Tag: Trump mishandling pandemic response

Anatomy of a man-made disaster: Here are 370 ways Donald Trump failed to keep us safe from the coronavirus

AlterNet logoCrises have a way of sorting the good presidents from the bad.

Historians consistently rank Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt among the top three presidents for their handling of the Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II.

By contrast, the string of catastrophes that trailed George W. Bush, from Iraq to Hurricane Katrina to his obliviousness to warning signs in the housing market before the 2008 crash guarantee that he will have a permanent place in the bottom tier of presidents.

Trump Administration Paid Millions To Sketchy Supplier For Useless Test Tubes

Since May, the Trump administration has paid a fledgling Texas company $7.3 million for test tubes needed in tracking the spread of the coronavirus nationwide. But, instead of the standard vials, Fillakit LLC has supplied plastic tubes made for bottling soda, which state health officials say are unusable.

The state officials say that these “preforms,” which are designed to be expanded with heat and pressure into 2-liter soda bottles, don’t fit the racks used in laboratory analysis of test samples. Even if the bottles were the right size, experts say, the company’s process likely contaminated the tubes and could yield false test results. Fillakit employees, some not wearing masks, gathered the miniature soda bottles with snow shovels and dumped them into plastic bins before squirting saline into them, all in the open air, according to former employees and ProPublica‘s observation of the company’s operations.

“It wasn’t even clean, let alone sterile,” said Teresa Green, a retired science teacher who worked at Fillakit’s makeshift warehouse outside of Houston for two weeks before leaving out of frustration. Continue reading.

Trump’s attempt to enlist businesses in reopening push gets off to rocky start

Washington Post logoPresident Trump’s attempt to enlist corporate executives in a push to reopen parts of society amid the coronavirus pandemic got off to a rocky start Wednesday, with some business leaders complaining the effort was haphazard and warning that more testing needs to be in place before restrictions are lifted.

The president spent much of his day hosting conference calls with company executives, industry groups and others that he announced Tuesday as part of a hastily formed outside advisory council devoted to the issue.

Advisers said the effort was aimed at building national momentum to reopen much of the country’s economy by next month. Trump said guidelines for such an effort will be announced Thursday. Continue reading.

The Me President: Trump uses pandemic briefing to focus on himself

NOTE:  This is a free article from The Washington Post.

Washington Post logoThe Debrief: An occasional series offering a reporter’s insights

President Trump stepped to the lectern Monday on a day when the coronavirus death toll in the United States ticked up past 23,000. He addressed the nation at a time when unemployment claims have shot past 15 million and lines at food banks stretch toward the horizon.

Yet in the middle of this deadly pandemic that shows no obvious signs of abating, the president made clear that the paramount concern for Trump is Trump — his self-image, his media coverage, his supplicants and his opponents, both real and imagined.

“Everything we did was right,” Trump said, during a sometimes hostile 2½ -hour news conference in which he offered a live version of an enemies list, brooking no criticism and repeatedly snapping at reporters who dared to challenge his version of events. Continue reading.

Trump administration has many task forces — but still no plan for beating covid-19

Washington Post logoThe Trump administration still has no clear plan for ending the coronavirus crisis, but it does have many task forces.

There is the official task force led by Vice President Pence that meets daily and is supposed to oversee the government’s sprawling response to the pandemic that has cratered the economy and, as of Saturday, killed more than 20,000 in the United States alone. There is the “Opening Our Country Council,” an economic task force announced Friday that is focused on reopening portions of the economy as quickly as possible. There is the group that reports directly to President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, a cadre dismissively dubbed “the shadow task force” that helps Kushner with his roving list of virus troubleshooting.

And there is also the “doctors group,” a previously unreported offshoot of the original task force that huddles daily to discuss medical and public health issues, created in part to push back against demands that the health experts view as too reckless. Continue reading.

Democrats question Kushner about health surveillance privacy during pandemic

Lawmakers want to know about White House contacts with technology companies

Lawmakers are raising new questions about the role of senior White House adviser Jared Kushner in the response to the coronavirus, particularly when it comes to the government’s work with big tech companies.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, led a Friday letter to Kushner with fellow Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. Eshoo is the chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee.

The three Democrats are expressing concerns about relationships between public health surveillance efforts and companies like Verily, with is owned by Google’s parent company. Continue reading.

A Very Trump Response

President Trump has seen tremendous highs during his presidency. But his time in office could be defined by the lows of the pandemic.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP has presided over a record high close of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and its biggest single-day drop. He enjoyed the lowest unemployment rate in recent history and may well be president during the modern highest jobless rate. He campaigned on a theme of American exceptionalism, only to see the nation nearly paralyzed by a virus.

But none of this has changed how he’s conducting his presidency.

While some presidents have taken an occasion such as a national emergency to encourage unity, Trump continues his brash, take-no-prisoners style, leading some to conclude that he’s missing an opportunity to remake his political persona into one more marketable for re-election and one more suited to a second term. Continue reading.

Trump Keeps Talking. Some Republicans Don’t Like What They’re Hearing.

New York Times logoAides and allies increasingly believe the president’s daily briefings are hurting him more than helping, and are urging him to let his medical experts take center stage.

WASHINGTON — In his daily briefings on the coronavirus,President Trump has brandished all the familiar tools in his rhetorical arsenal: belittling Democratic governors, demonizing the media, trading in innuendo and bulldozing over the guidance of experts.

It’s the kind of performance the president relishes, but one that has his advisers and Republican allies worried.

As unemployment soars and the death toll skyrockets, and new polls show support for the president’s handling of the crisis sagging, White House allies and Republican lawmakers increasingly believe the briefings are hurting the president more than helping him. Many view the sessions as a kind of original sin from which all of his missteps flow, once he gets through his prepared script and turns to his preferred style of extemporaneous bluster and invective. 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.

MSNBC interrupts briefing so doctor can refute Trump’s ‘mystifying’ claim that zinc can treat COVID-19

AlterNet logoDr. Vin Gupta, a critical care physician and lung health expert, said Wednesday night that he has seen no evidence to support President Donald Trump’s assertion that zinc—paired with other drugs—is an effective treatment for the novel coronavirus.

During a Coronavirus Task Force briefing Wednesday evening, Trump said “you should add zinc” to any COVID-19 treatment regiment, suggesting that medical professionals have recommended the mineral supplement.

“I want to throw that out there because that’s where they seem to be having the best result,” said Trump, who has faced criticism for recklessly touting unproven coronavirus treatments. “So you add the zinc and the azithromycin, and it’s been—we’ve had a lot of good stories.” Continue reading.