When it finally hit Donald Trump that his 2020 reelection campaign was in trouble, he panicked. He knew that the pandemic had stifled his favorite way to connect with his voters: Rallies. He knew his pandemic response was weak at best and dangerous at worst.

But Trump cared about getting reelected more than COVID. He cared about it more than the victims of the disease, or the staffers he was putting in danger by insisting on going back to doing rallies, or anything else in the world.

And when Trump held a rally in Tulsa last summer, he had a pretty big-name celebrity on stage with him, Herman Cain. After Cain’s failed bid for the presidency, he became one of Trump’s biggest supporters. Since Cain had the kind of delivery style that appealed to ill-informed voters that largely go Republican, Trump ate it up.

But sometime around that rally in Tulsa, Hermain Cain contracted COVID-19 and paid the ultimate price shortly after. It’s not known if he caught it there, but it’s pretty likely.

And those staffers that Trump didn’t care about? They blamed themselves for what happened to Herman Cain. That’s according to Jon Karl’s upcoming book Betrayed, which we’ve reported on extensively.

The book details how ABC reporter Will Steakin, also in attendance at the Tulsa rally, was told by a Trump campaign staffer after the event:

We k*lled Herman Cain.

The saddest part is, that staffer isn’t entirely wrong. I have a hard time extending sympathy to people who choose to work for Donald Trump. But I also know that many people, even if they’re associated with Trump, are completely capable of feeling the kind of remorse and guilt that this staffer admitted to.

All the photos of the event show that mask-wearing was minimal and social distancing was almost nonexistent. According to the book, eight staffers also contracted the disease, and they were directly linked to the Tulsa event. But even those who caught it themselves were “devastated” by the news that Cain had succumbed to COVID just 11 days after Tulsa.

The worst part is, if Trump ever had pains of guilt about the untimely demise of Herman Cain, they would surely be outweighed by his anger that the Tulsa rally didn’t even help him win.

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