Trump calls Columbia study showing effects of earlier coronavirus action ‘political hit job’

President Trump on Thursday dismissed a Columbia University study that showed thousands of lives could have been saved with earlier social distancing measures as a “political hit job.”The president defended his actions to combat the pandemic after The New York Times published findings from the university’s disease modelers that roughly 36,000 fewer people would have died from coronavirus in the U.S. if the country imposed restrictions just one…