“It’s going to disappear,” Trump said of the coronavirus last month. “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”

The virus, of course, has not just disappeared. And Trump’s pick of Vice President Mike Pence to lead the administration’s response to the health crisis isn’t exactly instilling confidence in the American public. Pence’s record on public health is best represented by the role he played in an HIV outbreak while he was governor of Indiana. The president has also spent years in office slashing the budgets of government agencies responsible for responding to the exact problem the country now faces.

Congress finally stepped in this week when the Senate approved an $8.3 billion emergency funding bill to combat the virus, a day after it passed the House. But Trump seemed less impressed with the bipartisan passage and more impressed with television ratings.

“As of the time I left the plane with you we had 240 cases, that’s at least what was on a very fine network known as Fox News, don’t you love it?” he said to a Fox News reporter during his meeting with CDC officials. “That’s what I happened to be watching, and how was the show last night? Did it get good ratings by the way?”

“I don’t know,” the reporter responded.

“Oh, really, I heard it broke all ratings records, but maybe that’s wrong,” Trump said.

Lives are on the line. Americans are getting sick and some are dying. And the president continues to show that he just doesn’t really care.