Month: March 2020
Most Say Trump Should Have Responded Sooner
53% to 34%
“By a 53% to 34% margin, more believe a quicker response from the federal government could have slowed the spread of coronavirus in the U.S. than say it is so contagious that nothing could have prevented it spreading the way it has. Some 30% of Republicans join 73% of Democrats in saying the government could have made a difference had it acted faster.” — Fox News poll
The Trump Media Tsunami
137,000
Washington Post: “Since mid-January, President Trump has spent a total of 12 hours speaking publicly about the novel coronavirus — amounting to more than 137,000 words… He has tweeted about the virus 138 times. And in the past week alone, the president has spoken for 287 minutes — more than 4½ hours — during daily coronavirus news conferences.”2>
Jobless Being Undercounted
3.3 million
“The 3.3 million new unemployment insurance claims that the Labor Department reported Thursday is likely a significant undercount, experts say, because laid-off workers have been calling into state unemployment agencies much faster than the agencies can process their requests,” Politico reports.
Trump Slashed Staff at U.S. CDC Office in China
2/3
“The Trump administration cut staff by more than two-thirds at a key U.S. public health agency operating inside China, as part of a larger rollback of U.S.-funded health and science experts on the ground there leading up to the coronavirus outbreak,” Reuters reports. “Most of the reductions were made at the Beijing office of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and occurred over the past two years.”
Mnuchin: Jobless Numbers ‘Not Relevant’
“I just think these numbers right now are not relevant. Whether they’re bigger or smaller in the short term… the good thing about this bill is, the president is protecting these people.”
— Asked on CNBC about the record joblessness report, which totaled nearly 3.3 million people, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin downplayed the report.
White House Is Short-Staffed
80%
New York Times: “Some 80 percent of the senior positions in the White House below the cabinet level have turned over during President Trump’s administration, with about 500 people having departed since the inauguration. Mr. Trump is on his fourth chief of staff, his fourth national security adviser and his fifth secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. … Between Mr. Trump’s history of firing people and the choice by many career officials and political appointees to leave, he now finds himself with a government riddled with vacancies, acting department chiefs and, in some cases, leaders whose professional backgrounds do not easily match up to the task of managing a pandemic.”
Coronavirus Crisis Blame Belongs Solely to Trump Administration
“In short, the Trump administration forced a catastrophic strategic surprise onto the American people. But unlike past strategic surprises—Pearl Harbor, the Iranian revolution of 1979, or especially 9/11—the current one was brought about by unprecedented indifference, even willful negligence. Whereas, for example, the 9/11 Commission Report assigned blame for the al Qaeda attacks on the administrations of presidents Ronald Reagan through George W. Bush, the unfolding coronavirus crisis is overwhelmingly the sole responsibility of the current White House.”
— Foreign Policy
First Baptist Petri Dish
Trump’s pandemic response is a series of half-assed lurches,
And good luck now finding a ventilator for purchase.
But come this Easter,
The Commander-in-Chief-ster
Wants America open for business and Americans packing the churches.