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Brad Parscale Says Donald Trump Erred In Not Expressing Empathy On Covid-19

Ted Johnson
·2 min read

Brad Parscale, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, gave his first post-election interview to Fox News Channel’s Martha MacCallum, and he offered some criticism of the president for not expressing empathy on Covid-19.

He said that the decision to “go for opening the economy versus public empathy” cost Trump support in the suburbs.

“We had a difference on this. I thought we should have public empathy,” Parscale said Tuesday. “I think people were scared. I watched people walk around me….People were scared, and I think if he were publicly empathetic, he would have won, by a landslide. I think he could have leaned into it, instead of run away from it.”

By contrast, President-elect Joe Biden made empathy toward the coronavirus crisis a centerpiece of his campaign.

Bizarrely enough, Parscale also held out the possibility that Trump could still win, telling MacCallum, “I think the President is still clearly in a position that he might be able to pull this off.” But he offered few specifics on how this could be done, as key swing states already have certified their results in favor of Biden. Parscale said that he thought it was “weird” that votes were coming in “day after day” in Pennsylvania.

But it is not unusual: The state was flooded by mail-in ballots, which were counted after same-day ballots. Trump and his allies have tried to point to such voting to cast suspicion undermine the integrity of the election.

In the interview, Parscale spent much of the time suggesting that Trump was on the road to victory but the campaign switched gears and diverted from the plan in the final stretch. He also blamed “D-level people around the president.”

Parscale was ousted as campaign manager in July and replaced by Bill Stepien. The next month, he was hospitalized after he barricaded himself in his home in Fort Lauderdale, FL, in an incident that was caught by a police camera. He told MacCallum that his family is now in a “great place” after going through “a very stressful time for five years.”

He said that he has not talked to Trump lately, and that it was “pretty hurtful,” but “it is probably just as much my fault as his.”

“I love that family, and I gave every inch of my life to them,” he said. Asked what he would say to the president, Parscale said, “Keep fighting. Don’t give up.”

The next part of the interview will air Wednesday on MacCallum’s The Story.

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