Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, claimed in an interview Sunday that President Trump’s travel ban may be a key to America not getting hit as hard by the coronavirus crisis as other nations.
Never forget that while congressional Democrats were singularly focused on impeaching the President in late January as news of the coronavirus spread, Trump was implementing a crucial travel ban blocking visitors from China, the source of the deadly contagion.
This, Fauci believes, may prove critical in keeping America from going down the path of Italy, which has the highest number of cases and deaths resulting from coronavirus in the world.
Praise for the President
Fauci, in a segment with CBS’ “Face the Nation,” expressed optimism that the United States will “not necessarily at all” end up like Italy.
Why? Because of that travel ban Democrats tried to portray as a racist move by the President.
“Early on they [Italy] did not shut out as well the input of infections that originated in China and came to different parts of the world,” the renowned physician who has worked with six different administrations explained.
“One of the things that we did very early and very aggressively, the president put the travel restriction coming from China to the United States and most recently from Europe to the United States because Europe is really the new China,” Fauci continued.
Are we on the same trajectory as Italy in fight against #coronavirus? @NIAIDNews head Dr. Anthony Fauci says “Not necessarily at all.”
He notes the country adequately shut out the input of the virus from China early on. “You can never keep up with the tsunami,” he says. pic.twitter.com/cGAZ00lYTt
Dr. Fauci went on to explain that the ‘social distancing’ efforts touted by the White House and the restrictions on travel were key to keeping the coronavirus relatively at bay.
“The kinds of mitigation issues that are going on right now, the things that we’re seeing in this country, this physical separation at the same time as we’re preventing an influx of cases coming in,” said Fauci, “I think that’s going to go a long way to preventing us from becoming another Italy.”
It’s a testament to the President’s leadership that he implemented such a travel ban within days of the outbreak spreading, even in the face of impeachment. Even knowing the Democrats would label him a racist for doing so.
Reminder: While @realDonaldTrump was restricting travel from China back in January, Joe Biden was smearing him for being “xenophobic.”
Despite an unparalleled expert in the field praising the travel ban, Democrats just two weeks ago were actively pushing to end the President’s authority to implement new restrictions.
Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) alleged such bans “hurt families and hurt our national security, and we must stop this president from overextending his authority and banning people from entire countries.”
Unbelievable. There’s a Coronavirus outbreak & Dems are playing politics with their partisan “No Ban Act” that would hamstring @realDonaldTrump‘s ability to halt flights from high-risk areas & protect us.
“This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia — hysterical xenophobia — and fearmongering,” Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden said the day after Trump’s travel restrictions were imposed.
The resistance party’s reckless partisan politics are an attempt to smear President Trump and will end up costing people their lives.
President Trump couldn’t resist taking a jab at Mitt Romney after hearing the news that Utah’s Senator would have to self-quarantine.
Romney announced that he would have to take the responsible action upon learning that Senator Rand Paul had become the first of his colleagues to test positive for coronavirus.
He had been in close proximity to Paul recently.
“Since Senator Romney sat next to Senator Paul for extended periods in recent days and consistent with CDC guidance, the attending physician has ordered him to immediately self-quarantine and not to vote on the Senate floor,” Romney’s office said in a statement.
Trump’s Response
President Trump learned of Romney’s self-quarantine through a White House reporter who noted four senators in total had moved to isolate.
“Romney, Senator Lee, Senator Gardner and Senator Rick Scott, also,” the reporter conveyed. “Two of them were in contact …”
“Romney is in isolation?” Trump interrupted. “Gee, that’s too bad. Go ahead.”
Late last month, Romney took a jab at President Trump claiming he was unprepared for the coronavirus crisis.
“I’m very disappointed in the degree to which we’ve prepared for a pandemic, both in terms of protective equipment and in terms of medical devices that would help people once they are infected,” Romney criticized.
In reality, the President was already taking action in trying to quell the spread of the virus.
Are we on the same trajectory as Italy in fight against #coronavirus? @NIAIDNews head Dr. Anthony Fauci says “Not necessarily at all.”
He notes the country adequately shut out the input of the virus from China early on. “You can never keep up with the tsunami,” he says. pic.twitter.com/cGAZ00lYTt
He took those steps despite a looming impeachment trial.
Perhaps if Romney hadn’t joined his Democrat buddies in becoming the only Republican senator to break party lines and vote in favor of Trump being impeached, he could have focused his efforts on advising the President or working with the administration to solve this problem.
The American people are voicing their approval of how President Trump is handling the coronavirus crisis, with a new poll showing his approval ratings skyrocketing.
In the span of just one week, the President turned his negative approval ratings in dealing with the pandemic completely around.
According to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll released on Friday, 55 percent of Americans approve of the President’s management of the coronavirus problem, while just 43 percent disapprove.
These numbers mark a nearly exact reversal of results from one week earlier.
What Changed
We would argue that it occasionally takes time for the truth to come out in the United States when the entire media complex is hell-bent on destroying the President.
Yes, Trump did try to quell panic by downplaying the threat early on. But as any good President does, he evolved on the matter. Remember when Barack Obama was hailed as a hero for ‘evolving’ on things?
The President quickly – faster than any Democrat who was more focused on impeachment – buckled down and got to work trying to solve this crisis.
“Over the course of a week, the president has shifted his approach and tone, giving daily briefings on the crisis since Saturday, alongside the White House task force leading the response to the coronavirus and announcing some severe measures to combat the virus,” ABC News reported.
“He’s also taken on a more somber tone, saying of his own tenor ‘people actually liked it’ as the reality of the scale of the virus set in.”
Here’s where things get a little shocking – Despite every attempt by prominent resistance lawmakers to paint Trump as a racist for calling the pandemic a “Chinese virus,” Democrat voters’ support for the President has doubled.
“30 percent of Democrats approve, which is about double the number from last week’s poll, and 69 percent disapprove, down from 86 percent,” reports ABC News. “Meanwhile, an overwhelming 92 percent of Republicans approve, up from 86 percent last week.”
President Trump recently signed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act which will provide economic assistance to America’s businesses and workers.
At the same time, FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn noted the “record time” it’s taking to pursue a coronavirus vaccine due to an “impressive public-private partnership,” something the President has been advocating.
You know the tide has to be turning on public opinion when even Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Trump-hater to the extreme, is praising the President for an “incredible” and “right response” to the coronavirus crisis.
“[Ayanna Pressley] always says, unprecedented times require unprecedented leadership and we are seeing that in our country right now,” Omar wrote.
Ronny Jackson, the former lead White House doctor appointed by Barack Obama, praised President Trump saying his ‘quick and decisive’ actions have saved “countless American lives.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, provided positive feedback on the President’s quick action in implementing necessary travel bans.
President Trump has reminded the American people that “nothing will stand in our way as we pursue any avenue to find what best works against this horrible virus.”
Want to hear somebody who makes AOC and Rashida Tlaib sound reasonable? Meet Glenn Kirschner, an MSNBC pundit and lawyer. He thinks the president is possibly criminally liable for murder. And yes, he is quite probably clinically insane.
Here is the proof of his lunacy: “Hey All. Can we talk about 1 of the few topics I may actually know too much about: homicide? Specifically, whether Donald Trump may have criminal exposure for some level of negligent homicide or voluntary/involuntary manslaughter for the way he’s mishandled the Coronavirus crisis,” said Kirschner in a frothing Twitter post on Tuesday.
Well, he wanted press. He got it. Sadly, the press only exposes him as a fantasist. Wonder if he thinks Hillary Clinton should be held for murder over Benghazi? Nahhhh…
He goes on: “Further, whereas the evidence is clear that Trump has committed multiple criminal offenses both before his tenure as president (campaign finance crimes) & during his time as president (obstruction of justice, bribery/extortion) homicide liability by his negligent/grossly negligent (and/or possibly intentional) mishandling of the Coronavirus crisis in the US is a more nuanced and thorny issue and deserves careful consideration. But the homicide liability issue MUST be addressed because ALL criminal charges will have to be investigated and, if the evidence dictates it, prosecuted come Jan. 2021. Stay tuned.”
Ah, so he wants a Mueller probe do-over and an impeachment replay, both because his side lost so badly. Not gonna happen, Glenn.
Then he switches to his Big Kahuna, the potential prosecution of Trump for murder on the coronavirus. Yeah, that’ll fly.
Let’s see who the president could bring as defense witnesses in such a trial. Well, there are both the left-wing Democrat governors of New York and California who have praised the president and the administration on their efforts. There’s CNN‘s Dana Bash, who lauded him on his tone and manner. And there is the American people, who approve of his handing of the virus by a solid margin.
The only people left are those who would rather insanely try to make up absurd charges against the president than join in the national effort to fight the virus.
Those would be people like…Glenn Kirschner.
This piece was written by PoliZette Staff on March 19, 2020. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.
The White House has told Congress that it's simply too busy to spare the time to testify at any coronavirus hearings, at least until the end of March, according to Roll Call. “While the Trump Administration continues its whole-of-government approach to stopping the spread of COVID-19, it is counter-productive to have the very individuals involved in response efforts appearing at congressional hearings,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement Wednesday.
Apparently, "whole-of-government" doesn't include Congress in the view of the White House. The blackout approach to information sharing with Congress was outlined in a memo obtained by Roll Call. “We remain respectful of the essential role of Congress in this effort and we look forward to working with Congress closely as we all rise to meet this challenge,” the memo read.
Frankly, it's hard to believe anyone in the West Wing even bothered to write that line. The Trump administration has made it crystal clear that it views Congress's "essential role" as entirely subservient to that of the executive branch. In everything from basic congressional oversight to the impeachment inquiry to the most threatening public health epidemic in a century, the Trump administration has spiked cooperating with Congress at every turn.
The only difference this time around is that the White House isn't exclusively stiff-arming House Democrats. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee was forced to cancel a hearing Wednesday that lawmakers had arranged to livestream publicly. Lawmakers had lined up witnesses from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration.
That hearing has been postponed indefinitely while the White House continues the "whole-of-government" response it adopted several days ago after Donald Trump finally realized his delusional world was no match for a highly contagious virus that threatens to kill nearly 1% of the people who get it or more, depending on available care for the most critical cases.
American voters usually make their election decisions on two factors, peace and prosperity. The first looks good for the president. The second is getting worse by the day.
Yes, I know, it is not his fault. This is true and irrelevant. Voters vote on results and Trump has always asked to be judged on results. If too many are out of work in the fall, if too many businesses close, if the national economic psychology is trending downwards then the president may have a rough going.
He is partially saved by the fact that Joe Biden is a weak candidate. You could call him a speech-impaired Dukakis. He will not know how to strike the right tone between sorrow over the virus and indignation at the president’s supposed shortcomings. Biden will just spew, and incoherently at that.
True, an economic rescue package is on the way and the president is doing a good job in fighting the virus. But $1,000 per person will go quickly, may be a headache to distribute, and will be long forgotten by November. The virus should be mainly over by the fall and the president is liable to get much credit for his handling of the crisis.
But will that credit overshadow an empty pocket or the loss of a job and wages? Not likely.
The president has a sharp political team and they are no doubt factoring this in to their reelection campaign. They will emphasize the probable low virus mortality rate compared to other countries and argue the president deserves votes for saving the nation from possible mass death.
They will have a point. But they will not be starting from the halcyon time of only a couple of months ago, when exoneration over impeachment and a booming economy made reelection look like a sure thing.
Trump still has an advantage because the jury is out on the economy in the fall. If it comes back guilty, if unemployment is sharply up and GDP is down, if stocks are low compared to a year ago, if business closures are numerous, then the sentence of the electoral jury may not be to the president’s liking.
This piece was written by David Kamioner on March 18, 2020. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.
Nothing says Christian hypocrisy like evangelical figurehead Jerry Falwell Jr. His Liberty University has a large online student body but is also home to around 15,000 students on the Lynchburg, Virginia, campus. On Friday, Falwell Jr. was talking to Fox & Friends, where he downplayed the severity of the coronavirus and the need to close Liberty’s campus. His appearance on the show included Falwell’s speculation that all of the “hype” around the coronavirus was some kind of Democratic Party plot against Trump. Well, life comes at you fast, and Falwell is now closing the campus, according to HuffPo:
“We originally believed it was safest to return our students following their spring break instead of having them return following greater exposure opportunities from leaving them in different parts of the country for longer periods. But, the Governor’s recent decision to limit certain gatherings has left us no practical choice because we have so many classes of more than 100 students.”
Falwell didn’t feel this way over the weekend, when he wasn’t acting very Christ-like toward his online detractors.
Well, not exactly, Jerry. Falwell Jr.’s appearance on Fox & Friends was something to watch, including his explanation of how landowners should have more rights than others, and his allegation that the coronavirus alerts being sent out by everyone except Fox News and Donald Trump were a lot of bunk, saying: “It’s just strange to me how people are over-reacting. The H1N1 virus of 2009 killed 17,000 people. it was the flu, also I think. And there was not the same hype. You just didn’t see it on the news 24/7. It makes you wonder if there’s a political reason for that. It’s a, you know, impeachment didn’t work, and the Mueller report didn’t work, and Article 25 didn’t work, so maybe now this is their next attempt to get Trump.” He then spouted a theory that North Korea got “together with China” and created this as a conspiracy to … destroy their own economy?
Well, conspiracy or not, hoax or not, it seems like even Falwell Jr. serves to lose a little of the very money that has been driving the unforgivable Trump and Republican response to this global emergency.
The situation in Italy is spiraling out of control, with infections and deaths spiking by the hour.
BREAKING: Another HUGE increase in #CoronaVirus infections in Italy ðÂ�Â�®ðÂ�Â�¹ 3 590 infected and 368 dead today alone. - 24 747 infected. - 1 809 dead. - 7.3% death rate. This is a human tragedy ðÂ�Â�Â
The United States is on track to emulate Italy, both in the reach and severity of the human and economic toll. One party is doing its best to save lives. Unfortunately, it’s not the party in control of the White House, Senate, or wide swaths of the media. And those Republican efforts to confuse, obfuscate, and obstruct a real response are dismayingly effective. Let us count the ways.
Impeached President Donald Trump
From disbanding the White House pandemic preparedness task force to refusing to let the U.S. use the World Health Organization COVID-19 test, to his daily lies, it’s obvious that the rot starts at the very top. What did people think was going to happen when they put a bigoted, serial sexual harasser reality TV star in charge of the country? Those who vote on racial animus and misogyny are getting a daily reminder of what that costs our country. And ironically, or perhaps not so much so, they are the ones who will bear the brunt of the coming pandemic.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to model poor behavior; he shows on a daily basis that he is the single biggest impediment to the kind of national behavioral changes we need to see to arrest this disease with the least amount of damage possible.
Trump has decided the entire coronavirus mess is a dastardly plot to deny him a second term. He is incapable of considering the human toll of the disease, or the economic ramifications to everyday Americans. He’s concerned only about how it affects his reelection. And again, his acolytes take their cues from the top, such as the Trish Regan abomination that adorns the top of this post.
Regan did end up losing her prime time show over that segment, showing that at least someone at Fox corporate realizes that killing off their core demographic (their median age is 65). But she’s not the only pushing the theory that this is all one big political ploy to damage Trump. Trump’s very own outgoing chief of staff has been making that case for weeks. “The press was covering their hoax of the day because they thought it would bring down the president,” Mulvaney told attendees at the conservative CPAC conference, at the same time the disease was spreading among its attendees. “The reason you’re seeing so much attention to [the coronavirus] today is that they think this is going to be what brings down the president. That’s what this is all about.”
And of course, let’s not forget Trump:
�They�re trying to scare everybody, from meetings, cancel the meetings, close the schools � you know, destroy the country. And that�s ok, as long as we can win the election,� POTUS told guests at Mar-a-Lago last weekend. https://t.co/UxZb0GumFU
He literally says it’s okay if the country is destroyed as long as he wins reelection. He doesn't give a shit about the economic or human toll of the pandemic and will act only to safeguard his electoral effort. And that’s why we don’t have testing. He thinks a higher number of confirmed cases makes him look bad.
President Trump "did not push to do aggressive additional testing in recent weeks [because] more testing might have led to more cases being discovered of coronavirus outbreak, and the president had made clear the lower the numbers on coronavirus, the better for the president" https://t.co/aa2QHQVbPk
We all knew this. Even Republicans knew this when they acquitted him during the impeachment trial. Yet they didn’t care. So they own this: Every death, every job lost. It’s all on them.
The Trump executive branch
Donald Trump had white nationalist Stephen Miller and idiot-boy Jared Kushner whip up a random-ass “I’m doing stuff” speech just hours before airing, with little regard to any consequences their spur-of-the-moment “proposals” would create. Among them, a complete ban on all travel and commerce between the United States and Europe that single-handedly almost completely crashed the US economy. Embarrassingly, the administration had to walk that back—no, it didn't apply to the cargo. And no, it didn’t apply to Americans. (So … what’s the point? Americans have super awesome immunity powers?) Yet in the panic that situation created, Americans rushed back home and … created these kinds of scenes at US customs points of entry:
#BREAKING: Passengers stuck in long lines for immigration at @DFWAirport tell us there are no offers of hand sanitizer, gloves, or masks from U.S. Customs / Immigration. Travelers say they�ve had no screenings of temp yet and no one following #coronavirus protocols. pic.twitter.com/9viCnWdncz
By supposedly acting to prevent the disease from entering the United States (even though, um, it’s already here), those morons in the executive branch didn’t think “maybe we should bolster staffing at customs checkpoints. Maybe we should create a plan to space out people, so we wouldn’t create the Petri dish we’re supposedly trying to prevent.”
Conservatism
It is in precisely older, rural counties that hospitals are being closed in record numbers. “The hospital closure crisis is most pronounced in states that have declined Medicaid expansion, the policy in the Affordable Care Act that offers coverage for individuals whose income is at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty line,” reported Mother Jones. “Of the 106 rural hospitals that have shut down since 2010, 77 were located in states that hadn’t expanded Medicaid, the study found.” In their zeal to stick it to Obamacare, those older rural areas are losing exactly the one thing that saves the lives of the elderly and those with compromised immune systems once infected—hospital beds.
This novel coronavirus is treatable as long as severely impacted patients can be hooked up to respirators. But given available hospital beds, that becomes impossible once a critical mass of patients is infected, they outstrip the supply of hospital beds, and they are then left to die, gasping for air. That’s why the Italian death toll has climbed so high, with doctors having to perform battlefield-style triage—is this patient too old? Too (otherwise) sick? Do they have small children at home? Even patients who survive initial triage may be unplugged if someone with a greater survival chance shows up. It is beyond nightmarish.
And you know what? The United States has fewer hospital beds, per thousand people, than even Italy.
South Korea: 12.3
China: 4.3
Italy: 3.2
United States: 2.8
South Korea has handled the virus better than anyone else, and guess what, having hospital beds is part of the answer. Meanwhile, thanks to conservative hostility to the Affordable Care Act and its fealty to a for-profit health care system, our number of beds has fallen between 2010 and 2017, despite the population having grown by 16 million in that time frame.
Republican elected officials
The Democratic House passed a coronavirus response bill on Friday. Republican Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell went on vacation over the weekend, adjourning the Senate as a result. He doesn’t plan on checking on that House bill until Tuesday, lunch, at the earliest, even though Trump has signaled that he will sign it.
They just don’t give a shit.
Here’s Oklahoma’s Republican governor Kevin Stitt, Friday night, in a now-deleted tweet:
Of course, it stands to follow that if Trump doesn’t think this is a big deal, then those who blindly follow him will shrug off any attempts to contain the virus, or “flatten the curve.” Flattening the curve is slowing the rate of transmission so that people don’t get sick all at once. The more you can spread it out, the less stress on those limited hospital beds.
Trump’s favorite bootlicker, Rep. Devin Nunes, went on Fox to tell viewers to go out on the town. “One of the things you can do, if you're healthy you and your family, it's a great time to just go out, go to a local restaurant,” he said, dooming who knows how many people to death. “Likely you can get in easily. There's, you know, let's not hurt the working people in this country that are relying on wages and tips to keep their small business going. [...] Go to your local pub.”
In Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Republicans are refusing to postpone an election even though the state’s Democratic governor has ordered a statewide lockdown.
Conservative media
It’s no surprise that most of the irresponsible dismissing of COVID-19 featured above is happening on Fox News. The network has prostrated itself before Trump, effectively becoming like a state-run propaganda arm. They won’t do anything to get on the wrong side of Trump. It’s a feature, not a bug.
On Fox & Friends, Jerry Falwell Jr claims people are "overreacting" to coronavirus, the national response is "their next attempt to get Trump," and the virus itself is a North Korean bioweapon. pic.twitter.com/2JPuNBW7C3
But it obviously goes far beyond Fox News. Just two days ago, Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show, “We’re shutting down our country because of the … cold virus.” The Christian Right and their media machinery are praying away the coronavirus. They’ve been so effective at dismissing the threat that even pastors who take this seriously are dismayed, “One pastor said half of his church is ready to lick the floor, to prove there’s no actual virus,” one pastor toldThe Washington Post. Alex Jones is selling fake coronavirus cures. Idiot #MAGA types on Twitter are having their own, er, fun.
How do #MAGA & #KAG folks have fun during a pandemic? Apparently some like licking airplane toilet seats in a SAD attempt to show the #coronavirus is a hoax. Perhaps to also prove they'll make good tRump supporters!#COVID19 Found at @AwardsDarwinpic.twitter.com/y9jAqRrpbx
— McSpockyâÂ�¢ ðÂ�Â�½ðÂ�Â�Â�ðÂ�Â�Â� #VoteBlue2020 (@mcspocky) March 15, 2020
If you’re sitting here wondering what the hell is wrong with these people, you’re not alone. Trapped in their conservative anti-science media bubble, they’re whipping themselves up into a fervor of denialism and frothy conspiracy theories.
The results
The results are devastating. Republicans simply don’t believe that they should take COVID-19 seriously.
The coronavirus partisan divide is real. Twice as many Democrats (60%) are changing plans or taking precautions than Republicans (31%). 88% of Republicans are satisfied with the government's response. Among Democrats? 11%. Survey report @Civiqs 3/8-11: https://t.co/sGoSTbhEsI
And it’s even worse among Fox News viewers, only 9% of which are “extremely concerned” about the virus. These are the same people who live in mortal fear of an “illegal” coming and murdering them. The big difference? They will definitely end up knowing about someone who died of the novel coronavirus, while those mythical hordes of undocumented murderers only exist in the imagination of the network’s most bigoted hosts. (48% of MSNBC viewers are “extremely concerned,” which is still low. It should be 100%. But that network isn’t sowing misinformation.)
I used to joke that Republicans would come out in favor of cancer if President Barack Obama ever declared his opposition to it publicly. At least, it was supposed to be a joke. Now we find out that a global pandemic killing tens of thousands has become a partisan issue. Not because it is a partisan issue. There is nothing Republican or Democratic or liberal or conservative about a deadly disease. But because Trump’s botched handling of the pandemic makes him “look bad,” and there is no greater sin in the world than making Trump look bad.
It might be funny or the material for easy partisan points, except people are dying, and a lot more will die before scientists find a vaccine. And while we could be making efforts to mitigate the carnage, both in human and economic terms, we have an entire half of the country’s divide refusing to accept our new reality and demanding we pretend all is well, nothing to see here, please carry on, preferably at your local pub or cruise ship.
It’s staggeringly irresponsible. The final culmination of an ideology so divorced from reality, that it will literally kill, disproportionately, the older and rural people that form its base. And—this is legitimately ironic—it is liberals trying to save their lives.
The U.S. is hurtling full-speed toward an iceberg, but the bumbling idiot at the helm continues to insist that everyone is safe to go back to their cabins. In fact, as Daily Kos’ Laura Clawson pointed out earlier on Thursday, impeached president Donald Trump has declared emergencies where there are none as a public health crisis is exploding across the nation. But he’s not alone in this criminal negligence: He’s getting an assist from the congressional Republicans who protected him from impeachment and removal from office.
“McConnell ally says Senate won't take up House coronavirus bill until after recess,” tweeted CNN correspondent Ana Cabrera. “’The Senate will act when we come back and we have a clearer idea of what extra steps we need to take,’ Sen. Lamar Alexander told reporters.” People’s lives are at stake, but Republicans are clearly laying out their priorities, immigration policy expert Tom Jawetz points out: “I'm old enough to remember when House GOP postponed August 2014 recess in part to make sure they voted on a bill to strip protections from DACA recipients.”
Roll Call reported at the time that the anti-immigrant legislation wasn’t going to be “taken up any time soon” by the Democratic-led Senate, “which already left for August recess.” Nor did this legislation, which would have effectively ended DACA, have had any chance of being approved by President Obama, who had implemented the program in 2012. That didn’t matter to House Republicans, who, led by Iowa’s most infamous white supremacist, Steve King, were really just trying to send immigrants a message: Get the fuck out.
Our nation installed in the Oval Office a white supremacist sexual assaulter grifter who has no idea what he’s doing, but the blame for this incompetence isn’t solely his to bear. It’s also on the congressional Republicans helping him worsen a true national crisis, and who as a body had already shown themselves to be cruel and inhumane when the impeached president was nowhere near the White House and still on television judging a reality show.
Whether chosen democratically or by some other means, a leader’s true character comes out in a crisis. It’s then that people find out whether the person they have entrusted or acquiesced to be in charge is up to the job. In a democracy, thoughtful and decisive action not only is required of leaders, but it must also be carefully explained, with rationale provided. “We can get through this” is not a bad message to deliver as long as it’s backed by facts, even if those have more than a tinge of grimness. Blood, sweat, and tears kind of stuff, when necessary. Happy talk, on the other hand, is not helpful. And lies—well, lies can be lethal.
Credibility in a crisis matters a great deal even for an autocrat. If people believe what their leader tells them, then they’ll be far more willing to sacrifice to meet a crisis, whatever it is. They will strive to adjust their lives to protect themselves and others. There is a can-do spirit when they can trust that sacrifice hasn’t been forced on them by incompetence or abuse of power. When they sense that their leaders are depending on the advice of wise and compassionate minds to guide them past the shoals, the result is a tamping down of panic and overreaction. People will lay aside deep differences for the duration of a crisis and pull together to conquer something that knows no ideological lines.
But we, unfortunately, in the pandemic now underway have people in charge at the top who don’t have a shred of credibility or trust, except among the terminally gullible or venal, which, unfortunately, is still a substantial part of the American population.
The string of lies and dissembling we’ve heard for weeks from Donald J. Trump and some of his minions regarding the coronavirus has been bad enough. Far worse on Thursday, however, was an interview on NPR in which Politico reporter Dan Diamond said that Trump not only ignored warnings two months ago, but he also worked to keep testing to a minimum so as to ensure the case numbers remained low, in order not to tarnish his image as the best-ever president in an election year.
Diamond told Fresh Air’s Terry Gross that Trump “did not push to do aggressive additional testing in recent weeks, and that’s partly because more testing might have led to more cases being discovered of coronavirus outbreak, and the president had made clear—the lower the numbers on coronavirus, the better for the president, the better for his potential reelection this fall.” Thus did Trump guarantee that the virus would be spread to far more people.
Let that sink in. Trump didn’t just want to keep the numbers low; he made an effort to see that they stayed that way, all so it would be easier for him to preen on the campaign trail. While this intentional failure to test was underway, so was the spread of the virus across America, now confirmed in all but two states. We don’t know how many cases there are. We can’t—because mass testing has still not occurred. Containment was always a myth here because of the lack of early response, and now it’s utterly busted, no matter what Larry Kudlow says. This failure will cost dollars and lives. Very possibly lots of both. On Trump’s watch.
As for his character? His second response to the crisis, after first calling it a Democratic and media hoax, was the usual: How can I turn this to my personal advantage? The guy who claims the informal title of “leader of the free world” will. never. ever. change.
Either through neglect or—if the reports of test suppression prove accurate—with malicious intent, Trump abused his authority in a manner that hampered the early taking of preventative measures that could have stopped people from spreading the virus, which is now rampant and killing. This isn’t incompetence, or sloppiness, or too much on his plate. It’s sociopathy.
It’s hard to see how Trump can hang on to all his fans when he can’t bullshit them with tales about something going on outside their experience or view. The infection is happening here. How long will it be before most Americans know somebody with the coronavirus? How long before many know somebody who died of it? It’s hard to believe that that won’t pry at least a few more people out of his thrall. But it’s frankly depressing that so many didn’t long ago see this dangerous parasite for what he is. So maybe even this failure won’t do the trick.
Lots of the people he stiffed or grifted or committed fraud against have known about Trump’s character since long ago. But he made it super-clear to the rest of America and the world when he became the king of birtherism, with his vile and relentless othering of Barack Obama with a bogus claim promoted by dishonest conspiracymongers displaying the morality if not the regalia of Klansmen.
Since then he has flashed that character to the nation repeatedly, from tossing paper towels at suffering Puerto Ricans after Hurricane María, while othering them as foreigners despite their U.S. citizenship, to charging the taxpayers for the room and board of Secret Service agents that must accompany him on visits to his own resort, Mar-a-Lago. If they didn’t already know, people who read the Mueller report or watched the impeachment testimony and Democratic prosecutors in the Senate with an open mind know what he’s about, just as do the students he ripped off at Trump U and the folks his charitable foundation was supposed to help when he illegally helped himself to the money instead.
Here’s a guy who operates by bribes and hush payments, a sexual predator who treats women like meat; approves of putting kids in cages; thinks there are some good American Nazis; incites mayhem at rallies; spouts racist slurs; and has a white supremacist adviser just down the hall. He holds secret tête-à-têtes and makes secret deals with dictators, including the Russian one Trump knows meddled in the 2016 U.S. election and, new reports assert, is meddling again now as he works to remain top dog in the Kremlin for another 16 years. He gives cover to the Saudi autocrat Mohammed bin Salman even when brutal assassination is involved.
Trump shatters international agreements and endangers Americans and other world citizens, essentially flipping off the Paris climate accord as a favor to the science deniers and fossil fuel industry, and bringing us to the brink of war with Iran in great part because he couldn’t stand the fact that President Barack Obama was key to getting the multilateral nuclear pact negotiated, signed, and working as intended.
As if that wasn’t enough, we’ve got Trump’s incessant bragging and bullying, his self-pitying, his grandstanding, his tiresome demands for constant, abject adoration … and his unstoppable daily tsunami of lies, big ones and small, silly and conniving, eye-rolling and infuriating, probably more lies than all the other American presidents combined—a one-man disinformation machine pushing an extremist agenda the Republican Party has been sculpting for decades.
An awful lot of Americans have been okay with all this. Including just about the entire Republican He’s-a-Crook-and-an Autocrat-So-What? Senate caucus.
Trump had a chance to prove himself in a crisis to be the best helmsman who, he almost daily informs fans and foes alike, has ever steered the nation. Two months ago he could have called in a few of the world’s most-skilled medical professionals and had them brief him on what course to take and then taken it. Quick action might well have averted what we’re faced with now. Trump could have set up a virus task force instead of seeing the front-running Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden do it instead.
Donald J. Trump could have shown he had what it takes to handle a crisis. But that would have required him not to be Trump. So he sought to cover his flanks, to lie and happy-talk the nation in hopes of keeping the stock market high, and to bolster his chances of another four years to use the power of his office to pad his pockets and rip off whoever crosses his path.
No amount of hand sanitizer will wash the blood off his hands.