SYSTEM OF A DOWN's SERJ TANKIAN On DONALD TRUMP: 'Nepotism, Egocentricity And Stupidity At Its Best'

SYSTEM OF A DOWN singer Serj Tankian has blasted President Donald Trump for claiming his administration has "done one hell of a job" amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Wednesday (March 25),President Trump railed against "fake news," telling a reporter "you wouldn't even have a country left" if it weren't for his White House Coronavirus Task Force. He also said that "certain people" would like the U.S. "not to open so quickly — would like it to do financially poorly, because they think that would do well at defeating me at the polls." He told a reporter: "There are people in your profession that would like that to happen... there are people in your profession that write fake news."

Last night, Tankian took to his Twitter to share a BBC video of Trump's remarks, and he included the following comment: "Nepotism, egocentricity, and stupidity at its best".

Also on Wednesday, Trump claimed the U.S. is ramping up its testing for coronavirus and has done more testing over an eight-day span than South Korea has done over an eight-week span. But critics have pointed out that the U.S. population is more than six times the size of South Korea's, meaning that on a per capita basis, South Korea is testing far more of its citizens than the U.S.

According to the COVID Tracking Project web site, 367,710 coronavirus tests have been administered in the U.S. as of Wednesday. South Korea, by comparison, has conducted 357,896 tests.

More than 495,000 coronavirus cases have been reported worldwide and more than 22,000 deaths so far, putting public health systems and emergency services under immense pressure.

U.S. officials have repeatedly urged Americans to heed what federal, state and local officials are asking of them in order to curtail the spread and dampen the impact of the virus on the population.