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The Washington Post raised eyebrows on Tuesday after it attempted to shame President Trump for playing golf during the coronavirus pandemic.
In the piece headlined, "At least 3,000 Americans have probably died of covid-19 while Trump has played golf," Washington Post national correspondent Philip Bump dinged the president for "chafing" at shutdown restrictions as well as outings at his various golf courses.
"The country is seeing about 39,000 new cases each day. There are also more than 800 Americans dying of the virus each day, on average. That’s down from late May, but it’s still a heavy toll," Bump wrote. "If the 815 deaths occurring each day at this point were evenly spread out over the course of 24 hours, it would mean that an American is dying about once every 105 seconds.
"It would mean, in other words, that during the period during which Trump was gone from the White House on Sunday to play golf at his private club in Sterling, Va., about 150 Americans would have died of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus."
Bump explained, "If we use this same calculation for all of Trump’s rounds of golf since the first recorded death from the virus in the United States, it’s probable that at least 3,000 Americans have died of covid-19 while Trump has been playing golf." The writer went on to estimate that Trump "spent about 22.5 hours" playing golf or traveling to and from his club since Feb. 2.
"Comparing those durations with the number of confirmed deaths on each day, we get a range of between 3,037, based on the reported number of deaths each day, and 3,862 deaths, based on the seven-day average," Bump continued. "The variation between those numbers is largely a function of Trump’s generally playing golf on the weekend, when reported death figures are generally lower than during the week. If we use only the average number of deaths on days when Trump’s been confirmed to have played golf, the total is 3,163."
The self-described "analysis" was panned on social media.
"Lol probably. Who knows tho. Whatever. Just print it," Washington Examiner's Andrew Mark Miller tweeted.
"How many died from the aggressive eye rolling at this piece?" Washington Free Beacon senior writer Adam Kredo asked.
"Analysis: At least 500 men named George probably wore blue pants at a Costco last Tuesday," conservative writer Matt Walsh mocked the Post.
"Leftists keep finding new ways to come off as stupid," radio host Derek Hunter said.
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This isn't the first time Bump's analysis has been mocked. In June, the Post correspondent was slammed for claiming that the most dangerous cities in America "are not" all run by Democrats in an attempt to debunk the president's claims, but his own reporting acknowledged 17 out of the 20 cities with the most violent crime are in fact run by Democratic politicians.
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