May 11th 2020

Democracy Now!

A 56-foot billboard called the Trump Death Clock was unveiled in Times Square in New York City. The tally of lives lost to government inaction was created by filmmaker Eugene Jarecki, who says, “On behalf of all of those who needlessly lost their lives to this failed leadership in a pandemic, we need a symbol, a symbol that cries out not only for accountability, but also for more responsible and responsive stewardship, going forward.” As of the Friday morning broadcast, the death toll count was nearly 47,000 and growing.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: A 56-foot billboard called the Trump Death Clock has been unveiled in Times Square here in New York. The billboard was created by the Oscar-nominated filmmaker Eugene Jarecki.

EUGENE JARECKI: So, the Trump Death Clock is a billboard that hangs over Times Square. And what it shows is an estimate of the number of U.S. COVID-19 deaths that resulted from the president and his team’s failed response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Thanks to Dr. Fauci and leading epidemiologists, we now know that had the mitigation guidelines been put into effect just one week earlier, on March 9th instead of March 16th, 60% of U.S. COVID-19 deaths would have been prevented. That’s an incredible number.

And on behalf of all those who needlessly lost their lives to this failed leadership in a pandemic, we need a symbol, a symbol cries out not only for accountability, but also for more responsible and responsive stewardship, going forward.

AMY GOODMAN: At the time of this broadcast, the Trump Death Clock stands at 46,485 and growing.

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