Tag: Trump White House

Defense Secretary Esper warns military commanders: Don’t go off message with coronavirus response

AlterNet logoIt’s all about the message. Defense Secretary Mark Esper held a video conference with U.S. military commanders around the world last week, The New York Times reports, to tell them that informing the Trump administration should come before urgent decisions about protecting service members from coronavirus.

“One Defense Department official said Mr. Esper wanted to be sure that everyone within the government knows what military commanders are doing, and to assure that the government is communicating to the public with one voice on a rapidly developing situation,” according to the Times. Well, isn’t that a nice careful way to say, “We’re trying to downplay this, guys, so don’t go off message even if the facts on the ground don’t line up with the message”?

When Gen. Robert Abrams, the commander of American forces in South Korea, where there’s a major coronavirus outbreak, talked about his situation during Esper’s video conference, Esper “said he wanted advance notice before General Abrams or any other commander made decisions related to protecting their troops,” reported the Times. Abrams, to his credit, reportedly told Esper that if he had to make an urgent decision without permission, he was going to do what he had to do to keep people safe. But you have to wonder how many people on the call are more prone to intimidation or blind obedience. Continue reading.

Trump speaks with senior Taliban leader by phone, in a first between a U.S. president and insurgent force since Afghan war began

Washington Post logoPresident Trump said Tuesday that he had spoken with the senior Taliban leader, a phone conversation that is apparently the first direct verbal communication between a U.S. president and the Afghan insurgent force since the more than 18-year-old war in Afghanistan began.

Trump confirmed the Taliban’s announcement Tuesday that he had spoken by phone with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s top political leader.

“I spoke to the leader of the Taliban today. We had a good conversation. We’ve agreed there’s no violence, we don’t want violence; we’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “They’re dealing with Afghanistan, but we’ll see what happens. We had actually a very good talk.” Continue reading.

Trump’s baffling coronavirus vaccine event

Washington Post logoAs a private citizen and presidential candidate, Donald Trump was a proponent of vaccine skepticism — ignoring the scientific consensus on stuff like how vaccines don’t cause autism. As president, he is now surrounded by experts on the subject, including on Monday when he held a coronavirus roundtable with his task force and the heads of several pharmaceutical companies.

Yet despite the increasingly scary situation involving the disease and preparations having been underway for weeks, he still appears rather clueless on the subject.

At the event Monday, Trump peppered the drug companies with questions that were some variant of “How fast can you get it done?” But despite this having been a focal point in recent weeks, he still didn’t seem to process the fact that producing a vaccine means conducting months and months of trials before it can be deployed. He even at one point asked whether the flu vaccine could be used to combat coronavirus. Continue reading.

Fed cuts interest rates by half a percentage point amid coronavirus fears

The Hill logoThe Federal Reserve on Tuesday cut interest rates amid concern about the potential economic toll of the coronavirus outbreak.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which sets Fed interest rates, announced it would cut its baseline rate range by 0.5 percentage points to a 1 to 1.25 percent spread.

“The fundamentals of the U.S. economy remain strong. However, the coronavirus poses evolving risks to economic activity,” the FOMC said Tuesday in a statement. “In light of these risks and in support of achieving its maximum employment and price stability goals, the Federal Open Market Committee decided today to lower the target range for the federal funds rate.” Continue reading.

Columbia University virologist explains why the US government’s coronavirus response is lacking the appropriate ‘level of concern’

AlterNet logoThe global death toll from coronavirus has surpassed 3000, including at least five deaths in Washington State — where the disease appears to have been circulating undetected for weeks. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University in New York City, discussed the Trump Administration’s coronavirus response and offered some tips on dealing with the disease in a Q&A interview with Rolling Stone.

During the interview, Rasmussen was critical of the travel restrictions the Trump Administration has implemented in response to coronavirus.

“Our travel restrictions have not been implemented sensibly,” Rasmussen told Rolling Stone. “I disagree strongly with President Trump’s statement the other day that they, in fact, (have) worked. There’s no reason to expect that allowing U.S. citizens to come in, as opposed to foreign nationals from China, would not bring the virus in. I mean, the virus doesn’t care what passport you’re carrying. It was not an effective way to prevent the spread.” Continue reading.

‘Major surveillance failure’: Former USAID director breaks down why sloppy ‘crisis management’ doomed Trump’s coronavirus response

AlterNet logoThe United States has seen its first two deaths from coronavirus, both of them in Washington State — where, according to an analysis of virus samples, it had been spreading undetected for weeks. Jeremy Konyndyk, who served as director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under President Barack Obama, analyzes these troubling developments in a lengthy thread for Twitter. And Konyndyk is highly critical of the Trump Administration’s response to the coronavirus threat in the United States.

Konyndyk begins his thread by noting that coronavirus transmission likely went  “undetected” for “weeks, at least” in “parts of the upper West Coast.” The former USAID director asks, “How did we end up with major surveillance failure on par with Italy and Iran?” — then goes on to explain how.

This development, Konyndyk writes, “may get spun as a technical failure: e.g., flaws in the test kits.” But he quickly adds, “It’s not. It’s an interconnected communications, strategy, process, and execution failure, reflecting a serious breakdown of crisis (management).” Continue reading.

Trump White House goes 300+ days without a press briefing – why that’s unprecedented

Journalists learn to adapt to current conditions, be they storms or tantrums, vagaries of nature or whims of officials. White House correspondents these days should be well past their withdrawal symptoms from the daily delirium of the once-regular White House press briefing.

Earlier this year, as 300 days passed without a formal briefing, a bipartisan group of past administration press secretaries called for restoration of the daily briefings.

“Bringing the American people in on the process, early and often, makes for better democracy,” they said in an open letter on CNN.com. Continue reading.

Appeals court rules House can’t sue to enforce McGahn subpoena

The Hill logoA federal appeals court ruled on Friday that the House cannot sue to enforce its subpoenas, delivering a win for President Trump in his battle against a congressional subpoena of former White House counsel Don McGahn.

A panel of three judges for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 to overturn a federal judge’s order that McGahn must comply with the subpoena, which was issued as part of Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into Trump.

The two judges on the panel who sided with Trump were both appointed by Republican presidents. A third, appointed by former President Clinton, dissented. Continue reading.

NOTE:  We wonder if, after this ruling, anyone needs to comply with a subpoena.

White House chief of staff claims press covering coronavirus to take Trump down

The Hill logoWhite House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Friday downplayed the threat of the coronavirus but acknowledged likely school closures and disruptions to public transportation in the United States as a result of the outbreak.

He also accused the press of peddling a false narrative about the administration “scrambling” to contain the virus, saying he briefed Congress with other top health officials six weeks ago. He accused the media of ignoring the coronavirus until now because publications were too preoccupied with Trump’s impeachment before that, which he called a “hoax.”

“Why didn’t you hear about it?” Mulvaney told an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Friday morning in a discussion with Stephen Moore, an economic expert at the Heritage Foundation. “The press was covering their hoax of the day because they thought it would bring down the president.” Continue reading.

White House chief of staff claims press covering coronavirus to take Trump down

The Hill logoWhite House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Friday downplayed the threat of the coronavirus but acknowledged likely school closures and disruptions to public transportation in the United States as a result of the outbreak.

He also accused the press of peddling a false narrative about the administration “scrambling” to contain the virus, saying he briefed Congress with other top health officials six weeks ago. He accused the media of ignoring the coronavirus until now because publications were too preoccupied with Trump’s impeachment before that, which he called a “hoax.”

“Why didn’t you hear about it?” Mulvaney told an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Friday morning in a discussion with Stephen Moore, an economic expert at the Heritage Foundation. “The press was covering their hoax of the day because they thought it would bring down the president.” Continue reading.