Tag: Trump mishandling pandemic crisis

Trump downplays risk of coronavirus rebound

Top health officials said they all expect a return of the virus in the fall

President Donald Trump on Wednesday confidently downplayed the risks of a second wave of the coronavirus outbreak in the fall that his own health officials say is almost certain to hit.

“If it comes back though, it won’t be coming back in the form that it was, it will be coming back in smaller doses that we can contain,” Trump said during a White House press briefing, adding that “it’s also possible it doesn’t come back at all.”

Top administration health officials at the same briefing warned of a return of the virus in the fall, though expressed confidence that the country would be more prepared to contain a second wave. Continue reading.

Anti-racist author: Trump is ‘willing to kill his own base of supporters in order to try to win re-election in 2020’

AlterNet logoSeveral weeks ago, Donald Trump threatened to blockade New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, ostensibly to protect the rest of the country from the coronavirus pandemic. Trump soon pivoted away from that position.

Most mainstream observers and other members of the American news media mocked Trump for his threats and took them (again) as evidence of his ignorance about the Constitution and the rule of law. But Trump was testing norms and boundaries, with the goal of shattering them later.

Last week, Donald Trump took the next step in his escalating war against democracy and the rule of law, commanding his cult members to “liberate” Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia from the “stay-at-home” public health measures that have been enacted in an effort to slow down the rate of infection and death from the coronavirus pandemic. Continue reading.

Kushner’s Coronavirus ‘Task Force’ Awash In Potential Conflicts

areWhite House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner has been operating a “shadow” White House coronavirus task force which, journalist Pema Levy examines this week in Mother Jones.

The “shadow task force,” Levy notes, has been “convened by Jared Kushner to help run the Trump Administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.” And being an expert on public health is not a requirement.

“When Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, assembled the group, he did not turn to experts in crisis management or public health,” Levy explains. “Instead, he enlisted people with experience in the business of health care — not necessarily medical experts, but particularly, those who worked on (the) finance side and were adept at making money off the health care industry.” Continue reading.

In front of White House, nurses read names of colleagues killed by coronavirus

Washington Post logoRegistered nurses gathered Tuesday in front of the White House to read the names of health-care workers who have died fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

Wearing masks and standing six feet apart, the nurses held up photographs of the deceased as Melody Jones, a member of the National Nurses United union, addressed the news media in an otherwise empty Lafayette Square.

The names came from all over the country — New York and Alabama, Puerto Rico and Nevada, California and Michigan, Florida and Maryland, New Jersey and the District. Continue reading.

‘A crippling blow to America’s prestige:’ The government struggles to meet the moment

Every policy solution has been small in scope for the problem we face.

The global coronavirus crisis crashed into the United States in Washington state in January and quickly brought the richest and most powerful nation in the history of the world to its knees.

And so far, the federal response has been too small in scope and short on creative solutions to meet the greatest challenge since World War II.

The nation needs upward of 30 million tests per week to properly track the virus, health experts say. The country is testing only about 1 million a week now. It could take a public health army of more than 100,000 to track and trace those carrying the virus. There are only a few thousand so far. Continue reading.

CDC director warns second wave of coronavirus is likely to be even more devastating

Washington Post logoEven as states move ahead with plans to reopen their economies, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Tuesday that a second wave of the novel coronavirus will be far more dire because it is likely to coincide with the start of flu season.

“There’s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through,” CDC Director Robert Redfield said in an interview with The Washington Post. “And when I’ve said this to others, they kind of put their head back, they don’t understand what I mean.”

“We’re going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time,” he said. Continue reading.

Trump says he’s aiming to shield corporations from legal liability for workers who contract COVI-19 on the job

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump said during a press briefing Monday evening that his administration is aiming to shield corporations from legal responsibility for workers who contract the novel coronavirus on the job, a move that the Chamber of Commerce and right-wing advocacy groups are aggressively lobbying for as the White House pushes to reopen the U.S. economy against the warnings of public health experts.

“We are trying to take liability away from these companies,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question on the subject. “We just don’t want that because we want the companies to open and to open strong. But I’ll get you a legal opinion on that.”

The president claimed that his administration has not previously discussed the issue of corporate liability, but the New York Times reported that business executives raised the matter with Trump in a conference call last week. Continue reading.

The Memo: Low trust in Trump mars crisis response

The Hill logoTrust in President Trump’s ability to deal with the coronavirus crisis — and even to impart reliable information about it — is eroding, posing a significant danger to his reelection hopes.

In several polls, the share of the population that finds Trump trustworthy on the crisis is lower than his overall job approval number — an indication that the lack of public trust cannot be attributed only to the nation’s partisan divide.

The fact that concerns about Trump’s accuracy are felt beyond the ranks of his ideological foes could be a political time bomb as the nation begins to grapple with the tough question of when to begin reopening. Continue reading.

Evangelicals who gave Trump a pass on morality now share the consequences of his coronavirus response: Christian journalist

AlterNet logoIn an op-ed for The Dispatch this Monday, David French writes that Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary — a man who he respects deeply — declared amid a coronavirus-devastated economy that he’d support President Trump in 2020 and every Republican candidate to come thereafter.

While Mohler had initially declined to support Trump over questions about his “moral character,” previously saying that if he were to support, much less endorse Donald Trump for president, he “would actually have to go back and apologize to former President Bill Clinton” for all the critiques he leveled at him for his sexual improprieties.

“It’s well-established that a great number of white Evangelicals didn’t truly believe the words they wrote, endorsed, and argued in 1998 and for 18 years until the 2016 election,” French writes. “Oh sure, they thought they believed those words. If someone challenged their convictions with a lie detector test, they would have passed with flying colors.” Continue reading.

How Fox News Embraced And Boosted Coronavirus Protests

  • While state governors have attempted to slow the coronavirus outbreak through a number of stay-at-home and shelter-in-place orders, right-wing activists have organized a series of protests across the country calling for the reopening of businesses and the end of social distancing orders. Fox News has given extensive coverage to these protests — promoting the events, praising and encouraging the protesters, as well as hosting rally organizers
    — despite warnings from medical experts that opening up the country too soon could backfire, setting everyone back in the fight against coronavirus.
  • In one week, from April 13 through 19, Fox News devoted 69 segments to the story, spending 4 hours and 23 minutes covering the protests.
  • Fox & Friend First aired 9 segments about the protests, followed by America’s Newsroom with 8 segments. Rounding out the shows with the most segments were Your World with Neil Cavuto and America’s News Headquarters with 6 segments, and Fox News @ Night and Fox & Friends with 5 segments each. Continue reading.