Trump Twice Blames Military for his Covid-19 Infection

Trump blames the military (again) for his own incompetence.

Twice, President Trump has appeared to blame military or law enforcement for contracting Covid-19.

Before it became apparent that the Rose Garden ceremony for Amy Coney Barrett was a potential super spreader event, the conventional wisdom was that Trump was infected by Hope Hicks. Hicks, an aide and close adviser, tested positive for the coronavirus just hours before Trump did, and the two are in close contact.

Apparently, Trump believed that the person who infected Hicks was a member of the military.

“(Hope)’s fantastic, and she’s done a great job. But, it is very, very hard when you are with people from the military or from law enforcement and they come over to you,” Trump told Sean Hannity of Fox News. “They want to hug you, and they want to kiss you because we really have done a good job for them.”

There we have it. Kissing service men and women are to blame. As Business Insider notes, it is “extremely unlikely that a service member in uniform would breach protocol with a hug, especially during a pandemic.”

Then, more infections were announced. Melania Trump, Stephen Miller, Chris Christie, Ronna McDaniel, Kellannye Conway, etc. Three senators — Mike Lee, Ron Johnson, and Thom Tillis, also tested positive. Given the outbreak, it was quickly apparent that instead of Hope Hicks giving the president Covid-19, he was most likely infected (or infecting) at the Rose Garden ceremony.

But this new set of circumstances didn’t stop the president from blaming the military a second time, however. The most likely outcome, given the number of positive cases of those who attended the ceremony, was that Trump was infected there. Instead, Trump appeared to cite an event with Gold Star families as a source of his infection.

Gold Star families are the families of soldiers who have died overseas.

“Sometimes, I’d be in groups of, for instance, Gold Star families. I met with Gold Star families. I didn’t want to cancel that,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo. “But they all came in, and they all talk about their son and…