Tag: Trump mishandling pandemic crisis

This data shows Trump’s efforts to weaponize COVID-19 against governors is harming him more than the governors

AlterNet logoGiven his incessant insecurities, it perhaps comes as no surprise that Donald Trump cannot (and, as time has proven, will not) stop talking about his “ratings.”

But, clearly, the few fonts of wisdom that exist within the walls of the Trump White House have gotten to him over the past handful of weeks. Despite his commanding the airwaves for hours per day with his COVID-19 “briefings,” poll after poll showed that voters across the nation, be they in red states or blue states, were far more likely to approve of the governmental responses to COVID offered by their governors than the response offered by the Trump administration. So, notably, we’ve seen his self-congratulatory tweets largely go from poll numbers to TV ratings.

But we’ve seen another marked strategic shift. Over the past few weeks, Trump started very pointedly attacking governors who have been aggressive in utilizing measures such as “shelter-in-place” orders to try to contain the spread of the coronavirus. While it had occasionally popped up in his briefings, it reached its apex on April 17 with a series of utterly bizarre tweets that called for three Democratic-controlled states to be “liberated,” a move that one think tank specializing in domestic terrorism fears could act as a dog whistle for right-wing attacks. Continue reading.

Case fatality rates rise as coronavirus runs deadly course

The Hill logoThe percentage of people who die after testing positive for the coronavirus is rising even as thousands of new U.S. cases are identified each day, a troubling preview of the weeks and months that lie ahead.

Epidemiologists and experts say increased case fatality rates are a natural function of a deadly virus running its course: The people who succumb today were probably infected as long as a month ago, when the number of cases began accelerating.

“As the epidemic picks up and you see a sudden rise [in cases], deaths will be very low,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Prevention at the University of Minnesota. “It’s just new onsets. And then as they work through the process, becoming severely ill, becoming hospitalized, being in the ICU and then dying, it’s a long-term process of three or up to four weeks.” Continue reading.

Experts warn Trump plan for states to test just 2% of residents is completely inadequate — and slam his attempt to ‘shirk’ responsibility

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump on Monday unveiled what the White House described as a “blueprint” for nationwide Covid-19 testing that public health experts say falls far short of the robust federal strategy needed to track and contain the deadly virus before states can safely begin reopening their economies.

A senior Trump administration official told the Wall Street Journal that the White House testing plan would provide all 50 states in the U.S. with enough equipment to test at least 2% of their residents. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said that number is nowhere close to adequate.

“It’s about 6 to 7 million [tests],” said Jha, “and if that’s one-time, that doesn’t do anything.” Continue reading.

Trump faces the risk of a coronavirus cliff

Unemployed Americans will lose a federal safety net long before the economy fully recovers — potentially creating a messy Election Day for the GOP.

Republicans are trying to pull off a high-wire act over the next three months: Reopen the economy enough to get most jobless Americans back to work and off the public dole, while resisting another giant stimulus package.

If they fail, they’ll face a coronavirus cliff — an even deeper collapse in spending and sky-high unemployment in the months before Election Day. That could both damage President Donald Trump’s reelection prospects and put the party’s Senate majority at serious risk.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has suggested that states be allowed to seek bankruptcy protection and questioned the need for a big new stimulus, said Monday that the Senate would return next Monday along with the House. He indicated he would consider additional coronavirus relief funding, but that any aid to states would continue to come with strings attached. And he told POLITICO last week that he was leery of adding much more to the deficit, joining other conservatives who are growing concerned about the GOP record of racking up a mountain of debt after railing against it for a decade before Trump. Continue reading.

President’s intelligence briefing book repeatedly cited virus threat

Washington Post logoU.S. intelligence agencies issued warnings about the novel coronavirus in more than a dozen classified briefings prepared for President Trump in January and February, months during which he continued to play down the threat, according to current and former U.S. officials.

The repeated warnings were conveyed in issues of the President’s Daily Brief, a sensitive report that is produced before dawn each day and designed to call the president’s attention to the most significant global developments and security threats.

For weeks, the PDB — as the report is known — traced the virus’s spread around the globe, made clear that China was suppressing information about the contagion’s transmissibility and lethal toll, and raised the prospect of dire political and economic consequences. Continue reading.

White House issues coronavirus testing guidance that leaves states in charge

Washington Post logoPressure mounted Monday on the White House and Congress to develop a national strategy to test Americans for exposure to the novel coronavirus, as health and economic experts said the current patchwork of testing efforts is insufficient to allow the economy to reopen safely.

Governors, congressional leaders and public health officials have pressed for a robust testing plan from the federal government, insisting that frequent and widespread testing is crucial to ending the stay-at-home orders that have idled businesses across much of the country.

President Trump responded Monday by announcing what the White House called a “blueprint” for increasing testing capacity. But it leaves the onus on states to develop their own plans and rapid-response programs. A White House document said the federal role would include “strategic direction and technical assistance,” as well as the ability to “align laboratory testing supplies and capacity with existing and anticipated laboratory needs.” Continue reading.

Briefings Were ‘Not Worth the Time,’ Trump Said. But He Couldn’t Stay Away.

New York Times logoJust hours after his own White House officially canceled his planned appearance on Monday, the lure of the cameras in the Rose Garden proved too hard to resist.

WASHINGTON — To the surprise of exactly no one, President Trump resumed his daily coronavirus news briefings on Monday, just two days after tweeting that they were “not worth the time & effort” and just hours after his own White House officially canceled the planned appearance.

The lure of cameras in the Rose Garden proved too hard to resist. For a president who relishes the spotlight and spends hours a day watching television, the idea of passing on his daily chance to get his message out turned out to be untenable despite his anger over his coverage. And so he was back, defending his handling of the pandemic and promising to reopen the country soon.

The on-again, off-again, on-again session was on the more sedate side of the spectrum seen in the six weeks since the president began commanding a slice of the homebound nation’s viewing attention almost every day right before family quarantine dinners. But even as he talked about the crisis that has killed almost as many Americans as the Vietnam War, Mr. Trump veered off to attack “Sleepy Joe” Biden, complain about being persecuted and make some of his favorite false claims. Continue reading.

Mike Pence Suggests America Is Too Dumb To See What A Great Job Trump Has Done On Testing

When a reporter asked Mike Pence why the Trump administration has failed to live up to its initial promise on coronavirus testing capacity, the vice president blamed the media and the American public for not understanding just how good a job the president has done.

“Mr. Vice President, back in early March you said we’d be at four million tests by the following week,” Jonathan Karl of ABC News pointed out at Monday’s press conference. “We’ve just now got there in the last few days.”

“What lessons have you learned from the mistakes over the last month and a half or so?” Karl asked. Continue reading.

Trump used his latest coronavirus briefing to make a bizarre claim about the deficit

“Prior to this virus, the deficit was coming down under my administration.”

Though the proceedings were ostensibly about the coronavirus, President Donald Trump used Monday’s press briefing to push an odd claim about his stewardship of the budget.

As part of his argument that he oversaw the development of the greatest economy in world history prior to the coronavirus reaching US shores and wrecking things, Trump claimed that “if you look, prior to this virus, the deficit was coming down under my administration.” He said this was due to him putting “massive tariffs on China” — tariffs that resulted in America “taking in tens of billions of dollars” from the country he’s now trying to blame for the pandemic.

(Update: A reader pointed out that when Trump’s reference to “the deficit” is read in context of the question he was responding to about China, he may have been referring to the trade deficit specifically with China and not the national deficit. While the trade deficit with China did shrink last year to $345.6 billion from a record of $419.5 billion it hit under Trump’s leadership in 2018, data shows that instead of buying things domestically, Americans just turned to other foreign countries to buy things.)  Continue reading.

Trump raises his virus death toll projection to up to 70,000 in U.S.

Trump had previously seized on the estimate of 50,000 to 60,000.

President Donald Trump on Monday acknowledged more Americans would die of the coronavirus than he has recently predicted, now saying that the nationwide toll is likely to be between 60,000 and 70,000.

More than 56,000 have already died, according to the Johns Hopkins tracker.

“So, yeah, we’ve lost a lot of people,” Trump said during a press briefing in the Rose Garden. “But if you look at what original projections were, 2.2 million, we are probably heading to 60,000 to 70,000.” Continue reading.