Noam Chomsky slams megalomaniac Trump over coronavirus response

 U.S. activist scholar Noam Chomsky has attacked the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump over its “chaotic” response to the coronavirus pandemic, arguing the government is unable to stem the virus outbreak.

Speaking in an interview with AFP, the 91-year-old intellectual called Trump “a sociopathic megalomaniac” who thinks about nothing but himself and his power.  “There's no coherent leadership.  It's chaotic.  The presidency, the White House, is in the hands of a sociopathic megalomaniac who's interested in nothing but his own power, electoral prospects -- doesn't care what happens to the country or the world.”  “The president himself has said that it's none of his business.  He's said that the federal government can't do anything,” he added.

The U.S. is currently the worst-hit country in the world with more than 1,686,400 recorded cases of infection and 99,300 deaths.  And Noam Chomsky predicted that “there will a lot more” deaths in the United States as “there's no coordinated plan.”  He also criticized the Republican president for “defunding the Center for Disease Control” and “canceling programs that were working with Chinese scientists to identify potential viruses.”

The U.S. has repeatedly blamed China for the COVID-19 pandemic, with Trump recently lashing out on Twitter, claiming that the “incompetence of China” led to “mass Worldwide killing.”  Trump also proclaimed that a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the first outbreak was reported, had accidentally unleashed the virus.

The U.S. president, nonetheless, had praised China’s coronavirus response more than 30 times between January and March as the virus started to spread around the globe, according to a CNN tally.

Chomsky also criticized the U.S. government for lacking “a universal health care system,” describing the current one as “ultimate neoliberal.”  Drawing a comparison between the U.S. and the Europe, the American professor did say that there were problems in Europe, but added it still enjoys a social democratic structure that can provide the kind of support the United States cannot.

“Europe in many ways is worse, because the austerity programs just amplify the danger, because of the severe attack on democracy in Europe, the shifting decisions to Brussels.... So Europe has its own problems, but at least it has the residue of some kind of social democratic structure, which provides some support, which is what I think is lacking in the United States.”