Guns N Roses frontman Axl Rose, 58, lashed out at the Trump administration again on Twitter, criticizing them for their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Axl, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, tweeted on August 13, “It isn’t that this Administration doesn’t grasp the ‘magnitude’ of the problems that American families r facing. It’s that they don’t care. There’s a difference.”
It’s unclear what prompted Axl’s tweet, but maybe he was just reviewing the grim figures. The United States just surpassed five million coronavirus infections as of August 13. Almost 167,000 Americans have died after testing positive for the contagious respiratory illness. Around the same time that Axl tweeted, Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said in an interview that we’re potentially facing “the worst fall, from a public health perspective, we’ve ever had.”
“For your country right now and for the war that we’re in against COVID, I’m asking you to do four simple things: wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands, and be smart about crowds,” Redfield told WebMD on August 13. “I’m not asking some of America to do it. We all gotta do it.” Meanwhile, President Trump and his administration continue to downplay the public health disaster in the United States. Until recently, Trump refused to even wear a face mask.
Axl recently called Surgeon General Jerome Adams a “coward” for refusing to tell Americans to avoid large Fourth of July gatherings during an interview on the TODAY. “Jerome Adams is a: A coward b: A piece of sh*t c: Both,” Axl tweeted on July 3. “Resign. U don’t deserve the job or title. America deserves better.” The Surgeon General skirted the question multiple times when asked what Americans should do on the holiday, giving roundabout answers, even though the CDC has said to avoid crowds.
Trump said in an August 13 interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo that he would be withholding approval for a coronavirus relief package because Democrats wanted to allot $25 billion for the US Postal Service, $3.5 billion of which would be used to help the office better facilitate mail-in voting. Trump has frequently claimed, incorrectly, that mail-in voting will lead to widespread voter fraud.