Politics

Trump Clashes With His Own Supporters Over Sweden’s Coronavirus Response

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - FEBRUARY 21: President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Las Vegas Convention Center on February 21, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The upcoming Nevada Democratic presidential caucus will be held February 22. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Justin Caruso Contributor
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President Donald Trump appeared to clash with some of his supporters on Twitter Thursday morning after he defended the United States’ coronavirus response as many conservatives are promoting Sweden’s more lax response.

“Despite reports to the contrary, Sweden is paying heavily for its decision not to lockdown,” Trump tweeted.

“As of today, 2462 people have died there, a much higher number than the neighboring countries of Norway (207), Finland (206) or Denmark (443). The United States made the correct decision!”

This is in opposition to a popular argument made by some pro-Trump media voices who argue that Sweden’s less strict social distancing measures amid coronavirus have been successful and made “herd immunity” more likely. (RELATED: Sweden Refused To Shut Down Its Economy Over Coronavirus — Is It Working?)

Trump also tweeted at Bill Mitchell, a conservative pundit and longtime supporter of Trump, over his praise of Sweden’s response.

“Really? Have you looked at the numbers lately!” Trump said in response to a Mitchell tweet.

Conservative Review editor Daniel Horowitz responded to Trump’s tweet by criticizing the president.

“I’ve lost track over how many times in this presidency Trump has had a major fight with the media, his loyal supporters spend weeks defending him, then he flips and champions a talking point of the left more emphatically than they are,” Horowitz said.

“Like a QB that calls a big play in the huddle, the wide receivers fan out over the field to make it happen, and then he just hand the ball off the the defensive lineman who have already advanced more aggressively than ever based on the perception he was going to make big play,” he added.

Blaze TV host Steve Deace also criticized Trump, writing, “And then if you don’t recognize this was 4-dimensional chess, but helps the Democrats win, you hate America and want the Democrats to win.”

“I want him to win in November. I want to vote for him. He’s undermining both causes right now.”

“In the end, the song remains the same. Trump makes it harder than it needs to be to vote for/support him. But his enemies make it easier than it ever should,” he added.

Conservative Daily Wire host Matt Walsh chimed in, calling Trump’s tweet “enormously stupid.”

“It’s going to be very hard for Trump to distance himself from the economic collapse considering he’s been cheering it on with misleading propaganda like this,” he said.

“Sweden has double the population of those countries. Also it won’t have the same carnage that comes with an economic collapse like they will. Also the real measure will be how many deaths each country has after a year or more. Sweden is thinking long term. We should have, too.”

“Not to mention, if we’re just looking at total confirmed death numbers without respect to population size, the US has the most. So this tweet is enormously stupid on so many levels that it’s hard to count them all,” he concluded.