Tag: Trump mishandling pandemic crisis

Fauci warns protests will ‘backfire,’ slow economic recovery

The Hill logoAnthony Fauci, the top government official on infectious diseases, warned Monday that protests in opposition to governors’ stay-at-home orders meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus will “backfire” and further delay the reopening of the economy.

“Clearly this is something that is hurting from the standpoint of economics and the standpoint of things that have nothing to do with the virus, but unless we get the virus under control, the real recovery economically is not going to happen,” Fauci said on “Good Morning America.”

“So what you do if you jump the gun and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you’re going to set yourself back,” he said. “So as painful as it is to go by the careful guidelines of gradually phasing into a reopening, it’s going to backfire. That’s the problem.” Continue reading.

How Bill Barr is gearing up to take the fall for Trump’s coronavirus policy: report

AlterNet logoAccording to a report from the Daily Beast, Attorney General Bill Barr appears poised to take the lead and attempt to force governors to re-open their states during the coronavirus pandemic — even at the risk of ramping up the spread of the virus when it appears to be slowing down.

In the process, he could become the face of Donald Trump’s failures to stem the COVID-19 health crisis.

“Donald Trump is calling for his followers to LIBERATE the states from the social distancing measures that are staving off an even greater coronavirus death toll. Trump’s enforcer, Attorney General Bill Barr, is now poised to support Trump’s call for insurrection by turning to the federal courts—seeded with a legion of newly installed right-wing jurists—to undermine critical public health protections on his boss’ behalf,” the Beast’s David Lurie wrote. “If Barr and Trump get their way, the states will soon be ‘opened up”’to the virus, and thus to a massive number of needless deaths.” Continue reading.

Governors headed for messy fight over coronavirus restrictions

The Hill logoGovernors are heading for a clash with their own citizens and local officials as they weigh how and when to reopen the country’s economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.

President Trump‘s own guidelines for easing social distancing restrictions, unveiled on Thursday, leave the final decisions for those matters with state governors. And those governors are facing growing pressure from the public in states such as Ohio and Michigan, where protests have called on leaders to quickly lift stay-at-home orders and bans on large gatherings and to allow  nonessential businesses to open their doors.

Experts say those fights between local stakeholders eager to lift the economic shutdown and governors, wary of losing ground against the virus, will be the next battleground in the nation’s pandemic response. Continue reading.

Trump’s old friend Piers Morgan watches briefings ‘with mounting horror,’ urges president to stop ‘self-aggrandizing’

Washington Post logoPiers Morgan, the outspoken host of “Good Morning Britain,” issued a personal plea Sunday to his old friend, asking President Trump to stop “playing petty politics” with the coronavirus pandemic and to “stop making it about yourself.”

Appearing on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” with host Brian Stelter, the longtime Trump ally said he was watching the president’s daily coronavirus briefings “with mounting horror.” Trump, he said, couldn’t seem to stop blaming governors or attacking Democrats, and kept wasting time quarreling with reporters.

The whirlwind news conferences were becoming “almost like a rally to him — almost like what’s more important is winning the election in November,” Morgan said. Continue reading.

With no good answer for his lost month of coronavirus preparation, Trump snaps at another female reporter

Washington Post logoWhen President Trump was asked at Sunday’s White House coronavirus task force briefing why he didn’t warn Americans in February that the virus was spreading and implement social distancing earlier, Trump’s response was to go back to late January, when he issued the travel restrictions on Chinese people coming to the United States.

In other words: More than two months into this crisis, Trump doesn’t have an answer for why he didn’t do more in this crucial window to prepare the country for the coronavirus.

On Sunday, Trump got defensive when a reporter asked him why his administration had not done more to prepare. He told CBS’s Weijia Jiang to “lower her voice” and to take it “nice and easy.” Here’s their exchange: Continue reading.

Even Trump’s best lackey can’t defend him

Washington Post logoWhen Donald Trump chose Mike Pence as his running mate in 2016, the obvious political benefit was that Pence, a former governor and House member who is famously Christian, could boost evangelical and conservative turnout to help Republicans up and down the ballot. But for the egomaniacal Trump, Pence had another key qualification: “He says nice things about me.”

Since being named to the ticket, Pence has repeatedly put his obsequiousness on display: Few on Team Trump are better at deploying up-is-down reasoning to spin news to Trump’s benefit. But during the vice president’s appearances on NBC’s and Fox News’s Sunday morning talk shows, it was clear that even Pence could not bootlick his way out of the lurch the president’s actions leave the rest of us in.

On Friday, Trump spoke out in support of protests against stay-at-home orders imposed by Democratic governors in Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia. It’s disturbing enough that the president would undermine the fight against the pandemic. Worse was his provocative call on Twitter to “LIBERATE” those states — and, in Virginia’s case, “save your great 2nd Amendment” — which caught the attention of far-right extremists. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) rightly observed Friday, “The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies — even while his own administration says the virus is real.” Continue reading.

Shake Shack Will Return Its Entire $10 Million U.S. Government Loan

Shake Shack Inc. will return a $10 million loan from the U.S. government amid criticism that the publicly traded burger chain and other larger companies gobbled up the emergency funding while smaller businesses were frozen out.

More than a dozen publicly traded companies with revenue topping $100 million received funds before the program ran out of money, according to a Bloomberg review of regulatory filings. Lawmakers in Congress are said to be near an agreement to top up the loan program, while also providing new funds for hospitals and coronavirus testing.

“Shake Shack was fortunate last Friday to be able to access the additional capital we needed to ensure our long-term stability through an equity transaction in the public markets,” Chief Executive Officer Randy Garutti and founder Danny Meyer said in a joint statement. The company said last week it sold $150 million of equity and filed Monday to offer as much as $136 million more to underwriters. Continue reading.

‘Delusional’: Governors Reject Pence’s Claim on Virus Testing

New York Times logoDemocratic and Republican governors bristled at claims from the Trump administration that the supply of tests was adequate to move firmly toward reopening the country.

ATLANTA — Governors facing growing pressure to revive economies decimated by the coronavirus said on Sunday that a shortage of tests was among the most significant hurdles in the way of lifting restrictions in their states.

“We are fighting a biological war,” Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia said on “State of the Union” on CNN. “We have been asked as governors to fight that war without the supplies we need.”

In interviews on Sunday morning talk shows, Mr. Northam was among the governors who said they needed the swabs and reagents required for the test, and urged federal officials to help them get those supplies. Continue reading.

Hold these Republicans accountable for deaths caused by recklessness

Washington Post logoPresident Trump tweeted a series of all-caps messages Friday that Virginia, Michigan and Minnesota—states with responsible stay-at-home orders — should “LIBERATE” themselves. It’s not clear whether this was a suggestion for armed insurrection, as his Virginia tweet referenced the Second Amendment, or simply a grossly irresponsible call for Americans to congregate in protests at a time when large gatherings risk infection spread and possibly more deaths. Either way, by encouraging violation of state measures to fight the pandemic, Trump abandoned his position of a day earlier, when he declared that governors should call their own shots. Trump was already morally responsible for the lost lives that could have been saved by prompt action to combat the coronavirus. He has no national plan to ramp up testing, which is critical to safe reopening. He should be held accountable for endangering those people encouraged by his irresponsible tweets.

Trump is not the only Republican who must be held accountable. Without ample testing, governors do not know how widely the virus has spread, the true infection rate or the risks posed by relaxing stay-at-home orders. None of that appears to bother Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, who initially delayed closing beaches statewide. “Florida’s governor on Friday gave the green light for some beaches and parks to reopen if it can be done safely,” the Associated Press reports, “and north Florida beaches became among the first to allow people to return since closures because of the coronavirus. [Jacksonville] Mayor Lenny Curry said Duval County beaches were reopening Friday afternoon with restricted hours, and they can only be used for walking, biking, hiking, fishing, running, swimming, taking care of pets and surfing.” Continue reading “Hold these Republicans accountable for deaths caused by recklessness”

Antibody Test, Seen as Key to Reopening Country, Does Not Yet Deliver

New York Times logoThe tests, many made in China without F.D.A. approval, are often inaccurate. Some doctors are misusing them. The rollout is nowhere close to the demand.

A law firm in Scottsdale, Ariz., tested employees who hoped, with the prick of a finger, to learn if they might be immune. In Laredo, Texas, community leaders secured 20,000 of the new tests to gauge how many residents had been infected. In Chicago, a hospital screened firefighters to help determine whether they could safely stay on the job.

In recent weeks, the United States has seen the first rollout of blood tests for coronavirus antibodies, widely heralded as crucial tools to assess the reach of the pandemic in the United States, restart the economy and reintegrate society.

But for all their promise, the tests — intended to signal whether people may have built immunity to the virus — are already raising alarms. Continue reading.