Saying China wrecked many nations with virus, Trump doubles down on $10 trillion ‘reparation’ from Beijing
WASHINGTON, June 06, 2021: Former US President Donald Trump returned to the national centerstage on Saturday night with his first long political address after his election defeat, telling his Republican faithful gathered for a convention in North Carolina that “our country is being destroyed before our very own eyes.”
In a 90-minute speech that was trademark Trump, the former US President lit into Biden administration that succeeded his, saying the current leadership is bowing down to China, and the country is being demeaned and humiliated on the world stage and the “survival of America depends on our ability to elect Republicans at every level,” starting with the midterm elections in 2022.
“You look at our border, it’s wide open. Illegal immigration is skyrocketing at a level we’ve never seen before, and this is over a period of a few months. Drugs are pouring in, gas prices are soaring, our industries are being pillaged by foreign cyber attacks … Our freedom is being overtaken by left-wing cancel culture and the Biden administration is pushing toxic critical race theory and illegal discrimination into our children’s schools,” the former President raged in his address marking his continued support in the Republican Party.
Trump also doubled down on his demand for reparations from Beijing for triggering the pandemic, saying “all nations should work together to present China a bill for a minimum of $10 trillion to compensate for the damage they’ve caused.”
“That’s a very low number. The damage is far, far greater than that. As a first step, all countries should collectively cancel any debt they owe to China as a down payment on reparations. The nations of the world should no longer owe money to China … But China should owe money to the nations of the world … These nations have been destroyed,” Trump said.
He also mocked America’s infectious disease pundit Dr Anthony Fauci, who has become a public enemy for the right wing, saying he was a publicity monger who was wrong most of the time while boasting that he (Trump) got it right on the pandemic from its origins to the race to the vaccines.
Trump’s self-proclaimed success is becoming the centerpiece of his mid-term election campaign from which he hopes to return Congressional control to Republicans, even as the Biden administration had gained a measure of control over the pandemic. Nationwide Covid-19 cases has dipped to around 10,000 per day, a 45 per cent drop from two weeks ago, with 41 per cent of Americans fully vaccinated and 51 per cent having got one shot.
Trump maintained that he had laid the foundations for the recovery and Biden was destroying it, even as he recycled claims that he was cheated out of the White House in 2020.
While he remains on track for a re-run in 2024, political circles are weighing what appeared to be lighthearted banter on a radio show in which Trump teased a Congressional run in 2022 that would result in his becoming House Speaker (if Republicans win) and impeaching Biden, paving way for a return to the White House.
The conspiratorial cuckoo constituency in the extreme right win has gone so far as to throw up a coup possibility in summer and worked itself into a frenzy over Trump being “reinstalled” in the White House in August.
Expectedly, the right-wing Republicans embraced Trump’s speech rapturously while the left-liberal constituency greeted it with ridicule.
“You are not well, sir. You need to get over this,” CNN anchor Jim Acosta said in one commentary.
