President Donald Trump shared a tweet from former game show host Chuck Woolery that said “everyone is lying” about the coronavirus early Monday morning — including his administration’s own Centers for Disease Control.
“The most outrageous lies are the ones about Covid 19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most ,that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of it,” wrote Woolery in the post that was then retweeted by the president.
Trump also retweeted one of Woolery’s tweets that said, “There is so much evidence, yes scientific evidence, that schools should open this fall. It’s worldwide and it’s overwhelming. BUT NO.”
Woolery was apparently referring to data from Europe suggesting that children are less likely than adults to transmit the virus to others, which prompted the American Academy of Pediatrics to recommend that schools reopen with proper safety precautions.
But even the AAP walked back its initial recommendation for in-person schooling this fall. “Science should drive decision-making on safely reopening schools,” the AAP said in a revised statement Friday, adding that public health agencies should make the decision “based on evidence, not politics.”
The president retweeted an attack on “Dr. Fauci and the Democrats” from another account, then went back to Woolery to retweet a second attack on Democrats.
The retweet came just two days after Trump wore a mask in front of press cameras for the first time Saturday, finally adhering to CDC recommendations after months of refusing to wear one publicly while insisting he was doing so privately.
The idea of wearing a mask in public places, which some states require and the CDC strongly recommends, has become a politically polarizing debate in the U.S. despite experts saying it significantly reduces the risk of spreading the virus.