Tag: Trump botched COVID-19 response

Trump ‘exploded’ at Birx for making him feel ‘depressed’ because she wouldn’t whitewash COVID dangers: authors

Raw Story Logo

The authors of a new book about former President Donald Trump’s handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic told CNN’s Erica Hill on Tuesday that Trump last year angrily chewed out Drs. Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci for making him feel “depressed” about the novel coronavirus pandemic.

While appearing on CNN, Washington Post reporters Damian Paletta and Yasmine Abutaleb explained the delicate balance that Birx and other public health officials had to strike in trying to get Trump to back public health measures aimed at containing the virus.

All the same, Paletta said, no amount of flattery delivered by Birx could help her escape Trump’s wrath. Continue reading.

New book offers fresh details about chaos, conflicts inside Trump’s pandemic response

Washington Post logo

At one point, the president mused about transferring infected American citizens in Asia to Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba

In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, as White House officials debated whether to bring infected Americans home for care, President Donald Trump suggested his own plan for where to send them, eager to suppress the numbers on U.S. soil.

“Don’t we have an island that we own?” the president reportedly asked those assembled in the Situation Room in February 2020, before the U.S. outbreak would explode. “What about Guantánamo?”

“We import goods,” Trump specified, lecturing his staff. “We are not going to import a virus.” Continue reading.

Trump and his allies try to rewrite, distort history of pandemic while casting Fauci as public enemy No. 1

Washington Post logo

Donald Trump and his Republican allies have spent the past few weeks trying to rewrite or distort the history of the pandemic, attempting with renewed vigor to villainize Anthony S. Fauci while lionizing the former president for what they portray as heroic foresight and underappreciated efforts to combat the deadly virus.

They have focused on the early moments of the coronavirus response and the origins of the virus, downplaying any role they may have played and casting others in the wrong, at times taking comments out of context and at others drawing conclusions that are unproved.

And at a time when the number of vaccinated people continues to rise and deaths are at one of their lowest levels, it has placed the coronavirus back at the center of the political debate. Trump is planning to make it a chief argument in a reputation rehabilitation effort. And Republicans are also making it a centerpiece of their midterm election campaigns, pledging to hold congressional investigations if they win back the House majority. Continue reading.

Woman blames Trump for anti-vaxxer friend’s COVID-19 death: ‘He could have saved so many lives’

Raw Story Logo

After a West Virginia woman died from COVID-19, her best friend blames former president Donald Trump’s refusal to enthusiastically embrace vaccinations.

The former president got his shot in private before leaving office and has offered meager approval since leaving the White House, and Anastacia Kelley feels certain her college roommate would have gotten one for herself if Trump had gotten his in the public eye, reported The Daily Beast.

“Absolutely, without a doubt,” Kelly told the website. “If he had come out and even taken a picture of himself getting it, he could have saved many lives.” Continue reading.

Trump officials celebrated efforts to change CDC reports on coronavirus, emails show

Washington Post logo

Political appointees also tried to blunt scientific findings they deemed unfavorable to Trump, according to new documents from House probe.

Trump appointees in the Department of Health and Human Services last year privately touted their efforts to block or alter scientists’ reports on the coronavirus to more closely align with then-President Donald Trump’s more optimistic messages about the outbreak, according to newly released documents from congressional investigators.

The documents provide further insight into how senior Trump officials approached last year’s explosion of coronavirus cases in the United States. Even as career government scientists worked to combat the virus, a cadre of Trump appointees was attempting to blunt the scientists’ messages, edit their findings and equip the president with an alternate set of talking points.

Then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote to then-HHS public affairs chief Michael Caputo on Sept. 9, 2020, touting two examples of where he said officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had bowed to his pressure and changed language in their reports, according to an email obtained by the House’s select subcommittee on the coronavirus outbreak. Continue reading.

Top Trump adviser warned then-president on virus supply shortage, then pursued controversial deals

Washington Post logo

Democrats probe more than $1 billion in ‘haphazard’ supply contracts arranged by Peter Navarro, citing new documents

A top adviser privately urged President Donald Trump to acquire critical medical supplies in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak — and after the warning was ignored, pursued his own ad hoc strategy that committed more than $1 billion in federal funds and has since prompted multiple probes, according to newly released documents from congressional investigators.

Peter Navarro, who served as Trump’s trade adviser, warned the president on March 1, 2020, to “MOVE IN ‘TRUMP TIME’” to invest in ingredients for drugs, handheld coronavirus tests and other supplies to fight the virus, according to a memo obtained by the House’s select subcommittee on the coronavirus outbreak. Navarro also said that he’d been trying to acquire more protective gear like masks, critiquing the administration’s pace.

“There is NO downside risk to taking swift actions as an insurance policy against what may be a very serious public health emergency,” Navarro wrote to the president. “If the covid-19 crisis quickly recedes, the only thing we will have been guilty of is prudence.” At the time, there were about 100 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States and just two deaths linked to the outbreak. Continue reading.

‘A toxic cycle of blame, sycophancy and political pressure’: New book to detail Trump’s ‘nightmare’ handling of COVID crisis

AlterNet logo

Washington Post journalists Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta are preparing for the release of their forthcoming book, “Nightmare Scenario,” which aims to highlight former President Donald Trump’s disastrous COVID-19 response since the onset of the pandemic. 

According to Axios, the agents for the book, which will be released by HarperCollins Publishers, are Javelin’s Keith Urbahn and Matt Latimer. Jonathan Jao, HarperCollins’ vice president and executive editor, has also been named as editor of the book. The publication also offered a brief overview of the book and the controversial topics it will address.

From the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus to the politicization of the pandemic, the book will reportedly offer an in-depth look at the timeline of Trump’s White House’s handling of COVID-19. Continue reading.

Historians say Trump will be remembered for COVID-19 and the Capitol siege — ‘​nothing else will matter’

AlterNet logo

On Saturday, February 13, former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial ended when seven Republican senators and all 50 Democratic senators voted to convict him for “incitement to insurrection” — which was a majority of senators voting “guilty” but was still ten votes short of the two-thirds majority needed for a conviction in an impeachment trial. A talking point coming from some far-right pundits is that Trump has once again been exonerated, but in an article published by USA Today on February 15, journalist David Jackson stresses that history is likely to judge Trump quite unfavorably.

During Trump’s second impeachment trial, Democratic impeachment managers — including Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland — presented a mountain of damning evidence showing that Trump encouraged the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol Building by a mob of far-right insurrectionists, including members of the Proud Boys, militia extremists and supporters of the QAnon conspiracy cult.

Author/historian Brenda Wineapple, author of the book, “The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation,” told USA Today, “(Trump) knew exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it. Trump moved from demagoguery to tyranny.” Continue reading.

Kamala Harris reveals what the new administration discovered about Trump’s COVID-19 response plan

In an interview with Axios on HBO, Vice President Kamala Harris claimed ‘there was no national strategy or plan for vaccinations’ in the Trump administration’s COVID-19 plan. Harris claims what many in the Biden administration have surmised after taking over governing.

‘We were leaving it to the states and local leaders to try and figure it out,” Harris told reporter Mike Allen. 

President Joe Biden made a similar claim when he announced the next steps for the vaccine plan. Continue reading.

Most Americans say the coronavirus pandemic is not controlled, Post-ABC poll finds

Washington Post logo

As President Trump is leaving office, just over 1 in 10 Americans say the coronavirus pandemic in the United States is mostly under control, despite the departing president’s assertions that record case levels are exaggerations, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The nationwide survey shows that large majorities of people of all political affiliations say they think the deadly virus, which arrived in the country a year ago, is only somewhat under control or not at all controlled.

About 1 in 5 Republicans say they think the pandemic is at least mostly under control, with fewer than 1 in 20 regarding it as completely controlled, the survey finds. Democrats are more than twice as likely as those identifying with the GOP to say they perceive the virus as not at all under control. Continue reading.