An infectious disease expert on CNN called out President Donald Trump’s reckless and often false Covid-19 advice to his supporters, likening Trump’s willful disregard for his voters to “Jonestown massacre but on a national scale.”

Dr. Celine Gounder, a frequent guest on CNN, appeared on a weekend edition of Anderson Cooper 360 just hours before an outdoor Independence Day celebration at Mt. Rushmore, where Trump is due to give a speech to thousands of people who are not required to wear masks or socially distance. South Dakota has largely been spared from the outbreak, with fewer than 7,000 cases in total, although it new positivity rate has held steady for the past month. But that state is a clear outlier, as dozens of states are now seeing spikes in cases and high-population states in the South and West, like Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California, are seeing exponential growth.

AC360 guest host Jim Sciutto pointed out the lack of rigorous public health guidelines for the 4th of July event, asking Gounder to assess the public health risk.

“Dr. Gounder, if I could begin with you,” Sciutto began. “Perhaps, as many as 7,500 people tonight. Not socially distanced. Masks optional. From a purely medical standpoint, just how dangerous is it for people attending that event tonight?”

“You know, this is a man who once said he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and he would never lose voters,” Gounder noted, alluding an infamous quote by then-candidate Trump.

“Now, he’s asking, essentially, people to shoot themselves,” Gounder added, before likening Trump’s continual dismissal of the heath threat from the virus to the behavior of suicidal cult leader Jim Jones, who convinced nearly 1,000 of his followers to poison themselves. “This is on par with the Jonestown massacre but on a national scale. He’s, essentially, asking his supporters to drink the Kool-Aid or jump off the cliff, in a way that’s very dangerous except this is something that can spread to others.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

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