Trump calls coronavirus pandemic a ‘great and powerful plague’ in bizarre tweet storm

The President returned to the White House from Camp David on Sunday accompanied by son-in-law Jared Kushner and aide Dan Scavino

Donald Trump has referred to the coronavirus pandemic as a “great and powerful plague” in a tweet this weekend, after more than 67,000 people in the US died because of Covid-19.

President Trump returned to the White House on Sunday afternoon on Marine 1 after a "working weekend" at Camp David in Maryland. He was accompanied back to DC by son-in-law Jared Kushner and aide Dan Scavino.

The president began Sunday morning by tweeting out his approval rating, showing he had 47 per cent of support among voters in a Gallup poll conducted in late April.

He wrote: “Going well despite the Fake News!”


 President Donald Trump waves as he walks from Marine One at the White House on 3 May (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images) 
 (AFP via Getty Images)

Mr Trump then turned to the outbreak of the novel virus, beginning in a separate tweet: “…And then came a Plague, a great and powerful Plague, and the World was never to be the same again!”

“But America rose from this death and destruction,” he continued, “always remembering its many lost souls, and the lost souls all over the World, and became greater than before!”

The president has stirred controversy in recent weeks over his administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic as well as his bizarre comments made about Covid-19 online and during multiple White House press briefings.

Mr Trump suggested the possibility of ingesting disinfectants or using sunlight to potentially treat patients infected with Covid-19 during a press conference in late April — comments he later claimed were not actually serious. A number of states subsequently reported a rise in calls to poison control centres.

Larry Hogan, a Republican governor from Maryland who told CBS his state saw hundreds of those calls come in after Mr Trump made the remarks, said in an interview with Face the Nation: “I think it is critical that the President of the United States, when people are really scared and in the middle of this worldwide pandemic, that in these press conferences, that we really get the facts out there.”

Mr Trump has referred to the pandemic as a plague in other statements. He told religious leaders ahead of the Passover and Easter holidays in a conference call: “We’re going to beat this plague. We’re going to beat this virus and we’re going to beat it soon.”

The president has ramped up his already-frequent Twitter usage during a “working weekend” at Camp David, attacking Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, as well as Congress, and showing support for Michael Flynn in a series of tweets.