Tag: Trump ego

Even Navy Secretary’s Subservience Couldn’t Save Him

The trick to surviving in Donald Trump’s administration is being a shameless toady, willing at any moment to lavish praise on the president. But acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly found that staying on Trump’s good side can be impossibly tricky. He resigned Tuesday in the apparent realization that his strenuous self-abasement was not enough to appease the president.

Last week, Modly relieved the commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, who had emailed higher-ups pleading for the evacuation of sailors aboard the aircraft carrier because of an outbreak of COVID-19. After the letter was leaked to the press, Modly sacked Capt. Brett Crozier for showing “extremely poor judgment” and letting the situation “overwhelm his ability to act professionally.”

Then the secretary flew to Guam to deliver a denunciation of Crozier, whose own sailors had cheered him as he left the ship. Modly boarded the carrier and used its public address system to inform the crew that the captain was “was either too naive or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this.” Continue reading.

Public health officials push back on May opening

The Hill logoPublic health experts are pushing back against suggestions the Trump administration could relax social distancing measures and open much of the country by May 1, warning that acting too soon will risk a resurgence of the virus.

The number of cases of COVID-19 nationally is starting to show signs of slowing, due in large part to the closure of thousands of business as people stay in their homes.

Yet this has also led to an economic catastrophe, with 16 million people filing unemployment claims over the past three weeks. And that has increased the pressure from some quarters to open the economy. Continue reading.

Trump calls decision on reopening US the biggest of his life

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Friday described the decision on when and how to reopen the country as the most difficult one he’s had to make in his life, underscoring the careful line he is walking between concerns about the economy and public health during the coronavirus outbreak.

“I don’t know that I’ve had a bigger decision. But I’m going to surround myself with the greatest minds. Not only the greatest minds, but the greatest minds in numerous different businesses, including the business of politics and reason,” Trump told reporters at a White House press briefing.

“And we’re going to make a decision, and hopefully it’s going to be the right decision,” he continued. “I will say this. I want to get it open as soon as we can.” Continue reading.

Wall Street Journal pens a condescending reply after Trump’s attack — and explains the actual reason his briefing ratings are so high

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump clearly loves the spectacle of holding daily coronavirus briefings during the course of the pandemic, even when he has no actual news to deliver, but many of his allies fear they’re doing more harm than good.

One dependable defender of the president, the Wall Street Journal editorial board, made a plea this week for the president to dial back the combative and boastful performances, inspiring a rebuke on Twitter from Trump himself. And on Friday, the Journal sent out another missive in the dispute dripping with condescension.

“Thanks for reading, sir, and we agree the briefings are an excellent way to communicate directly with Americans,” the board wrote in reply to his tweet, which defended the briefings by citing their ratings. Continue reading.

Fox News’ Brit Hume goes off on Trump for his ‘ridiculous’ boastful tweet

AlterNet logoThe love affair between President Donald Trump and right-wing media may be hitting a rough patch.

Fox News analyst Brit Hume called out the president on Thursday for a tweet in which he lashed out at the Wall Street Journal. The paper had on Wednesday evening published a piece from the editorial board criticizing Trump’s daily coronavirus briefings that have been filled with misinformation.

“Mr. Trump opens each briefing by running through a blizzard of facts and numbers showing what the government is doing—this many tests, that many masks, so many ventilators going from here to there, and what a great job he’s doing,” wrote the editorial board, which is typically a prominent defender of the president. “Then Mr. Trump opens the door for questions, and the session deteriorates into a dispiriting brawl between the President and his antagonists in the White House press corps.” Continue reading.

At White House coronavirus briefings, rescue efforts are extensive but often aspirational

Washington Post logoBad news tends to build up on pandemic days right until prime time, when President Trump and the coronavirus task force gather in the White House briefing room to tamp it down.

There, from the podium, generous quantities of medical supplies are distributed. The innovative forces of American science and industry are marshaling to defeat the enemy and make testing widely available. The economy gets the intensive care it needs for America to quickly recover. The “medical war,” as Trump calls it, is being won.

These pronouncements and pledges have turned out, again and again, to be a description of the administration’s aspirational response to the pandemic, not the one doctors, nurses and stricken families are reporting from the front. Continue reading.

Coronavirus crisis highlights Trump’s resistance to criticism — and his desire for fervent praise

Washington Post logoPresident Trump has lambasted governors whom he views as insufficiently appreciative. He has denigrated — and even dismissed — inspectors general who dared to criticize him or his administration. And he has excoriated reporters who posed questions he did not like.

The coronavirus pandemic has crystallized several long-standing undercurrents of the president’s governing ethos: a refusal to accept criticism, a seemingly insatiable need for praise — and an abiding mistrust of independent entities and individuals.

Those characteristics have had a pervasive effect on the administration’s handling of the crisis, from Trump’s suggestions that he might withhold aid from struggling state governments based on whether he is displeased with a governor to his repeated refusal to take responsibility for shortcomings in the laggard federal response. Continue reading.

Increasingly detached Trump frequently fantasizes about proving critics wrong on experimental coronavirus treatment: report

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump is leaning on the comfort of Fox News pals, Rudy Giuliani and his family as the coronavirus overwhelms his presidency and keeps him from the campaign trail.

The president has grown even more detached and distrustful of the government he oversees and the medical experts trying to guide him through the pandemic, and he’s betting heavily on the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a miracle cure for the virus, reported The Daily Beast.

Trump tore into an impromptu rant during a recent White House meeting on ventilators and attacked the “miserable people” in the media who “say I want to kill millions,” according to one U.S. official. Continue reading.

President tightens grip on federal watchdogs

The Hill logoPresident Trump is tightening his grip on federal watchdogs, even as the country reels from the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump has gone on the offensive over the past few days, suddenly removing or publicly berating three inspectors general. Trump’s actions and words have led to criticism from Democrats and others that he is purging officials whose chief responsibility is to protect the integrity of government institutions.

Acting Pentagon Inspector General Glenn Fine, who just a week ago was charged with overseeing the $2 trillion coronavirus relief package, was abruptly removed and replaced this week. Continue reading.

‘Confusion, fear, distrust’: Damning IG report lays out Trump administration’s ‘unprecedented’ COVID-19 failures

AlterNet logoA newly released report from the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services paints a devastating portrait of the Trump administration’s failures during the coronavirus pandemic.

NBC News reports that the HHS IG found that hospitals across the United States are lacking supplies as basic as thermometers, even as they’re being undercut by their own federal government in trying to acquire new supplies.

“Vendors have told us that they need to send whatever they have to the national stockpile,” said Ruthanne Sudderth, senior vice president for the Michigan Health & Hospital Association. Continue reading.