Trump blasts ‘fearmongering’ over new COVID strain and claims ‘left wing lunatics’ are trying to bring back lockdowns and mask mandates to steal the 2024 election

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday criticized the “fear mongering” over a new strain of COVID, claiming “left-wing lunatics” are trying to bring back lockdowns and mask mandates to steal the 2024 election.

In a video posted on social mediathe Republican presidential nominee — who likely lost the last election because of his handling of COVID — commented on the recent spike in cases.

A highly contagious new strain of COVID, the highly mutated BA.2.86, is spreading worldwide and was found in five U.S. states as of Thursday.

“The lunatics on the left are doing their utmost to bring back the COVID lockdowns and mandates, with all their sudden fear mongering about the new variants coming. Gosh, do you know what else is coming?’ thought Trump. “An election.”

“They want to restart the COVID hysteria so they can justify more lockdowns, more censorship, more illegal dropboxes, more mail-in ballots and trillions of dollars in payouts to their political allies leading up to the 2024 election,” he continued. “Does that sound familiar?”

Part of Trump’s pressure that he unfairly lost the 2020 election stemmed from the widespread use of mail-in ballots as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Democrats, and thus President Joe Biden’s voters, felt more comfortable voting by mail because it was encouraged by the party.

Trump and other Republicans pushed their base to vote in person on Election Day.

This also produced a red mirage, with votes cast on Election Day being counted first in many competing states. It took several days for the Democratic-oriented ballots to be counted, which is why Biden’s victory was not announced until the following Saturday.

“They rigged the 2020 election and now they’re trying to do the same thing again, rigging the most important election in our country’s history, the 2024 election, even if it means trying to bring COVID back,” said Thursday . “But they will fail because we won’t let it happen.”

He said COVID-cautious people were “sick” and “bad.”

When COVID cases started to emerge in the United States in March 2020, the Trump administration introduced a 15-day nationwide lockdown titled: “15 days to stop the spread.’

As president, Trump first supported the lockdowns, but turned around a few months later. He was always reluctant to put on a mask. He’s wearing one here because he had active COVID

Democrats, including President Joe Biden, have been more COVID-cautious. They wore masks and embraced mail-in ballots, something Trump falsely claimed they cheated in the 2020 election

It was later extended for another 30 days.

But after initially supporting the lockdowns, Trump reversed.

He also urged not to wear a mask, turning it into a political issue.

Trump launched Operation Warp Speed ​​to get the COVID-19 vaccines developed and was one of the first Americans to be vaccinated, although he later realized that this position was unpopular with the Republican base as other conservative figures took prominent positions. became anti-vaxxers.

On Thursday, Trump addressed “any COVID tyrant who wants to take away our freedom.”

‘Hear these words: we will not obey. So don’t even think about it, he said. We will not close our schools. We will not accept your lockdowns. We will not abide by your mask mandates and we will not tolerate your vaccine mandates.”

He also reiterated a campaign pledge to cut federal funding for “any school, university, airline or public transportation system that imposes a mask mandate or a vaccine mandate.”