Things Trump Said Monday Morning -- and Other Stuff

Not doing so well in open conversations with reporters, Donald Trump ran to momma this morning; that is, he went on Fox & Friends. In case we forget how awful he is apart from the coronavirus, he provided a little help. Here's a selection of his quotes.

Concerning disinformation campaigns concerning the coronavirus on the part of China and Russia: "They do it and we do it. Every country does it."

On why he's nice to Russia and not to Germany. "We have problems with other countries, more than Russia. [In World War II]. They also fought World War II. They lost 50 million people.... Germany was the enemy and Germany is like this wonderful thing. Well, Germany takes advantage of us on trade for years.... Look, it's fine...it's in my heritage."

New York will be "fine... based on the numbers." Regarding ventilators, "After this is over they’ll be selling them for a dollar a piece."

Oh, but here's the biggie. On the coronavirus relief bill Trump gave away his election strategy: keep people from voting. In earlier versions Democrats "They had things — levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again."

Oh, and there's the corruption. Always the corruption. Trump had promoted a coronavirus website that would farm people out to coronavirus testing sites. He said Google was working on it, but the project--which has done almost no good--went to a company in which Jared Kushner and his brother hold a significant take. From The Atlantic:

Kushner’s younger brother Joshua is a co-founder and major investor in Oscar, and Jared Kushner partially owned or controlled Oscar before he joined the White House.

One more thing: the White House and its allies are selling the notion that Trump's delayed and ineffectual response to the coronavirus was due to his being distracted by his impeachment. Two thoughts.

1. Doesn't that amount to an admission that his response was inadequate? What an interesting defense....
2. Bullshit. From January 9 to March 9 Trump found the time to (a) hold 8 political rallies, and (b) have 6-8 golf outings. 37 days passed between the Senate vote and the first meaningful federal action, apart from banning travel from China. (Compiled from various reporters.)

The Buck Gets Passed Along

If character matters in a president, we are truly paddleless on the upstream side of the creek. Donald Trump's press conference yesterday gave this away on multiple occasions.

First Trump blamed hospitals and medical professionals for supply shortages. Stung by the criticism that he failed to ramp up production of critical items like ventilators, Trump accused hospitals of hoarding them.

“We have some healthcare workers, some hospitals ... hoarding equipment including ventilators,” Trump said at the White House following a meeting with corporate executives, including from U.S. Medical Group.

“We have to release those ventilators — especially hospitals that are never going to use them.”

Exactly which hospitals, I wonder, feel like they have enough ventilators for what's coming?

Trump addressed the mask shortage too, apparently ignorant of how many masks a hospital might go through in a short time.

"How do you go from 10 to 20 to 30,000, to 300,000 -- even though this is different. Something is going on. And you ought to look into it as reporters. Where are the masks going?"

What about states that are begging for supplies? Yup, Trump went after them too.

“Many of the states are stocked up. Some of them don’t admit it.”

But the one thing Trump can't abide? His own words. Ask him to clarify things he's actually said, and Trump will really show his ass. Ask the wrong question, and they'll cut off your mic--or just take it out of your hand. I can't vouch for how Breitbart may have edited the first video.

 It's all deadly. Wasn't that long ago Trump said we had 15 cases and would soon be at zero. Then he said we'd all be in church together on Easter Sunday. I'll give him credit for responding to his experts. They told him that even on our current course, we're looking at a death toll between 100,000 and 200,000, so he acknowledged we may have to practice social distancing through April.

Then what did the jackass do? Having told us we were experiencing a hoax, and having predicted we'd be at zero cases a month ago, yesterday Trump said.... Well, just read it.

"So if we can hold that down, as we’re saying, to 100,000, it’s a horrible number, maybe even less, but to 100,000, so we have between 100 and 200,000, we all together have done a very good job."

Trump doesn't just move the goalposts. He moves them in midsentence.

The Past Is the Present

I've been posting about Trump administration's past failings in dealing with the coronavirus. Lots of people are saying the past doesn't matter, that it's important to work with the administration to alleviate as much of the future pain as possible.

Thankfully, I don't work with the Trump administration. I don't have to make those choices.

But. Trump hasn't changed. Oh, he says he's done calling the virus the "Chinese virus," a policy that led to a significant uptick in assaults on Asian Americans. But he's also still refusing to lead the country in ways that matter, leaving things up to states and even individual hospitals and health departments to suffer the consequences. Oh, and people. People suffer the consequences.

For example, we're way short on ventilators. The other day health care expert Andy Slavitt said that three kinds of people will die from the coronavirus: the elderly, people with underlying health problems, and... most of the deaths will come from young and otherwise healthy people who need ventilators and other medical interventions and won't receive them due to shortages.

So the Trump administration was about to announce a joint plan with GM and Ventec Life Systems to produce 80,000 ventilators. Upon finding out those ventilators would cost over a billion dollars, the Trumpies backed out.

A second case. Whenever he's in trouble or needs to get a message out, Trump goes on Hannity. Last night Trump chose to dump on Democratic governors, blaming them for the crisis. Along the way, he said, "I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators."

Wait a minute. The fool kept talking. "You know, you go into major hospitals sometimes they’ll have two ventilators, and now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’”

So here's problem one. Trump is still denying the severity of the crisis. During all his press conferences, have you ever once heard him name the numbers of cases and deaths from the previous day?

And problem two: he's using the pandemic not as a call for service but as a political weapon. On Hannity he rants on Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who's complained that--you know Detroit is an emerging hot spot, right?--they're not getting enough help. And Governor Inslee of Washington, who has actually succeeded in bending the new cases curve.

Trump again: "We’re really a second line of attack. The first line of attack is supposed to be the hospitals and the local government and the states themselves.”

In other words, it's not my responsibility. Then why the actual fuck is he doing a couple of press conferences a day if it's not his responsibility?

By the way, it is absolutely the federal government's responsibility to lead a response to a national emergency. He just won't let that happen.

As for Whitmer? She says the federal government isn't helping nearly enough. In one instance

Whitmer recounted that the most recent delivery of masks, gowns, face shields and gloves from the federal government’s national strategic stockpile that was earmarked for a Michigan hospital on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis — in southeast Michigan — was woefully short of what is needed.

“With the exception of the gloves, that allotment is barely enough to cover one shift at that hospital,” Whitmer said. “Not even a whole day’s worth of shifts. One shift.”

It's so bad that Michigan Republicans are complaining along with. A bipartisan letter from Michigan members of Congress to Mike Pence begins by complaining that Michigan is doing all it can but it's getting enough federal help. They write: "Your assistance and engagement are urgently needed."

Confusion has arisen as both states and the federal government attempt to rapidly secure PPE and testing supplies. In this midst of this challenge, the federal government must ensure it communicates a clear chain of command to the states and utilize a data-driven prioritization process to address states' needs. 

Yesterday I listened to the press conference held by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf and Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine. How comforting it was to hear serious leaders acknowledging the scope of the problem, being honest about the sacrifices it will take to overcome it, and being transparent concerning the Commonwealth's efforts to mitigate it.

Of Course Trump Made It Worse

Donald Trump is an aspiring magician. He and only he can change the past.

Having declared the coronavirus a hoax, for about a week now he's been declaring that he's been on the case the whole time. After all, he blocked people coming from China, something he'd be happy to do any damn Wednesday, so clearly he always knew what a challenge we faced.

Who knows? Maybe he'll pull it off. But it's important to name the truth because Trump is still asking us to trust him to keep us safe. He is not keeping us safe. He's not. So why should we open things up on Easter due to his opinion? God didn't raise Jesus from the dead for that.

Our first major failure involved testing. We failed to track and contain the virus by aggressively testing people who might have come into contact with it. Welp. Trump turned down the test offered by the World Health Organization.

Now why did Trump do that? One option is that he hates all international alliances, especially the United Nations. A second is that Jared Kushner's brother runs a company that produces tests, though that argument is a little shaky. Another option is that Trump never wanted to acknowledge the seriousness of the threat. Remember how he didn't want cruise ship passengers allowed to disembark because of the numbers? Remember all the false promises of quick tests?

Now, this is petty. The Washington Post reports that the G-7 failed to issue a statement on the pandemic because the Trump administration insisted on calling it the Wuhan virus. I suppose a G-7 statements means about as much as my opinion on black matter, but that says a lot about where the Trump energy is leaning.

We've also learned that Trump should have known what was coming.

• When Trump came to office, he inherited the coronavirus protocol developed by the Obama administration. 
• Just last year the Trump administration ran a months-long epidemic scenario game with premises very like the situation we're experiencing. And just days before this epidemic broke, a similar simulation was designed to alert the Trumpies.
• If anybody'd been paying attention, intelligence agencies were alerting the Trump administration that the coronavirus threat was severe--all the way back in January.

If Trump's magic trick works, we're a society of fools. Perhaps the best efforts to bring the truth to public attention are coming from true conservatives, who have known Trump as a fraud from the beginning. Here are a couple of their ads.

Share widely.

This too.

Double-Dog Danger

The coronavirus is scary enough.

But Trump and his minions are cooking up a totally unnecessary secondary danger: let's abandon vulnerable people just to save our economic numbers.

Last night 45* tweeted this cryptic message.

Immediately the alarms went off. Is Trump willing to let tens (or hundreds) of thousands of people die just to save his economic numbers? Are we that cold blooded?

I thought about sharing Trump's tweet right away. But it was so vague, I didn't want to ascribe motives to him that I couldn't document. (And with Trump, I think the worst.) Today I've had some time to think about it.

First, we have Trumpists normalizing the sentiment that we can let, get this, 2.5% percent of the population just slide into the afterlife because they're expensive and not productive enough.

Wait, didn't their labor build this fucking society? And wait, that's my Dad you're talking about!

Oh, and 2.5% of 350 million? That's 8.75 million people who are not expendable. Conservatives, my ass.

The thing is, messages like these happen by coordination. Trump says something outrageous, counting on support from his minions. Last night FoxNews voices Laura Ingraham and Brit Hume were trumpeting a Medium post--now removed by Medium because it has been totally debunked--minimizing the threat posed by the coronavirus.

All this while Senate Republicans try to twist epidemic relief legislation so as to flood money toward the rich and leave ordinary people picking for scraps. It's no accident. It's a pattern. Let's remember: Trump has put off using the Defense Production Act to require that manufacturers to supply ventilators, masks, and respirators because big business complained.

Remember, kids: the key to a vital economy is that ordinary people have money in their pockets--because ordinary people spend money. Rich people hoard it.

The Many Blessed Faces of Dr. Anthony Fauci

Did you know that in a 1988 presidential debate George H. W. Bush singled our Dr. Anthony Fauci as a personal hero for his work on HIV/AIDS? (Video.)

I can't claim to know what motivates Fauci. I imagine he's trying to minimize the effects of the coronavirus epidemic by providing accurate information to the American people and to the people tasked with developing a federal response. I further imagine that job involves countering the distortions coming from Donald Trump and his administration as effectively as he can--until they fire him.

Fauci's been bold enough to contradict Trump and other officials when directly called upon. But the big risk may come from his face: the man simply can't hide his dismay as the volume and intensity of bullshit he's called to stand for. Trump hates to be ridiculed, and Fauci's faces tell the story of failed leadership and shameless dishonesty of the administration.

Let's take a look at Fauci in action, sometimes joined in dismay by Dr. Deborah Birx.

Here's Trump disagreeing with Fauci about chloroquine's promise as a cure for the virus. Birx's face is priceless. Fauci achieves Stoic

Here's Fauci trying not to counter Trump too directly--and Trump countering his message.

Here's Fauci's famous facepalm when Trump refers to the "Deep State Department."

Here's Fauci looking down when Mike Pence says we're ordering half a billion masks. It happens at 0:14. He goes on to correct Trump about sanitizing and reusing masks. Throughout the clip he looks like a hostage.

Here's Fauci directly contradicting Trump concerning the supply shortage.

And here's the priceless one: Birx and Fauci when Pence extols "the incredible progress that we have made on testing."

Let's all hope Trump turns out to be right about chloroquine. But let's also know bullshit when we see it.

Telling the Truth for a Minute

Yesterday Donald Trump had to do something he really hates: he had to tell the truth about the coronavirus. He just didn't look like himself: all over social media people wondered if Trump himself had the virus. But telling the truth always makes Trump look sick.

Even if it's just some of the truth. (Trump gave himself a 10 out of 10 on his coronavirus response.)

Even if it's just for a little while. (This morning Trump was blasting Michigan's "failed" governor, "failed" meaning wildly successful Democrat, and gabbing about the "Chinese" virus. Whatever.)

FoxNews swallowed the bitter pill as well.

Reality has forced Trump into some kind of action, and that's a good thing. We need action. But we can't forget some other things.

• Until yesterday, Trump had severely and repeatedly minimized the pandemic. He called it a hoax. He said it was under control two months ago. He said it was under control one month ago. He said it was under control this week. Now he admits, it ain't under control.
• Trump has turned down international help, like testing from the WHO, and he's telling governors it's their problem to find ventilators, when the US has the resources to ramp up production of ventilators and masks. 

• Trump apparently changed course only because UK researchers predicted a death toll of up to 2.2 million in the United States if we maintained our current course. (Link to study results.) The good news is, we're probably beginning to bend the curve.

As a result, "Just 37% of Americans now say they had a good amount or a great deal of trust in what they're hearing from the president, while 60% say they had not very much or no trust at all in what he's saying." 

• How bad is it? Regarding the virus, 74% of Republicans believe Trump compared to 35% of independents and 8% of Democrats. In other words, the Republican Party is a death cult.

How many Americans will die because Donald Trump made the crisis all about appearances rather than accepting the truth? "I don't take responsibility at all," Trump declared, regarding our testing shortcomings. Harry Truman would lose his mind.

And let's not take our eye off the ball. While we may be getting some traction on the virus, the Justice Department has dropped charges against the Russians who interfered in the 2016 elections two weeks ahead of the trial. In fairness, this is what prosecutors said. 

"In light of the defendant’s conduct, however, its ephemeral presence and immunity to just punishment, the risk of exposure of law enforcement’s tools and techniques, and the post-indictment change in the proof available at trial, the balance of equities has shifted. It is no longer in the best interests of justice or the country’s national security to continue this prosecution."

Maybe they're telling the truth.

Blame Anybody Else

In his address Wednesday night Donald Trump excluded travel from parts of Europe, treating Europe (but no countries in which he owns golf properties) as a source of the coronavirus.

Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34153071

Friday morning Trump tweets blamed Obama and Biden for the spread of the virus. Completely false, of course, but standard Trump: knowing his administration is taking fire for their passive and dishonest response, Trump pins his faults on others.

Whiny little brat.

Apart from a minor financial market bounce, today's news is grim.

In a "Morning Joe" interview, Dr. Anthony Fauci was asked whether our sluggish response to the virus has put us on Italy's path. I'll let the Washington Post's Greg Sargent take it from here:

Scarborough directly asked Dr. Fauci whether we “started early enough” with “aggressive containment” to “avoid that peak that Italy is experiencing.”

Dr. Fauci replied by praising Trump’s decisions to limit travel from China early and more recently from Europe. But he avoided directly answering whether we’d started our mitigation efforts early enough, saying we must “continue” with them.

Three people who participated in Trump's Mar-a-Lago dinner with Brazilian president Bolsonaro have tested positive for the virus itself. This includes Bolsonaro himself, who claims a second test clears him (maybe?), and the mayor of Miami.

Then came the reports about Trump's Wednesday night address, which sent markets into panic. Turns out, Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner led the speechwriting process, but neither one has been involved in the coronavirus response. Jared did at least do some research: he asked a doctor for advice, and the doctor took the question to Facebook. The doctor posted, "I have direct channel to person now in charge at White House," and sent Jared about a dozen recommendations.

And who might this doctor be? The dad of model Karlie Kloss, who is married to Kushner's brother.

But hey, the White House doesn't want us to know any of this, having classified conversations about the pandemic among federal health officials.

In case you missed it, Jerry Falwell, Jr., went on FoxNews this morning to suggest that the virus is a North Korean attack in partnership with the Chinese. And to say we shouldn't get too worked up about it. Which is it, Jerry?

While the White House haggles with House Democrats over legislation to help us through the crisis.... Wait, this morning Mnuchin backed out on a provisional agreement. Anyway, they're still up to evil. Regulation changes from the Department of Education will make it harder for poor school districts to access funding.

Can't Handle the Truth

Today Dr. Anthony Fauci told lawmakers:

If we are complacent and don’t do really aggressive containment and mitigation, the number could go way up and be involved in many, many millions. If we contain we could flatten it.

"Many, many millions."

Then, suddenly, he was called from the hearing to another meeting. Trump administration peeps said it was a regular, already scheduled meeting. Except they couldn't say what the meeting was--nor had Congress been advised.

By the way, Angela Merkel predicts that 60-70% of Germans will come in contact with the virus. But it's all fine.

UPDATE
NBC NEWS: The attending physician of the U.S. Congress & Supreme Court, Dr. Brian Monahan, briefed Senate Staff yesterday in a closed-door meeting that he expects anywhere from 70 up to 150 million people in the U.S. to contract coronavirus, per two sources.

How committed is Trump to covering up his Covid-19 shortcomings? Well, he's asked William Barr to investigate press reporting of the pandemic.

And whose side is Trump on? He's targeting aid toward energy companies and toward the hospitality industry. (Himself.)

Sick. They're Just Sick.

The Miami Herald has dropped a bombshell. Here's the lede.

Immigration court staff nationwide were ordered by the Trump administration to take down all coronavirus posters from courtrooms and waiting areas.

In standard Trump fashion, once the truth came out, they stepped back.

However on Tuesday morning— just four hours after the Miami Herald published this story—a Department of Justice spokesman contacted the Herald to say that the “the signs shouldn’t have been removed. It’s now being rectified.”

This is a genocidal administration. Is that too strong?

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/01/22/798277557/how-does-wuhan-coronavirus-compare-to-mers-sars-and-the-common-cold

These people are sick. Sick enough that Trump campaign manager has been hiding payments to the wives of Don Jr. and Eric, Kimberly Guilfoyle and Lara Trump. In other words, campaign funds are supporting daughters-in-law. Oh, and the campaign manager's payroll executive?

His wife.

The Washington Post has picked up that there's a problem with the trumped-up Biden-Burisma investigation. Democrats want to interview intel officials concerning the Republicans' source:

Homeland Security Committee Democrats want all senators on the committee to get a classified briefing from the intelligence community on Telizhenko — to demonstrate that intelligence officials don’t view him as credible.

Of course, Republicans don't want that. Sick.

The Covid-19 Apocalypse

No, Covid-19 is not the end of the world. Climate change may be, so far as humans are concerned. Maybe an atomic disaster. But not the virus.

But Covid-19 is an apocalypse. An apokalypsis is a revelation, an unveiling of the truth. And howdy, is this virus bringing out the truth about the Trump administration. They will always, always seek their own political advantage over and above any other consideration.

We knew this already from #TrumpRussia and from the Ukraine-impeachment scandal. But somehow Trump's supporters have maintained the fiction that Trump is putting America first.

The crucial moment may have come when Trump discussed a quarantined cruise ship. 45* blurted out: "They'd like to have the people come off, I would rather have the people stay. But I'd go with them. I told them to make the final decision.... Because I'd like to have the numbers where they are. I don't need the numbers to double because of one ship that wasn't our fault. Frankly, if it were up to me, I would be inclined to say leave everybody on the ship for a period of time and use the ship as your base."

"That wasn't our fault." That's all that matters to Trump.

How much is Trump out for Trump? When CDC officials recommended the government should tell elderly and frail people not to fly commercial, the White House shot them down. "Shot them down" is a pun here. Run with it.

In other words, screw the Americans on the ship. So long at they're stuck onboard with no food but lots of infected companions, the numbers will look better.

The obvious mendacity leaves Trump exposed. Markets will tolerate only so much bullshit, and as I type the Dow Jones is down over 1900 points from Friday's close.

CNN is saying it out loud. John Avalon did a set piece on Trump's "misinformation" campaign and the harm it's doing. The World Health Organization is warning about an "infodemic."

But hey, lying is hardly new to Trump. He just retweeted his campaign's faux video, edited to make it appear that Biden had accidentally endorsed Trump. As soon as Biden crushed Super Tuesday, Senate Republicans announced an investigation of the Bidens and Ukraine--same shit they did repeatedly to Hillary Clinton. And because Mitt Romney may not support this investigation, guess what? Now Trumpists are accusing Romney of having ties to Burisma.

The cover's being pulled off this presidency. Maybe enough for a good number of Trumpists to see it for what it is.