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“He could personally suck the virus out of every one of the 60,000 people in the world, suck it out of their lungs, swim to the bottom of the ocean and spit it out, and he would be accused of pollution for messing up the ocean.”
— Former Gov. Mike Huckabee told Fox & Friends that President Trump didn’t get enough credit for what he’s done to halt the spread of coronavirus. The comments sent the hashtag #SuckItTrump soaring on Twitter.
“If the coronavirus epidemic materially affects US economic growth it may increase the likelihood of Democratic victory in the 2020 election.”
— A new Goldman Sachs report is warning Wall Street that the coronavirus outbreak could cost President Trump the election in November, CNN reports. Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi said he now sees a 40% chance of a US recession during the first half of 2020, up from 20% previously.
“It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
— President Trump, quoted by CNN, on the coronavirus crisis.
80%
A new Commonwealth Fund/NBC News survey finds that 31% of voters were worried about being able to afford their health insurance in the next 12 months, 29% feared they wouldn’t have enough money to pay for out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs, and 32% worried about being able to afford other out-of-pocket costs. Nearly 80% of likely voters said they thought reducing health care costs should be a high priority for the next president.
445
“The discovery that a California woman was likely infected with the novel coronavirus by a previously unrecognized case in her community is proof of an enormous problem the country is facing at the moment, according to public health experts. It’s clear that the virus is spreading undetected in the United States — but how broadly it’s spreading is an utter mystery,” STAT reports. “Before Thursday, a perfect storm of problems in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s development of test kits — and the agency’s reluctance to expand its recommendation of who should be tested given the limited availability of kits — meant very little testing has been done in the country. As of Wednesday, the CDC said that 445 people had been tested — a fraction of the number of tests that other countries have run.”
“The Democrat Party, as it’s currently constituted, poses a much greater threat to this country than the coronavirus does.”
— Rush Limbaugh, quoted by The Hill.
“We would want to ensure that we work to make it affordable, but we can’t control that price, because we need the private sector to invest… Price controls won’t get us there.”
— Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar refused to promise a coronavirus vaccine will be affordable, The Verge reports.
0%
Goldman Sachs revised its earnings estimate for the year for U.S. companies to $165 per share, representing 0% growth in 2020, as a result of the coronavirus, CNBC reports. This is a dramatic break from the consensus forecast of Wall Street, which still calls for earnings to climb 7% this year.
3 thirds
A new AP-NORC poll finds considerable skepticism about the democratic process in the United States. “While a third of Americans say they have high confidence in an accurate count, roughly another third are only moderately confident and a remaining third say they have little confidence.”
“He’s trying to sell a book. Even if we would have had that conversation, it would have been privileged between a mayor and a governor … He’s an honorable guy. I can’t believe he would do that. I just keep getting disappointed. I got about five friends left.”
— “Rudy Giuliani is having phone trouble again — and this time, it’s sad,” the New York Daily News reports. “The former New York mayor forgot to hang up on a Daily News reporter Wednesday and, thinking he was off the line, started trash-talking ex-Gov. George Pataki while complaining he only has ‘five friends left.’”