In an all-hands-on-deck crisis, those whose priorities lie elsewhere do stand out. For example, the wingnut attorney general of Ohio is using the pandemic as an excuse to close the state’s abortion clinics. AG Bill Barr has used the crisis to ask Congress to suspend habeas corpus and other rights, which beside being a terrible encroachment on the constitution just plain makes no sense. The request was rejected on a bipartisan basis.
It’s clear that Trump’s priority is blaming China. He is doubling down on calling Covid-19 the “Chinese virus” and complains that China could have kept it contained, a big change from his tune of a few weeks ago. This is too obviously an attempt to deflect blame for Trump’s own negligence, which has been massive. Republicans have joined in —
At Trump’s behest, Republicans are blaming the coronavirus on China. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex, said, “China is to blame because the culture where people eat bats and snakes and dogs and things like that, these viruses are transmitted from the animal to the people and that’s why China has been the source of a lot of these viruses like SARS, like MERS, the Swine Flu.” Cornyn is a proud graduate of the Trump University School of Medicine.
This is, basically, the “Spanky did it first” defense beloved of small children.
The international community has work to do in preventing the transmission of viruses from animals to humans, but this doesn’t just happen in China. AIDS orignated in Africa, for example. The infamous “Spanish flu” epidemic of 1918-1919 may have originated in Kansas. This is an international problem.
And at this point it hardly matters how it started. Trump is still not doing enough himself. Right now we have a gross shortage of medical supplies. Right now medical personnel don’t have enough protective gear. It’s anticipated that very soon we will be short of hospital beds and respirators needed to keep people alive. And Trump is doing nothing.
Today, Trump tweeted that people should be blaming governors, not him.
.@JBPritzker, Governor of Illinois, and a very small group of certain other Governors, together with Fake News @CNN & Concast (MSDNC), shouldn’t be blaming the Federal Government for their own shortcomings. We are there to back you up should you fail, and always will be!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2020
Get that? Trump’s plan is to step in after the states fail.
Gov. Pritzker, who has been doing everything in his power about the virus, didn’t take this well.
Pritzker responded to Trump on Twitter soon after, saying, “You wasted precious months when you could’ve taken action to protect Americans & Illinoisans.”
“You should be leading a national response instead of throwing tantrums from the back seat,” he added. “Where were the tests when we needed them? Where’s the PPE [personal protective equipment]? Get off Twitter & do your job.” …
… Speaking with CNN’s “State of the Union,” Pritzker said the federal government’s response to the crisis has improved since earlier this month but that Illinois has received only about a quarter of the personal protective equipment that it has requested from the Trump administration.
“We … got a call this morning, before I went on the air, that we’re going to receive another shipment of PPE later today or tomorrow from FEMA,” he said. “But it’s a fraction still of what we have requested. We need millions of masks and hundreds of thousands of gowns and gloves and the rest. And, unfortunately, we’re getting still just a fraction of that.”
Pritzker said that, as a result, his state has to compete on the open market — against other states — for those items. Trump has pushed for states to secure masks and other essential items on their own.
“We’re all competing against each other. This should have been a coordinated effort by the federal government,” he said. “And the national defense authorization that the president has to essentially push this manufacturing really hasn’t gone into effect in any way. And, so, yes, we’re competing against each other. We’re competing against other countries. It’s a … Wild West, I would say, out there. And, indeed, we’re overpaying, I would say, for PPE because of that competition.”
Trump had already refused to help the governors who call him and begged for federal help.
President Donald Trump on Thursday put the onus on governors to obtain the critical equipment their states need to fight the coronavirus pandemic, telling reporters that the federal government is “not a shipping clerk” for the potentially life-saving supplies.
Appearing at the daily press briefing of the White House coronavirus task force, the president defended his decision to invoke the Defense Production Act — which would allow the administration to direct U.S. industry to ramp up production of emergency medical provisions — without actually triggering the statute.
“Governors are supposed to be doing a lot of this work, and they are doing a lot of this work,” Trump said. “The Federal government is not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. You know, we’re not a shipping clerk.”
I honestly believe Trump is just too bleeping stupid to understand the situation and what needs to be done. He has a great opportunity here to be the big hero and bleeping do something, and still he isn’t doing it.
Regarding the Defense Productin Act, this is dated March 18.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday invoked the Defense Production Act to get medical equipment to hospitals in the fight against the coronavirus.
But don’t expect new masks, ventilators, gloves and goggles to show up in the field right away.
The Trump administration has yet to complete a comprehensive assessment, despite weeks of discussion about using the act to help prevent the medical system from being overrun, according to current and former administration officials. Even Trump said on Wednesday that he’s in no hurry to order the supplies.
Today the chief of FEMA admitting nothing is happening.
President Donald Trump has invoked but not yet started using the Defense Production Act (DPA) to get companies to manufacture critical supplies for the fight against the coronavirus, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Peter Gaynor revealed to CNN’s Jake Tapper Sunday.
“No. We haven’t yet,” Gaynor replied when asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” if the Trump administration has ordered any companies to make critical medical supplies needed on the front lines of the coronavirus fight.
The FEMA chief insisted that donations and voluntary offers of assistance from companies are presently sufficient. “It’s happening without using that lever,” he explained, adding, “If it comes to a point we have to pull the lever, we will.”
Right now, Trump should already have ordered an assessment on what will be needed and where resources should be allocated, and the order to produce those resources should have been given. But Trump has done nothing.
I only signed the Defense Production Act to combat the Chinese Virus should we need to invoke it in a worst case scenario in the future. Hopefully there will be no need, but we are all in this TOGETHER!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2020
On Friday, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said he had urged Mr. Trump in a phone call to actually use the Defense Production Act to get going on producing more ventilators and other equipment needed to combat the virus, and that Mr. Trump had yelled to someone in his office to do it now.
I am not reassured.
Later that day, in a testy news conference, Mr. Trump claimed that he had already used the law to spur production of “millions of masks.” But Mr. Trump has a long history of saying things that have no basis in fact, and no company has disclosed receiving any such order.
In the most recent daily briefing Trump went out of his way to praise the private sector for stepping up to produce masks, ventilators, whatever, and that’s fine, but I’m betting no one is tracking exactly what is being produced and where it is going. A lot of that stuff will disappear into private hands. I can imagine that smaller publicly funded hospitals will go entirely without. And who is building facilities to provide for more hospital beds?
But get this — Trump’s offered help to North Korea.
President Trump has sent a letter to North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, expressing his willingness to help the North battle the coronavirus, North Korea said on Sunday.
“I would like to extend sincere gratitude to the U.S. president for sending his invariable faith to the Chairman,” said Kim Yo-jong, the North Korean leader’s sister and policy aide, in a statement carried by the North’s state-run Korean? Central? News Agency. Ms. Kim lauded Mr. Trump’s decision to write the letter as “a good judgment and proper action.”
In the letter, Mr. Trump “wished the family of the Chairman and our people well-being,” Ms. Kim said, referring to her brother by one of his official titles.
But Chicago can just go bleep itself, I guess.
But this is what we can expect from Trump. He can blame China all day long; it was his own negligence that let it into the U.S.
When Wuhan began burning with infections in December, the U.S. government took only illogical, inadequate actions to stop the virus’s spread: It banned foreigners from entering from China, but inconsistently monitored Americans returning from the country. The president laughed off the virus and the Democrats’ response to it, calling it their “new hoax,” which immediately polarized the citizenry’s response to precautionary public-health information. When the sparks of this conflagration hit, Seattle was aflame before anyone at the CDC had started to reach for water.
And, we might ask again, where are the tests? One more time, this was Mike Pence a couple of weeks ago:
“Over a million tests have been distributed,” Pence said, and “before the end of this week, another 4 million tests will be distributed.”.
And that was all a bald-faced lie. There were no millions of tests. Testing is slowly becoming more available, but not available enough. According to the Covid Tracking Project, a total of 228,216 Americans have been tested to date. But even if everyone could get tested tomorrow, it’s too late to talk about containment. Containment may have been possible a few weeks ago, but the federal government moved way too slowly. See How the Coronavirus Became an American Catastrophe.
I swan, as Grandma Toy May used to say, I am being tired out by having to read and listen to the lies of this administration. If it were about a legislative issue, I could deal, but this is about the supplies for hospitals!
Bill, I experience the same mental fatigue in trying to keep up with Trump's incessant bullshit. Lately I've been taking a respite by watching YouTube video's of Nils & Bianca. I find it enjoyable to appreciate the youthful energy… seeing how mine has long departed. I guess anything to get one's mind off of that bag of shit in the Oval office is a worthwhile endeavor, huh?
Here's something some of you old timers might appreciate. Like those were the days when you had a little spring in your step.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmcT6ex-214
I have a scarier hypothesis that I really hope isn't correct. You're right, if he acted now, he'd be a hero – but I think he's waiting for things to get worse, so he can swoop in to save the day, which means he has no idea about exponential growth.
I'm not sure which side is scarier: that he's not responding yet, because he just doesn't feel like it; or that he thinks he'll get bigger accolades if he waits a bit longer.
My theory is even scarier, that he is secretly hoping he can hold off disaster for a few months, then declare a national emergency and cancel the election, thereby keeping himself in office. I don't really know if that is possible but I'm sure it's crossed his mind.
I don't know if that is possible either, but I do know that the prevailing political will to stand up against him is sorely lacking. Anemic?
Evidently there is something missing in my understanding of how the system should work, but there is a strong element that seems content to tolerate all of his behaviors and bullshit. It's really scary to me that so many can just look the other way or make excuses and justifications his actions.
When it comes to his character…all I can say is that he's just a mess. And I wouldn't put it past him to try and pull a stunt like the one you've considered as a possibility. There are no boundaries to what he's capable of doing.
Donald Trump may very well be the stupidest person ever. If you're just looking to quantify intelligence in some way, then OK, he's below average but certainly not the lowest ever. But I think real, active stupidity can also be measured in the gap between how smart people actually are and how smart they think they are. And with Trump that gap (chasm, gulf, abyss) has got to be an all time historical record.
I want to get the Dunning-Kruger Effect renamed the Trump Effect.
No offense to Dunning or Kruger, but if we called it the Trump Effect we wouldn't have to explain what it is like we do now.
Competent people are stepping up to fill the void at the top. ‘I’m gonna go to work’: How Andrew Cuomo and his press conferences contrast with President Trump
Why waste any time with that fool at the top?
I am watching the special report, where Trump is busy playing the victim and working the press crowd for sympathy. When he is not doing that he is pushing magical thinking because he knows that the malaria drug will work wonders. He is all out to defeat the virus, while he is looking more and more like Don Quixote, flailing at windmills perceived only by him as the enemy.
We have a pandemic and and other major problems. Our president insists on playing partisan politics rather than problem solving. He fixes blame not problems. Past presidents made mistakes and all he has done is wonderful and perfect (sarcasm). We had to listen to that delusional diatribe too. Twice today, I have read authors invoking the name of Herbert Hoover in writing about our current situation. When Trump talks of mistakes of past presidents, I am guessing Herbert Hoover does not even cross his mind. To me it is the image of Hoover he should see when he looks in the mirror.
As far as invoking past presidents, this is just sick:
It's really not an exaggeration to say that this is like comparing Hitler to Jesus. Which is not (necessarily) to say that Trump is evil as Hitler (time will tell), but just in terms of how totally opposite they are.
Harold Meyerson on Democratic prospects for taking the Senate
The Democrats in the Senate refused to go along with what Mitch designed. And it was brilliant. A half-trillion-dollar slush fund to bail out big business, From what I read, the GOP would not go along with the controls (is that Liz Warren I see?) that Democrats insisted on.
Call me paranoid but my opinions are based on Donald's performance to date. The Ukraine shakedown was pure Trump. You have a nation in dire need – you extort from them to do your political bidding to smear an opponent. Or die. Focus on that MO and then consider American business in dire need and Trump in charge of 500 TRILLION dollars.
I don't think the slowdown on testing was ever an accident.Not invoking the Defense Production Act probably is no accident. Trump has always wanted to bring the Democratic Governors to servitude. The first Democratic Governor to bow to Great Leader (think Chris Christie after Trump got the nomination) will get the supplies Trump is hoarding.
A little history. Most Americans don't know why there's bad blood between Ukraine and Russia. About 7 million Ukrainians starved to death in the "Breadbasket of Europe" under Stalin as he used military force to seize and withhold food from the people who grew it. I think Trump is that evil, though he probably won't get to 7 million. He WILL exploit an emergency to create the narrative that Trump is the source of our salvation – just before the election.
Barbara noted in the first paragraph that Barr asked to suspend habeas corpus. Had it been granted, Barr could have detained without due process…anyone. Who might Donald J. Trump want to see disappear for a few months before the election? Political opponents? Members of the press? That's ridiculous..or is it. He's led the chant for "Lock Her Up" for four years. Why do you think it's a joke. Trump as been threatening the press just as long. We're seven months out from the election and Trump was at the helm when we hit the berg.
If you think (as I do) thet Trump is still bending every bit of energy to winning the 2020 election, what won't he do? I wrote a note to the Chief of Staff of my congress-critter. We have a good relationship and I titled the note. "Stand Firm." We need help and so will American business BUT Democrats have to deprive Trump of any discretionary power in the execution of a bailout. Liz W. can do a good job of defining how we do that but we have to tell Dems in Congress – Stand Firm.
Thanks Doug for keeping us abreast of this. Reporters questions were aimed at what the Senate was doing, but Trump was only being Trump so I gained little to no information on what the problem was with the Senate bill.
There will be plenty of suffering for all, but we must make sure the working people are taken care of. Protective gear for health workers is essential. So too is protective gear for those who must deal with the infected in other ways. There will be Typhoid Mary types who will need to be dealt with. I am thinking states and localities need to find ways to solve this problem in spite of Trump, as Saint Ronald
Reagan has prophetically and pathetically said, our party can give you a government that is as big of a problem as the problem itself if not more of one. I paraphrase a bit but in today's world close to accurate is above average.
Bernie,
You mentioned Hoover by comparing him to tRUMPleTHINSKIN..
That's unfair, my friend.
Yes, he wss a terrible POTUS, but he was a charitable and caring human being. During and after WW L, during a time of great hunger, he was responsible for distributingl food to Europe, and Easter Europe.
tRUMP is comparable to no one. He is uniquely unqualified for… Well, any, ANY, job involving responsibility!
He's not even qualified to work an overnight shift as a shelf-stocker at some backwater WaWa far from the main highway.
There's nothing he can't fuck-up!
I suppose I could have besmirched Hoover a bit much come to think about it.
Stupid is what stupid does? Like when you follow the advise of Dear Leader/ the orange sage. But who knows? It might work or it might not. We'll see. Trump has been right a lot times. At least hope paid off for this guy. He was hoping that the Coronavirus wouldn't kill him.. and it didn't.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/23/man-dies-after-self-medicating-with-chloroquine-phosphate-to-treat-coronavirus/
The only thing worse and stupider, than asking for this is to ask for it when you know you're not going to get it. I mean, why?