Tag: Trump botched COVID-19 response

‘Cheerleader’ Trump Tries To Talk His Way Past Woodward Revelations

Donald Trump is defending his decision to downplay the coronavirus outbreak, telling reporters his deception occurred because he is a “cheerleader for this country.”

“I love our country and I don’t want people to be frightened, I don’t want to create panic,” Trump said on Wednesday. “We don’t want to instill panic, we don’t want to jump up and down and start shouting that we have a problem that is a tremendous problem, scare everybody.”

Trump was responding to newly released audio recordings of an interview he gave to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward on Feb. 7, in which he said he already knew by then that the virus was “more deadly” than the flu but that “I wanted to always play it down.” Continue reading.

2 big problems with Kayleigh McEnany’s Bob Woodward response

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White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany faced a characteristically unenviable job in defending President Trump on Wednesday — this time with regard to his newly published comments to legendary Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward about the coronavirus pandemic.

Woodward’s book reveals that Trump internalized the true nature of the threat early on, even as he continued to downplay it publicly. His comments to Woodward indicate he knew the virus was deadlier than the flu in early February, but he continued to compare it to the flu for weeks afterward. He even conceded in mid-March that he “always” sought to downplay the threat.

But two of McEnany’s arguments, in particular, strained credulity. Continue reading.

Some assertions Donald ‘I don’t want to create panic’ Trump has made since February

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President Trump’s defense for having privately admitted in early February that the novel coronavirusposed a significant threat to the United States — a message that he repeatedly undermined in the following months — was a simple one. He repeatedly downplayed the threat the virus posed because he didn’t want Americans to live in fear.

“The fact is, I’m a cheerleader for this country. I love our country,” Trump said during an event at the White House on Tuesday. “And I don’t want people to be frightened. I don’t want to create panic, as you say. And certainly, I’m not going to drive this country or the world into a frenzy.”

One can certainly argue that there is a difference between being honest with the public and instilling panic. It’s the difference between the phlebotomist saying that you’ll feel a slight pinch and his trying to get you to look in the other direction while he without warning jams a needle into your arm. My 3-year-old doesn’t like medicine, but we’re past the point where we pretend he’s just getting a funny-colored glass of apple juice. Continue reading.

Experts: US is experiencing a ‘K-shaped’ recovery that has troubling implications for the future of America’s economy

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During a Sunday appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Symone Sanders, a senior campaign adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, lamented how recent economic gains were distributed unequally. “It is going well for folks at the top, but for folks who are middle class or below, it’s going down,” Sanders told host Bret Baier. “The question really is, is this [economy] working for working families, and the answer is no.”

The economic pickle Sanders described is sometimes called a “K-shaped” recovery — meaning one in which the wealthy benefit from the recovery while everyone else continues to suffer. Regardless of one’s feelings about the Biden campaign, Sanders’ analysis is echoed by economists — who say that the nascent K-shaped recovery has troubling implications for the future of America’s economy.

“I do think the USA is seeing a K-shaped recovery,” Dr. Gabriel Mathy, a macroeconomist at American University, told Salon by email. “The working class has to continue working, and the government transfers and additional unemployment insurance payments are falling. They must work outside the home, exposing themselves to the virus, and with schools opening they must find childcare. Richer groups have seen their stock portfolios rise and they are working from home, doing okay.” Continue reading.

As NFL reopens amid altered landscape, Trump resumes attacks on players who demonstrate for racial justice

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President Trump’s attempt to show that the nation is recovering from the economic damage of the coronavirus pandemic will clash head-on Thursday with his denunciations of social justice demonstrations when the National Football League kicks off its season in prime time.

Trump has lobbied heavily for sports leagues to restart despite the threat of the virus, but his demands have been incongruous when it comes to the NFL, an $8.8 billion juggernaut whose television ratings dwarf all competitors’.

Ahead of the season opener between the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and the Houston Texans, the president and his allies have resumed their long-standing bashing of NFL players for kneeling during the national anthem to call attention to police brutality affecting communities of color. Continue reading.

Trump says he didn’t want to spark panic. But he’s running on fear.

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“I don’t want people to be frightened. I don’t want to create panic.” 

— President Trump, explaining why he misled Americans about the coronavirus, Sept. 9, 2020

Bob Woodward’s first book on Trump was called “Fear.” But now the president is trying to rebut his own words in Woodward’s new book, “Rage,” by suggesting that he was trying to keep the nation calm by not revealing how much he knew about the dangerous nature of the novel coronavirus.

“You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” Trump said in a Feb. 7 call with Woodward. “And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus.”

Speaking to reporters for weeks afterward, however, Trump repeatedly played down the threat, suggesting that it was not much more dangerous than the seasonal flu. Continue reading.

Exclusive: White House orders end to COVID-19 airport screenings for international travelers

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government on Monday will stop conducting enhanced screening of passengers on inbound international flights for COVID-19, Yahoo News has learned. 

The screening operations have been held at select airports since January, when the first cases of the disease began to emerge from Wuhan, China. Since March, incoming international flights from select high-risk countries, including much of Europe, China and Iran, among other regions, have been funneled through 15 designated airports in the United States.

As of Monday, however, international flights will no longer be funneled into select airports for screening purposes and all screenings will come to a halt, according to communications and sources. All screenings and rerouting of select international flights will cease at exactly 12:01 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 14. Continue reading.

Emails show HHS official trying to muzzle Fauci

Emails obtained by POLITICO show a top aide at the department dictating what the nation’s top infections disease expert should say during media interviews.

A Trump administration appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services is trying to prevent Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, from speaking about the risks that coronavirus poses to children.

Emails obtained by POLITICO show Paul Alexander — a senior adviser to Michael Caputo, HHS’s assistant secretary for public affairs — instructing press officers and others at the National Institutes of Health about what Fauci should say during media interviews. The Trump adviser weighed in on Fauci’s planned responses to outlets including Bloomberg News, BuzzFeed, Huffington Post and the science journal Cell.

Alexander’s lengthy messages, some sent as recently as this week, are couched as scientific arguments. But they often contradict mainstream science while promoting political positions taken by the Trump administration on hot-button issues ranging from the use of convalescent plasma to school reopening. Continue reading.

Trump Said He Underestimated How Quickly The Coronavirus Would Spread Despite Reports Saying He Knew

“All of a sudden, the world was infected. The entire world was infected,” Trump said when asked about his comments to Bob Woodward.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump insisted Wednesday that he didn’t expect the coronavirus outbreak would spread to the degree it ultimately did, even as a newly released interview showed he was privately worried about how deadly and contagious the virus was in early February.

“You didn’t really think it was going to be to the point where it was,” Trump told reporters during an unrelated press conference at the White House. “All of a sudden, the world was infected. The entire world was infected.”

His comments contradict reports in an upcoming book from journalist Bob Woodward that describe a president who was fully aware of the potential danger Americans faced with the coronavirus and regarded it as “deadlier than even your strenuous flu.” Woodward pinpoints the time frame in which the president’s aides advised Trump that the pandemic would be the “roughest thing” he’d face in his presidency. Ten days later, Woodward writes, Trump reiterated the same sentiment during an interview. Continue reading.

Trump’s lies cost tens of thousands of American lives–and Bob Woodward has the proof on tape

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It is not news that Donald Trump downplayed the severity of Covid-19 for an extended period of time, calling it a “hoax” and blaming Democrats and the media for exaggerating the seriousness of the pandemic to hurt him politically. But we live in a hyperpolarized country with a balkanized media environment, and that makes it incredibly significant that veteran journalist Bob Woodward captured Trump saying as much himself, explicitly, on tape.

In an interview Woodward recorded for his new book, Rage, on February 7, Trump said that the Coronavirus was “tricky,” that it spread via airborne transmission and was five times more lethal than seasonal influenza. “This is deadly stuff,” he added. That was three weeks before the United States would suffer the first of its almost 200,000 confirmed fatalities due to Covid-19.

Less than three weeks later, on February 26, Trump publicly compared Covid with the flu during a White House press conference. Continue reading.