'You make it worse': Host's anger over 'sick' Trump tweet about dead woman

A TV show host has called US President Donald Trump a “sick person” for his tweets about her husband, which insinuated he got away with murder.

MSNBC’s co-host, Mika Brzezinski took aim at the president over a May 12 tweet, which accused her husband and co-host Joe Scarborough of murder, calling him a psycho.

“When will they open a Cold Case on the Psycho Joe Scarborough matter in Florida,” the President tweeted.

“Did he get away with murder? Some people think so. Why did he leave Congress so quietly and quickly? Isn’t it obvious? What’s happening now? A total nut job!”

In 2001, when Mr Scarborough was a Republican congressman in Florida, one of his staffers, 28-year-old Lori Klausutis, was found dead at her desk.

An autopsy revealed that Ms Klausutis had an undiagnosed heart condition and a coroner concluded she passed out and hit her head as she fell.

The coroner said the head injury caused the death, but she wasn’t struck by another person.

Mr Scarborough was in Washington DC at the time of Ms Klausutis’ death, while she was in Florida and he had already stepped down from his role.

“I’ll take a point of personal privilege here,” Ms Brzezinski said on air.

“That’s sick. Donald, you’re a sick person.

“You’re a sick person, to put this family through this, to put her husband through this, to do this just because you’re mad at Joe, because Joe got you again today.

“Because he speaks the truth, and he speaks plainly about your lack of interest, and empathy in others, and your lack of ability to handle this massive human catastrophe, the fact that you have made it worse and you make it worse every day.”

Afterwards, Ms Brzezinski took to Twitter herself to ask why Mr Trump was not “banned” from the platform.

“Please stop allowing your platform policies to be abused by the day. It’s called libel,” she tweeted, singling out Twitter’s founder and asked him to take her phone call.

This was not the first time Mr Trump had accused Mr Scarborough of having a hand in the death of Ms Klausutis.

In 2017, Mr Trump asked via Twitter if NBC would fire political talk show host Joe Scarborough based on an “unsolved mystery” years ago in Florida.

700,000 infections could have been prevented

Before Ms Brzezinski hit out at Mr Trump’s conspiracy theories, she was discussing comments the president previously made, saying it was a “badge of honour” the US was leading the world in testing.

“I view it as a badge of honour. Really, it’s a badge of honour,” Mr Trump said.

“It’s a great tribute to the testing and all of the work that a lot of professionals have done.”

More than 1.5 million people in the US have tested positive for COVID-19, leading the world in confirmed cases and deaths. As of Friday 94,591 people in the US have died from coronavirus.

Mr Trump did point out if the US did not test as many people there would be fewer cases.

Ms Brzezinski said “most” people believe the president had “botched this crisis from the get-go”.

New research from Columbia University indicates if the US implemented measures a week sooner, more than 700,000 infections in the country could have been prevented.

“The counterfactual simulations indicate that had observed control measures been adopted one week earlier, the US would have avoided 703,975 confirmed cases and 35,927 deaths nationwide as of May 3, 2020,” the report said.

“We find significant reductions of the basic reproductive numbers in major metropolitan areas in association with social distancing and other control measures.”

Movements were restricted in the US, with social distancing policies implemented by states and counties between March 15 and May 3, NPR notes.

The report also notes other countries who implemented these strategies have aided in controlling the spread.

While the US has seen a decrease in confirmed cases, the report says this “conveys a false signal that the pandemic is well under control”, adding a surge in cases and deaths could come following the relaxation of measures.

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