Q Toon: Oh, You Thought THAT Question Was Nasty

In this time of a global health crisis, I would really like not to draw cartoons critical of the President of the United States.

Really I would.

But he simply refuses to stop saying foolish, spiteful, and false things at those daily press conferences that the mainstream television and cable networks are obliged to broadcast live and uncensored. One moment, he's reading a prepared statement outlining the current scope and nature of the spread of the coronavirus and measures taken to control it. The next, he's telling everyone to cluster together in church on Easter Sunday as if "Death Takes a Holiday" were a real phenomenon.

Or he's snapping at a reporter who tossed him a softball question.

[NBC's Peter Alexander asked,] "What do you say to Americans watching you right now who are scared" of the coronavirus outbreak?
"I’d say you are a terrible reporter," Trump responded. "I think that’s a very nasty question, and I think that’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people."
"The American people are looking for answers and hope, and you're doing sensationalism, the same with NBC and Comcast — I don't call it Comcast, I call it Con-cast — for whom you work."

Or he's denying that he had anything to do with his own disbanding of the National Security Council's global health unit — and whining that reporters aren't praising him for his travel ban on Chinese citizens. To a hammer, every problem looks like a nail; to Trump, every problem calls for keeping the foreigners out.

But worse are his outright lies and fabrications. No, Mr. Trump, the coronavirus isn't going to disappear "like a miracle" by April or by Easter. President Obama didn't dither when the H1N1 pandemic broke out. Tests for the virus have not been available to everyone who wants one. Google didn't have a coronavirus testing web site ready to roll out nationwide.

And if you have “always known this is a real—this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic … I’ve always viewed it as very serious,” you did a very convincing job of acting otherwise.

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I have been notified that Q Syndicate is suspending operations through the month of April. The coronavirus crisis has hit small, independent publications hard: most of them rely exclusively on advertising revenue to keep publishing, and most of their regular advertisers have nothing to advertise except "We're closed."

I will keep posting cartoons here when I can, although the schedule will undoubtedly become more irregular until this is over.