Friday Morning COVID-19 Update: It's OK To Blame Trump And His Regime

Trump's coke-fiend chief economic advisor, Larry Kudlow-- too stoned and irrational for Fox News, but just fine for the White House-- told the congressional Republicans early yesterday morning, just days after he lied to them and said the whole COVID-19 was "locked down," that Trump was finally about to sign the disaster order he should have signed in January. Everything Trump is doing now-- when he does something right, which is almost never anyway, is weeks or months behind when he should have acted too prevent the pandemic decimating America.

As Peter Baker noted in his New York Times column yesterday, Presidents Forge Their Legacies In Crisis-- "moments when presidents can rise above prior troubles or sink deeper into them, as Mr. Bush discovered. A onetime political colossus with a 90 percent approval rating built on his response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Mr. Bush’s presidency was marred by Katrina, which became a modern metaphor for a mishandled crisis." Baker doesn't realize it yet, but Bush's mishandling of Katrina is like a 1 on a 10scale of mishandling, compared to Trump's 12 on that same scale. "The history of presidents grappling with crises," he wrote, "is replete with lessons that sometimes go unlearned and examples that go unheeded." That pretty much defines the Trump regime's handling of this catastrophe.

Even Pence accidentally chastised Trump's handling of the crisis. On Today with Savannah Guthrie yesterday, Pence admitted that there has been "irresponsible rhetoric" from people who have downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic in the U.S. He started with a veiled semi-apology and ends with an outrageously false piece of propaganda: "There's been some irresponsible rhetoric, but the American people should know President Trump has no higher priority than the health and safety and well being of the people of this country." They're finally panicking in the White House-- after telling the nation not to when everyone could have been preparing and taking sensible precautions-- and now they're also getting nervous about Trump's reelection. You think headlines like this don't get noticed and dwelled upon?

To the Imbecile-in-Chief, COVID-19 is a "foreign virus" in his boneheaded address to the nation Wednesday night. CNN noted that "The characterization of the global pandemic as a foreign virus aligns with how some Trump allies have described the coronavirus in recent days, which critics have called xenophobic." It's also an incorrect way of thinking about the global pandemic, which is why the U.S. is lagging every other nation on earth in its response. We're all in this together. And the offing imbecile never even mentioned "social distancing" in his speech, something that every American-- even his moron followers-- are going to have to understand and get used to and start practicing if we're going to ever stop this thing.

Reporting for the Associated Press, Jonathan Lemire noted that Trump is continuing to botch up America's response. It's "a challenge for which he appears ill-equipped, his favorite political tactics ineffective and his reelection chances in jeopardy. A rare crisis battering the White House that is not of the president’s own making, the spreading coronavirus has panicked global financial markets and alarmed Americans, many of whom have turned to the Oval Office for guidance and reassurances. But what they have found is a president struggling for a solution, unable to settle Wall Street and proving particularly vulnerable to a threat that is out of his control. In an address to the nation Wednesday night, Trump announced a sweeping travel ban for much of Europe as well as a package of proposals to help steady the teetering economy. But he continued to play down the severity of the situation, painting it as a foreign threat that soon will be banished rather than focusing on managing the growing number of cases at home." He bungled the written response he read on the air Wednesday, sewing the confusion and chaos he's so famous for. The financial markets crashed on the opening again, sinking over 9% before the Fed intervened by announcing "extraordinary funding actions to ease strained capital markets in the wake of the coronavirus sell-off." They are "printing" one and a half a trillion dollars to insert into the markets. They can't do that every day.

"The virus," continued Lemire, "has appeared impervious to the Republican president’s bluster. The virus does not have a Twitter account and, unlike so many previous Trump foes, is resistant to political bullying or Republican Party solidarity. It has preyed on his lack of curiosity and fears of germs while exposing divides and inadequacies within senior levels of his administration. It has taken away Trump’s favorite political tool, his rallies, from which he draws energy and coveted voter information... One of Trump’s most potent political assets is his ability to read a room, or a moment, often eschewing long-term planning for instantaneous reaction. But he was slow to come to grips with the threat posed by the coronavirus as it exploded in China, distracted by impeachment and unwilling to scare the markets by stirring panic or upsetting his trading partner in Beijing, Xi Jinping."

Once the people around him convinced him the pandemic was not a "hoax," as he kept calling it, he "believed that through his force of will and ability to dominate a news cycle, he could alleviate the crisis, taking to Twitter and the White House briefing room podium to dismiss the threat." In the meantime, he was losing valuable time to actually prepare for the worst. "[W]hile Trump deemed the media coverage of the virus 'a hoax' meant to create hysteria and tank his poll numbers, it is a harder sell to ask his supporters to dismiss media reports when they see people in their own communities getting sick, schools closing and local drugstores unable to keep hand sanitizer on the shelves."

Infighting erupted within the administration, as Trump blamed and then sidelined Azar, relegating the health secretary to a secondary role behind Vice President Mike Pence on the coronavirus task force. But while Trump empowered Pence and respected medical professionals to take the lead on briefings, he ignored his advisers’ advice to let the vice president be the public face of the administration’s response, according to the officials.

Unable to cede the spotlight, Trump spoke extemporaneously to reporters at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta on Friday, requiring the vice president, who addressed the media in Washington moments later, to correct the president’s misstatements about the availability of testing kits and the fate of a cruise ship filled with coronavirus patients.

It was only on Monday, as he was flying from Florida back to Washington, that the economic severity of the crisis hit home for Trump, according to three of the officials and advisers.

In one cabin on Air Force One, Matt Gaetz, a Florida GOP congressman who had accompanied Trump to a series of Orlando fundraisers, had isolated himself after learning he’d come into contact with someone infected by the virus. And on the TV in Trump’s aircraft office, Fox News was broadcasting dire graphics illustrating the single worst day for stock markets since the 2008 financial crisis.

By the time the plane touched down at Joint Base Andrews, Trump told aides he would change tactics and propose a broad economic stimulus to reassure investors. But the fate of his plan, which included a suspension of the payroll tax, remained unclear as the week went on and the markets’ roller coaster ride continued.

“I think that in many ways this has made Trump a wartime president,” said former campaign communications director Jason Miller. “This virus has no borders, doesn’t discern between allies and foes and attacked the nation’s health security and economic security. It is going to take continued bold action from the president.”

After surviving impeachment, Trump has in earnest remade his White House staff to focus on reelection, prioritizing loyalty over experience. Increasingly focused on his campaign, Trump pushed aides to continue scheduling massive rallies, even as his Democratic foes had begun canceling theirs.

Predictably, his European travel ban went over the a lead balloon. NY Times: "On both sides of the Atlantic on Thursday, the consequences of President Trump’s decision to ban most travel from Europe began to be felt economically, politically and socially. European Union leaders issued a scathing statement condemning the move even as many nations on the Continent moved to tighten their own restrictions on the movement of people. 'The coronavirus is a global crisis, not limited to any continent and it requires cooperation rather than unilateral action,' it said. 'The European Union disapproves of the fact that the U.S. decision to impose a travel ban was taken unilaterally and without consultation.'"

With Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau's wife in quarantine with coronavirus symptoms after attending a charity event with 12,000 people, Trudeau acknowledged that with hundreds of thousands of people crossing the border every day, the U.S. is 'a real potential vector of transmission.'"

The Times also reported that after spending a lot of time with Trump and Pence, Fábio Wajngarten, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s communications chief, a fellow fascist, has tested positive for coronavirus. Others who had been in close proximity with Wajngarten at Mar-A-Lago included Ivanka and Jared. Florida GOP Senator Rick Scott had met with Bolsonaro and is now in quarantine. Today Bolsonaro will get his own test results back and find out whether or not he's infected.

The chances of Pence and Trump not having coronavirus are very small. Prediction: Trump will be dead before summer. People will emerge from their quarantined homes to cheer in the streets.

Yesterday, Alan Grayson told me that he really hopes "that Trump gets tested soon, because the only way that he’s going to give a damn about this problem is if he’s sick himself. I hope that the next person who gets laid off and sent home because of COVID-19 is Donald Trump... We’re about to have 75,000 people laid off here (Orlando/Disneyworld), with no income and no savings. They will soon be roasting and eating their cats. Damn him.

Meanwhile everyone serious has started ignoring Trump when it comes to dealing with the pandemic. "As the toll of those afflicted by the virus continued to soar and financial markets from Tokyo to New York continued to swoon" wrote Mark Landler, "world leaders are finally starting to find their voices about the gravity of what is now officially a pandemic. Yet it remains less a choir than a cacophony-- a dissonant babble of politicians all struggling, in their own way, to cope with the manifold challenges posed by the virus, from its crushing burden on hospitals and health care workers to its economic devastation and rising death toll. The choir also lacks a conductor, a role played through most of the post-World War II era by the United States. President Trump has failed to work with other leaders to fashion a common response, preferring to promote his border wall over the scientific advice of his own medical experts."

Landler also noted that other political leaders, like Trump, with whom humanity would be better off without, are using the pandemic for their own ends. "The same denigration of science and urge to block outsiders has characterized leaders from China to Iran, as well as right-wing populists in Europe, which is sowing cynicism and leaving people uncertain of whom to believe. Far from trying to stamp out the virus, strongmen like President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia have seized on the upheaval it is causing as cover for steps to consolidate their power... The trouble is that, with few exceptions, their efforts have been hapless. In the United States, the delay in developing coronavirus test kits and the scarcity of tests have made it impossible for officials, even weeks after the first cases appeared in the country, to get a true picture of the scale of the outbreak."

Domestically, political leaders are also giving up on working with Trump to ameliorate the spread of the disease. Politico reporters Heather Caygle and John Bresnahan wrote that "For any other leader, the rapid turnaround on the recovery plan would be a herculean feat at best. But for Pelosi, successfully negotiating a multi-billion-dollar economic package with a hostile and often antagonistic Trump administration was just another day in the speaker’s suite. It’s also a reminder that for all Trump’s omnipresence on Twitter and cable TV, Pelosi remains the dominant figure on Capitol Hill when it comes time to actually getting something accomplished. 'She understands what has to be done, and will do so in a very limited time frame and scope while trying to be inclusive with a very diverse caucus that also has a lot of their own ideas on how to solve the problem,' said Rep. John Larson (D-CT). 'While there can be some consternation going forward, at the end of the day, she has the trust of the caucus.' ... The face of the U.S. response-- of course-- is Trump. And he announced plans for some executive action to help the public in a Wednesday night address, including on paid sick leave. But he’s also taken a sometimes-erratic approach to the outbreak, often undermining his own administration’s recommendations and repeating falsehoods about the coronavirus being 'very much under control' in the country... Pelosi also has enormous political leverage during this episode. By moving quickly, Pelosi has put pressure on the White House and GOP leaders to respond. She could put a bill on the floor and see if Republicans would vote against it, something top Democrats believe will never happen. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), a key Trump ally, said Tuesday his conference could end up backing the Democratic bill."

Something to think about that Felix Salmon shared on Axios: "The fate of countries around the world lies in a very few individual politicians' hands-- more so than at any other time in half a century or more... The spread of the novel coronavirus is similarly a function of decisive action by heads of state, or the lack thereof. Governments alone determine whether the number of new cases increases exponentially, or whether it is brought under control within days. The Chinese government, through inaction, allowed COVID-19 to grow to the degree that global infections were inevitable. Subsequent Chinese actions, however, were decisive and effective. South Korea has also been effective in combating the coronavirus and has managed to do so through 'openness and transparency' rather than lockdowns. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has locked down the entire country, imposing severe restrictions on travel and shuttering all stores except groceries and pharmacies. Donald Trump, by contrast, sent markets into a series of tailspins by talking about the virus as a political attack rather than as an epidemiological emergency. His plan for minimizing the domestic spread of COVID-19 is notable mainly for its nonexistence. ... In normal day-to-day life, someone with the novel coronavirus will infect more than 3 other individuals. That's a simple recipe for exponential growth."

Effective heads of state have shown that they have the ability to change individual behavior across their country so that the number gets reduced to less than 1.

Normally, the health of a country is a function of the strength of its economy. That correlation has now temporarily been upended. Politicians need to slow down economic activity to save their countries.

Trump has failed, utterly and undeniably. Financial Times writer Edward Luce: "On Wednesday night the global pandemic met US nationalism. It will not take long to see which comes off best. As Donald Trump was speaking, the Dow futures market nosedived. His Europe travel ban came just a few hours after the US stock market entered bear territory-- a fall of 20 per cent or more-- for the first time since the global financial crisis. It also followed the World Health Organization’s declaration of a global pandemic. Mr Trump’s address was meant to calm the waters. By the time he finished they were considerably rougher… It is unclear how Europe and other countries will respond to Mr Trump’s dramatic announcement. In an ideal situation, America’s president would have acknowledged that the pathogen knows no borders and has no political loyalties. It poses a common threat that requires a co-ordinated global response. That is not the way Mr Trump thinks. Public health officials say that millions of Americans will probably be infected. The official total now stands at 1,312. Mr Trump has never faced a crisis on anything like this scale-- and it is still in its early stages. His remedies so far are cause for deep concern. Who will he blame when they fail?"

This is part of a note I got from my financial advisor yesterday: "You actually did more than just lighten up. You are about 70% cash and fixed currently. I would leave the 30% in with the diversified fund managers we have. They are patient and will act accordingly to pick up things when they get really cheap. I agree the market has to fall more. There are stresses behind the scenes in private equity and other areas caused by this which are creating downward pressure as well. And of course there is a vacuum in leadership which is starting to rattle everyone…"