Political activist and scientist Noam Chomsky criticized President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic during a Livestream for left-wing news site “Democracy Now.”

In his statement, Chomsky said, “We have a freak show in Washington, a totally dysfunctional government, which is causing enormous problems.” He went on to say that the administration should have anticipated the pandemic. Chomsky claimed that the administration had even “cut back preparation” for the crisis. “This continued even after the pandemic hit,” the activist said.

He explained that as early as February 10, there had already been warnings about the looming threat of the virus. However, Trump chose to ignore the grave implications of the virus and continued to defund the Center for Disease Control and other health institutions.

On the other hand, Chomsky claimed that Trump added more funding for fuel productions, as well as new subsidies for the fossil industry. He then went on an over-arching generalization that “the country is simply run by sociopaths.”

Moreover, Chomsky said that such decisions had pushed back the effort to mitigate and resolve the pandemic. While it might be unrelated to the ongoing crisis, the political activist believed that Trump’s action had sped up the destruction of the environment, and as a result, the planet might suffer from such irreversible damages. He used the melting of the polar ice sheets as an example.

In fact, Chomsky claimed that Trump is a far more serious threat than the virus itself. He believed that while the country can recover from the aftermath of the Trump administration, it will come with a “severe cost.” This is not the first time that the political activist made previous attacks on the Trump administration.

Last year, Chomsky said during an exclusive interview for Truthout, that Trump had dismissed vital information and analysis, over his own “intelligence system” referring to the morning news show “Fox and Friends.” Chomsky also jabbed on the president’s intelligence, and describes the situation as “sheer madness.”

In another interview with John Horgan for Scientific America in 2018, Chomsky claimed that Trump is “a contender for the most evil document in history.” During the Q&A session, Horgan asked Chomsky about his previous claims that the Republican party is “the most dangerous organization in world history.”

Chomsky claimed that as a leader, Trump and the rest of the GOP had ignored warnings on the looming threat of global warming, and had instead, built a wall in Ireland to protect his own golf course. Chomsky claimed that despite his actions, the rest of the Republican party had ignored or denied what was happening.