that President Donald Trump's administration isn't doing enough to prepare for the virus coming to the United States.
Trump's Health and Human Services department was criticized this week for only requesting $2.5 billion in emergency aid—a sum that lawmakers feared wouldn't cover the supplies and services needed to contain the virus.
For his part, Trump blamed Democrats and the media.
The President claimed in a tweet today that they're deliberately sensationalizing the virus to hurt the stock market and cripple Trump's economic record.
But resurfaced Trump tweets about Ebola—the fever which saw a massive outbreak in West Africa from 2013 to 2016—are making his claims about coronavirus seem somewhat hollow.
In one particularly on-brand move, a tweet from Trump in 2014 called for the suspension of immigration in the face of the Ebola outbreak.
Reported cases of coronavirus have nearly tripled that of the 2013 Ebola outbreak. In just under two months, its death toll has already reached a fourth of the Ebola outbreak's three year death toll.
People began calling out Trump's hypocrisy.
People have a good idea of why his reaction is so different this time around.
Trump will hold a news conference with officials from the Center for Disease Control at 6 pm.
For a deeper look into Trump's White House, A Very Stable Genius is available here.
@LeeMerrittesq/X
@bob_moss/X
@jelanijones/Bluesky
@Aurkayne/X
@sadcommunistdog; @froglok/Bluesky