Donald Trump wanted to send Covid-infected Americans to Guantánamo Bay, book claims

Donald Trump called for Americans with Covid-19 to be sent to Guantánamo Bay, according to a new book.

The book, Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History, which was written by Washington Post reporters Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta, alleged that Trump asked aides: “Don’t we have an island that we own? What about Guantánamo?” when trying to make a coronavirus strategy in February 2020.

It also claimed that Trump once said: “We import goods. We are not going to import a virus.”

The controversial Guantánamo Bay houses a prison that used to keep terrorism suspects without trial.

Since the 9/11 attacks, it has been condemned by human rights groups. Barack Obama tried to close it while president but failed to due to political opposition.

The book also alleges that Trump was concerned about his coronavirus testing policy and feared it would lose him the election.

He has been quoted shouting at Alex Azar, who was Secretary of Health and Human Services at the time. Apparently, Trump said: “Testing is killing me! I’m going to lose the election because of testing! What idiot had the federal government do testing?”

According to the book, Mr Azar replied: “Uh, do you mean Jared?” which is said to have related to Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who had taken over the national testing strategy.

It has been suggested that Trump was more concerned about the statistics which he called ‘my numbers’ than he was with illnesses and deaths.

More than 600,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the US.