Trump officials deflect blame for US death toll, escalate reopening push

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/18/politics/trump-us-death-toll-blame-reopen/index.html

 Two of President Donald Trump's top officials are now pointing the finger at the administration's own scientists and Americans' pre-existing health conditions to explain the country's world-leading Covid-19 death toll.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar suggested Sunday that underlying health conditions, including among minorities, were one reason for the high American death toll -- nearly 90,000 as of Sunday evening. And Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro added the government's own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to its list of scapegoats alongside China and the Obama administration.

The White House has been escalating its effort to recast the narrative of its own chaotic response to the crisis as it aggressively pushes to reopen the country, a process vital to the fortunes of millions of people who have lost their jobs in lockdowns and its own political prospects in November.

The effort follows Trump's repeated early denials that the virus would be a problem for the United States and claims that his administration had it under control months ago.