Bethel Widow Who Lost Husband To Coronavirus Assails Trump On CNN

BETHEL, CT — A Bethel woman who lost her husband to the COVID-19 early in the pandemic has criticized President Donald Trump for "his inability to feel empathetic."

Katie Coelho made the remarks Monday night on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" program. Her husband, Jonathan, died in April after a 28-day battle with the virus in Danbury Hospital. He left behind his wife and two small children.

Trump left Walter Reed Medical Center earlier Monday evening following a three-day stay for treatment after testing positive for the COVID-19 virus. In a tweet earlier in the day, the president said "Don't be afraid of COVID. Don't let it dominate your life."

Coelho told Cooper that when she learned that Trump had tested positive for the virus,"I automatically thought this is going to be really bad for all the victims' families."

She told Cooper she had an intuition that the president would make matters worse.

"I knew that if he got COVID he was definitely going to downplay it even more so than he has been, and he was going to allow the gates to open where people can continue to lash out at us and continue to say horrible things to us, and the video that he just tweeted and the things that he's been saying are just disrespectful."

Cooper expressed surprised that strangers had been critical of her.

"I am surprised if I go at least a week without somebody saying something horrible," Coelho said. "I've been called almost every swear word in the book, saying that I'm part of the propaganda and I'm left wing and I'm this and that. I'm not.

"My feeling is if that's what people want to say about me then at least I’m challenging them. I'm giving a face and a voice to people like my husband who deserved to have a voice and to be here," Coelho said. "For President Trump to sit there and say that he's a leader and he's leading us through COVID... What does he have to lose by showing sympathy? What does he have to lose by saying, ‘I'm sorry this happened to your kids' dad and your husband?’"

It was not Coelho's first time on Cooper's show, having appeared there shortly after her husband's death. At that time she brought Cooper to tears with the story of a note from her husband that she discovered after his death

During the latest CNN interview, Coelho mocked what she presented as Trump's bravado: "He doesn't have anything and he is just pushing through and nobody is looking at him thinking that he is strong and brave. He's weak because my husband fought COVID, my husband wanted to come home and he deserved it. And this man is using this as a political propaganda to divide the nation, when we are already so broken."