He's on a fresh collision course with Dr. Anthony Fauci, who's publicly questioning why Trump thinks mask wearing is weak after a wild weekend that saw the President, who's trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in the polls and still playing to his base, pack swing state rallies that flouted his government's Covid-19 protocols.
The latest clash between the top infectious disease specialist and the President came as the pandemic that has already killed more than 219,000 Americans worsened at the start of a feared fall and winter spike that threatens to further damage Trump's reelection.
Trump is fighting for his political life campaigning at rallies that are almost the only mass participation events with no social distancing taking place in the US. His attacks are getting more extreme as the election gets closer, as he demands the locking up of his political rivals. He's claiming the election, and Thursday's presidential debate, are rigged against him.
He's demonizing Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who was the target of a recently thwarted kidnapping plot. Trying to regain ground in the suburbs, he's using blatantly racist rhetoric to falsely warn White mothers that Democrats want to transform their residential districts with African refugees. This follows Trump's refusal last week to repudiate the QAnon group and his slanderous retweet of an outrageous conspiracy theory that claims Osama bin Laden is alive and Biden and former President Barack Obama might have had SEAL Team Six murdered.
The turbulent atmosphere that is dominating the end game in the presidential duel between Trump and Biden is coming as staggering lines form across the country as voters cast early ballots. As of Sunday evening, more than 27 million ballots had been cast in 45 states and Washington, DC, according to a survey of ballot data by CNN, Edison Research and Catalist. Ballots cast so far represent almost 20% of the more than 136 million total ballots cast in 2016.
'Cloth coverings work'
That there is still a public debate about mask wearing -- a practice that has become routine for millions seven months into the crisis -- reflects the politicized nature of the US response, which is one of the worst in the world. It also underscores how the President, who is duty bound to keep Americans safe, has been keen to leverage the situation to stoke his political base, with some conservatives viewing any instructions to wear masks as an infringement on their rights. At an NBC town hall last week, for instance, Trump falsely claimed that 85% of people who wear masks catch Covid-19, and he has rarely used the power of his office to recommend a simple step that scientists say could save tens of thousands of lives.
In an interview on CBS' "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday, Fauci -- a key member of the administration's coronavirus task force who has been marginalized -- said he wasn't surprised that the President caught Covid-19 given his disdain for social distancing and complained about his image being used in Trump campaign advertisi
