We do not know what was said when US President Donald Trump talked to President Rodrigo Duterte on the phone this week.
We only know from Mr. Duterte’s constant companion, Senator Christopher “Bong” Go, that it was the American president who called, and that the two leaders discussed “bilateral cooperation on the COVID-19 response.”
Regardless of what was said, we can only hope that President Duterte listened politely then completely disregarded what Trump said the moment he put down the phone.
If the COVID-19 crisis has proved anything, it is this: The American president is insane.
In Washington, this week, Trump urged Americans in states led by Democratic governors to take to the streets to protest quarantine restrictions there—even though it is these measures that keep people safe.
"LIBERATE MINNESOTA!" the US president exclaimed in one tweet. "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" he cried in another. "LIBERATE VIRGINIA! and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!" he wrote in a third.
When small bands of his deranged followers took his advice and, against all social distancing guidelines, gathered in groups, Trump defended them, saying some governors had overreached in their efforts to fight the pandemic—efforts that were based on the advice of leading health officials in his own administration.
“I really believe that they’re being unreasonable,” Trump said, citing the Democratic governors of Michigan and Virginia. “There are a lot of protests out there. And I just think that some of the governors have gotten carried away.”
Trump spoke hours after protests took place in Texas, Maryland, Indiana, Nevada and Wisconsin against ongoing stay-at-home restrictions enacted to fight the spread of COVID-19. Several such demonstrations have already taken place in recent days in several states, including in California, Michigan, Ohio and New Jersey.
TV commentator Stephen Moore, who is on Trump’s task force charged with helping reopen the nation’s economy, compared the quarantine protesters to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.
“I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks—they are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties,” Moore said.
Asked about the ludicrous comparison, Trump replied, “There is a lot of injustice.”
On a day when deaths from COVID-19 in his country surpassed 40,000 and the number of infections shot up to more than 758,000, the American president was at a podium bragging about what a great job he and his administration have done.
President Duterte and this country have nothing to learn from this American president, whose behavior has put millions of his own people at risk, and has already killed untold thousands.