Gabriel Sherman, Vanity Fair, April 1, 2020:
The national debate set off by Donald Trump's announcement that he wanted churches packed on Easter was, like so many Trump crises, a self-inflicted one. ...Trump started to care only when a close friend was affected, though whether Trump truly has any close friends (or is emotionally capable of sustaining an actual friendship with another person) is questionable.
Dr. Anthony Fauci [and others] implored Trump not to relax the government's social distancing guidelines. Trump dug in. ... Under pressure, members of the coronavirus task force discussed privately how parts of the country might be opened in April, but cautioned Trump not to get locked into a specific timetable ... "They discussed it internally, but they never intended Trump to announce it," a Republican working with the task force told me.
Trump's impulsive decision—and its messy aftermath—consumed the West Wing during the critical week that governors were pleading with the White House to deliver medical supplies before hospital systems began to collapse. ... Dr. Fauci, Senator Lindsey Graham, and others raced to convince Trump that an Easter opening would be a cataclysmic error that could cost millions of lives. ...
Trump's latest tonal and tactical shift (and almost certainly not the last) was driven by several factors, both personal and political. Trump learned that his close friend, 78-year-old New York real estate mogul Stan Chera, had contracted COVID-19 and fallen into a coma at New York-Presbyterian. "Boy, did that hit home. Stan is like one of his best friends," said prominent New York Trump donor Bill White. Trump also grew concerned as the virus spread to Trump country. "The polling sucked. The campaign panicked about the numbers in red states. They don't expect to win states that are getting blown to pieces with coronavirus," a former West Wing official told me. From the beginning of the crisis, Trump had struggled to see it as anything other than a political problem, subject to his usual arsenal of tweets and attacks and bombast. But he ultimately realized that as bad as the stock market was, getting coronavirus wrong would end his presidency. ...
And let's think a moment about the phrase "Trump Country". Yes, it's not in quotes, but it is obvious Trump does not see – and has never seen – himself as president of the entire United States. (Or any of the country, really. This whole charade is merely a way to fatten his bank account and be on TV more often.) The millions of Americans in the states he did not win in 2016 and does not expect to win in 2020 might as well already be dead. They have never existed in Trump's mind.
For an ordinary West Wing dealing with a crisis of this magnitude, the chief of staff would be a central player, mediating, delegating, making the trains on time. But Trump has only very intermittently been able to tolerate another person with power in his White House. ... "How can you not have a chief of staff during one of the biggest crises in American history?" a former West Wing official said."I know how to make this government run now." "I've gotten a lot smarter about" ICU capacity and ventilators." Kushner sounds as utterly divorced from reality as Trump, colossally ignorant yet fully confident (as only the completely ignorant can be) that he possesses more knowledge than the experts.
Jared Kushner [Trump's son-in-law], who's often been in competition with Trump's chiefs of staff, continues to be the central West Wing player, leading a shadow coronavirus task force that is more powerful than the official group led by Vice President Mike Pence. ... "This was a total mess," Kushner told people when he got involved last month. "I know how to make this government run now," he said, according to a source.
The White House downplayed tensions between Kushner and the task force. ...
Last week [Kushner] called Wall Street executives and asked for advice ... Kushner encouraged Trump to push back against New York governor Andrew Cuomo after Cuomo gave an emotional press conference during which he said New York was short 30,000 ventilators. ... Kushner told people that Cuomo was being an alarmist. "I have all this data about ICU capacity. I'm doing my own projections, and I've gotten a lot smarter about this. New York doesn't need all the ventilators," Kushner said, according to a person present. During an interview on Hannity on March 26, Trump said: "I don't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators." ...
Meanwhile, Trump is also consulting his longtime confidante Hope Hicks, whom Trump hired back in February (Hicks had been serving as chief communications officer for Fox Corp., the parent company of Fox News). Officially, Hicks reports to Kushner, but according to sources, Hicks is constantly with Trump. ... Sources said Hicks prepares Trump for his daily task force briefings and advises him to act presidential. ... (Given Trump's recent blowups at reporters Yamiche Alcindor and Jim Acosta, Hicks's influence has its limits.) ...Trump has now latched onto this idea to make himself America's Pandemic Hero:
[Hicks] is shaping the White House's messaging, which puts the current communications director, Stephanie Grisham, out of the loop. ... Kushner has been looking to sideline Grisham but has been unable to displace her because Grisham remains close to Melania Trump ... "Jared doesn't tell Grisham what he's working on. At this point Stephanie has just given up," a person close to Grisham said. ...
Trump's press conferences for the last few weeks had mostly been rally substitutes—boastful, contentious, featuring Trump as pitchman, selling the great job the administration was doing and the beautiful future after the novel coronavirus had magically flowed through, while compulsively blame-shifting to China, the media, governors, anyone but his own administration.
* The worst-case projections estimate that 1,100,000 to 2,200,000 Americans could die of Covid-19.At his last two press conferences, Trump has been strongly pushing the idea of "saving one million people".
* Among the best-case scenarios, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, is that 240,000 Americans will die.
* Trump will repeat the 2,200,000 number to scare everyone and then, using the 1,100,000 number, say if 240,000 Americans die, he will have "saved" about one million people.
If you are a person with proper cognitive functioning in your brain, you'll know at once that only a severely mentally ill person would concoct such a plan and believe it could make him look good. It's sheer madness. But we've gotten so used to having this insane person raving about insane things every day for more than four years and I think we have lost some sense of perspective. Trump is a lunatic, sure, but do we truly understand how deranged many of his statements are?
There is absolutely no way the US federal response will do everything right. Trump will continue to act impulsively – because even rational men do not completely change their personalities at the age of 73. The possible Easter opening had only been discussed privately as a possibility and was certainly not yet ready for public ears, but Trump went ahead and blurted it out numerous times, anyway.
The only thing that matters to this imbecile is that he now thinks he cannot win re-election without pretending to take the virus seriously. So he will pretend to care. But since he cannot sustain interest or focus on anything that is not completely about HIM, it won't be long before he's back to claiming everything is great and his ratings are through the roof because we are winning against this invisible hidden unseen I call it unseen scourge or germ or whatever you want to call it no one knows what to call it you can call it whatever you want it's like the flu but it's not like the flu but the spirit in America is tremendous and I'm proud to be your wartime president and those black women are going to look like losers for asking those nasty fake news questions where they quote be verbatim when the miracle comes along and washes the virus through.
Back on February 25, 2020, Trump said: "There's a very good chance you're not going to die."
He doesn't say that now.
5 comments:
Jesus. He is so fucking stupid. He talks on a third-grade level. I think I have to collect some of the most idiotic things he has said during this crisis. Like how he wants the crisis to be over (I'll bet he does) and to go back to how life used to be when we didn't have death.
Anyway, this is making my brain hurt:
"And I have to say this: Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin [there is no way on earth he pronounced these even close to correctly] — which is, you know, you take it with it, maybe, if you want, for the infection [Sure, take it for the infection, take it for a different reason, whatever, it’ll still work; it's tremendous drug, nobody has ever taken a drug like this, but we're gonna be taking this drug soon, maybe sooner than they say] — I think some medical workers are doing that, using it maybe or getting it prescribed perhaps as — for another use. But the word is that some are and some aren't. [Yep, it’s usually one or the other.] I mean, I think it's not a bad idea to do it, but that's up to the doctors. But there is a theory going around that in our country and some other countries, people are taking that — that work in the hospitals, that work with the patients — because there is some evidence. And, again, it's going to have to be proven. It's very early. You know, we're rushing this stuff through. This was supposed to take a long time to be approved, and I prevailed upon the FDA [Of course you did. Or you asked A-Rod to do it when you called him.] to get it approved immediately on the basis that it was already on the market for a lot of years for another use: malaria, mostly — and arthritis — but mostly malaria. So we'll see what happens. But there is a theory out there that for the medical worker, a doctor, it may work [But how does the drug know the person taking it is a doctor, so it knows whether to provide relief or not? Sorry, as I understand it, you are not a doctor, so I'm gonna have to act like a placebo]. It may work. And if you take it, it's — you know, it's been out there for a long time. [Who cares how long it's been out there? It's totally irrelevant. This is a new possible use for it. So if it's been out there for two hours or two centuries, it's the same fucking thing when it comes to this virus."]
"Let me explain something." [Well, you can try ...]
March 31:
"I'm going to do what's right, not only for us, but for humanity. … Do you ever run out of questions, you people? … But I have nothing else to do. … [Cuomo] has a lot of ventilators. The problem is: With some people, no matter what you give, it's never enough. It's never enough. … We're getting very high marks. But I'm not doing this for marks; I'm doing this to save lives. … But this is a very unique time in — in life."
&
Trump: Who you are you with? Who are you with?
Q But if I — if I could just clarify —
Trump: Who are you with? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who are you with?
Q Wall Street Journal.
Trump: Oh.
Q There's reporting by the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg that there's a plan in motion to —
Trump: Yeah, I know — that's incorrect reporting. Well, that might be, but I'm going to have to approve the plan.
Q — absent China —
Trump: The one thing I will tell you: I approve everything. And they haven't presented it to me, so therefore, it's false reporting. So therefore, don't do the story.
OMG, the stupid.
Q There is a professor from MIT, Dr. Fauci, who suggests that coronavirus can be carried on droplets a distance of 27 feet. Do you buy into that? And if that might be the case, does that suggest that current social distancing guidelines may need to be extended?
DR. FAUCI: This could really be terribly misleading, John. What it was, was looking at the distance that droplets by — by speaking, by coughing, or sneezing. So if you go way back and go, "Achoo!" And go like that, you might get 27 feet. But — so when you see somebody do that, get out of the way. But that's not practical.
THE PRESIDENT: There are some people that can do that. I know people that can do that.
***
Franklin Graham is somebody that's very special. I have many very special people. And very many special — in the evangelical — evangelical Christian community. … I have tremendous support from religious leaders. And Franklin Graham, I just spoke to him today for an extended period of time. … And he does this; he loves doing it. He loves helping people. And he loves Jesus — that, I can tell you. He loves Jesus. He's a great gentleman.
***
I'd love to go out. But, no, I'll be in the White House. And it's sort of like nerve center, control center. …
***
And I have to say this: I've had, in the last less than a week, three governors call up that truly have disliked me over the years — even before I decided to run for President — and they said, "I have to tell you, you've done a great job. You and your team have done a great job." These are three governors — respected — very respected in two cases. And they said, "Like or not like, you and your team have done an incredible job."
***
I just want — I just want to add, I think the one thing nobody really knew about this virus was how contagious it was. It's so incredibly contagious. And nobody knew that. This is like — I don't know that anybody has ever seen anything like this. Normally you'd have to get close and touch and this — a lot of things have to happen. This is just like — it's — it's truly invisible and so contagious. And I don't think any doctor knew it at the time. I don't think anybody could have known it. People have not seen anything like this.
***
I think [Governor Cuomo's] been reasonably generous, considering he's a Democrat and I think he'd like to run for President. So I think he's been pretty generous under those circumstances. … Look, I got him ships, I got hospitals, I got him a lot of things that he never thought — he had paydirt. Okay? And I've been very generous on ventilators.
***
Do you want to add — how about one more and we'll see you tomorrow? Is that okay? Don't say that I cut it short. You'll say he — … But you know what? In the meantime, I'm sure — I'm sure people are enjoying it. No, it's — I will say this: It's an incredibly dark topic, an incredibly horrible topic, and it's incredibly interesting. That's why everybody is — it's — they're going crazy. They can't get enough of it and they want to be careful. And I guess they're studying it for themselves. They're studying if they get it. A lot of people have it. A lot of people are positive, and they hope for the best. Because when this gets the wrong person, meaning a person that qualifies, generally speaking, on the list, it is ravaging. It is horrible. … And a lot of — a lot of very positive things are happening with the therapeutics and drugs of different kinds and the vaccines. I think a lot of very positive things are happening.
--------------------------------------
"A lot of people have it."
Yes, they do.
Also March 31:
"I watched as doctors and nurses went into a certain hospital in Elmhurst this morning. I know Elmhurst, Queens. That's — I grew up right next to it. I know the hospital very well. And seeing it all my life — my young life. And I will tell you that to see the scenes of trailers out there and what they're doing with those trailers — they're freezers — and nobody can even believe it. ... I watched the doctors and the nurses walking into that hospital this morning. It's like military people going into battle, going into war. [Except they are going in to save people, not kill them. Small difference, I guess.] The bravery is incredible. And I just have to take my hat — I would take my hat — if I were wearing a hat, I'd rip that hat off so fast and I would say you people are just incredible. They really are. They're very brave. They're going in and they don't know — you have — you have lots of things flying around in the air. You don't know what you're touching. Is it safe?
***
I love your next-to-last paragraph Trump pastiche!
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