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You are here: Home / Health Care / Trump Officials Deflect Blame for Surging Death Toll

Trump Officials Deflect Blame for Surging Death Toll

May 18, 2020 at 10:14 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Two of President Trump’s top officials are now pointing the finger at the administration’s own scientists and Americans’ pre-existing health conditions to explain the country’s world-leading Covid-19 death toll,” CNN reports.

“Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar suggested Sunday that underlying health conditions, including among minorities, were one reason for the high American death toll — nearly 90,000 as of Sunday evening. And Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro added the government’s own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to its list of scapegoats alongside China and the Obama administration.”

“The White House has been escalating its effort to recast the narrative of its own chaotic response to the crisis as it aggressively pushes to reopen the country, a process vital to the fortunes of millions of people who have lost their jobs in lockdowns and its own political prospects in November.”

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Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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