White House Winding Down Coronavirus Task Force
[guest post by Dana]
The New York Times reports:
President Trump said on Tuesday that the White House’s coronavirus task force would be shut down and replaced with “something in a different form” as the country moved into what he called Phase 2 of a response to a pandemic that has killed nearly 70,000 Americans.
“We will have something in a different form,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he toured a Honeywell mask manufacturing plant in Arizona, where he wore safety goggles but no mask. The president praised the work of the task force, led by Vice President Mike Pence, but said it was time to focus on safety and reopening the country.
“I think we are looking at Phase 2, and we’re looking at other phases,” Mr. Trump said after he was asked whether it was a good idea to shut down the task force while the virus was still spreading through the country. He said that Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the virus response coordinator for the task force, and other top public officials would still be involved in the efforts to address the pandemic after the task force disbanded.
“They will be, and so will other doctors, and so will other experts in the field,” he said, adding, “We are bringing our country back.”
Why not keep the task force intact and simply remove Trump from the equation? The medical experts are continually dominated by the president at the press conferences, and have to waste precious time countering his challenges, correcting his inaccurate claims, and shutting down his promotion of drugs and treatments for coronavirus that we have all been cautioned about. Trump is little more than a constant distraction who wastes the valuable time of professionals tasked with the near-impossible – which doesn’t include being the president’s clean-up crew.
And unfortunately, it appears that the White House forgot to mention the impending shutdown of the task force to the very face of the pandemic response, Dr. Fauci himself:
At the moment @VP Pence was telling reporters his goal is to wind down the coronavirus task force by Memorial Day, Dr. Anthony Fauci was on the phone with @PaulaReidCBS saying he'd heard no such thing …
— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) May 5, 2020
Is it possible that Trump has devised a way to be rid of the one who has disagreed with him publicly, corrected him on occasion, and could barely contain an eyeroll upon hearing the next unbelievable claim come out of the president’s mouth?
FYI, here is a look at current cases of coronavirus in America:
More than a month has passed since there was a day with fewer than 1,000 deaths from the virus. Almost every day, at least 25,000 new coronavirus cases are identified, meaning that the total in the United States — which has the highest number of known cases in the world with more than a million — is expanding by between 2 and 4 percent daily.
In light of New York’s recent decline in new cases, we are reminded by Andrew Noymer, an associate professor of public health at the University of California, Irvine:
If you include New York, it looks like a plateau moving down. If you exclude New York, it’s a plateau slowly moving up.
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (0feb77) — 5/5/2020 @ 5:18 pmIt’s as though he got bored.
Dustin (e5f6c3) — 5/5/2020 @ 5:29 pmAs a recent opinion piece I read lamented, the administration’s approach to governing during this crisis is simply not to do it.
Trump is out there cheering governors and protestors who ignore and violate the guidelines he announced himself.
National leadership is essentially non-existent at this point. We have Jared-freaking-Kushner, a real-estate developer, in charge of securing PPE for health workers.
This will not end well.
Allahpundit is even more gloomy than usual:
Dave (1bb933) — 5/5/2020 @ 5:42 pmThe Phase 1 Task Force did not lie enough. The Phase 2 Task Force will.
With WHO demonized, there will be no one to contradict the new “alternative facts”. The CDC will lie about the national statistics, and Republican governors will lie about their states’ statistics and praise Fump-banana-fanna-fo-fump-fee-fi-fo-mump for bringing them down. The Democratic governors will be damned if they do and damned if they don’t. The Trumpkins will swallow it whole. Victory! All Praise To The Mighty Trump!
nk (1d9030) — 5/5/2020 @ 6:09 pmTrump knows some more Americans might die this way, but says the American people should consider themselevs warriors
(And we know that in combat some soldiers die.
Of course he doesn’t mean British World War I level casualties, but more like World War II American casualties)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-says-he-views-americans-as-warriors-amid-coronavirus
Sammy Finkelman (375edc) — 5/5/2020 @ 6:24 pmTrump has, or is about to, abandon efforts to improve things medically because he’s launched Operation Warp Speed to get a vaccine ready by the end of the year and is convinced he bullied the researchers into it.
https://www.biospace.com/article/operation-warp-speed-highlights-14-covid-19-vaccines/
Sammy Finkelman (375edc) — 5/5/2020 @ 6:24 pmPeople are dying, Trump is lying.
nk (1d9030) — 5/5/2020 @ 6:34 pmApropos to nothing, apparently Neil Ferguson has been a naughty boy!
Heh
Gryph (08c844) — 5/5/2020 @ 6:36 pmLOL Gryph.
You score a point for that link. A lot of folks will start believing it’s a crisis when the people telling them how to live follow in those footsteps. The disconnect between haves and have nots is massive.
Dustin (e5f6c3) — 5/5/2020 @ 6:41 pm9. Thank you, Dustin. Did you follow both links?
Gryph (08c844) — 5/5/2020 @ 6:42 pmWith any other president I’d be concerned, but the Trump White House has not been helpful at all in dealing with the virus, so they might as well quit. At least we’d have less false information.
Nic (896fdf) — 5/5/2020 @ 6:45 pmLife of Brian is a classic, Gryph.
Dustin (e5f6c3) — 5/5/2020 @ 6:53 pm12. Oh yes. I’m a huge Monty Python fan. RIP Graham and Terry.
Gryph (08c844) — 5/5/2020 @ 6:53 pmChris Cuomo too, Gryph.
Dana (0feb77) — 5/5/2020 @ 7:04 pm14. I know. I know. That’s old news, though. That HotAir headline made me think of that scene from Life of Brian immediately.
Gryph (08c844) — 5/5/2020 @ 7:40 pm#8, I would judge her as “worth it”….Ferguson looks like he outkicked his coverage/hit above his batting average
urbanleftbehind (4e629e) — 5/5/2020 @ 8:01 pmTrump’s audience is the same as the audience of The Shopping Channel which follows the Ronco model of salesmanship: “If a gimmick does not sell, find another gimmick. If a gimmick sells, find another gimmick.” Made for Trump.
nk (1d9030) — 5/5/2020 @ 8:02 pmAs for this British guy whom I’ve never heard of: “Wot cobblers!” Since when is not a “girlfriend” family?
nk (1d9030) — 5/5/2020 @ 8:08 pmIt’s a pet peeve of mine, but of course the number of cases will go up as testing goes up. Overall, as a country, the number of deaths being attributed to Covid-19 has already plateaued and is in decline. Now people can argue about how those are being counted. But, as long as your counting method is consistent it should not matter.
Colliente (05736f) — 5/5/2020 @ 8:25 pmHah, Trump was expertly trolledat the Honeywell visit today.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 5/5/2020 @ 8:55 pmSo Trump is only capable of doing one thing at a time? Is that really how executives operate?
Paul Montagu (b3f51b) — 5/5/2020 @ 9:26 pmWhen I think about Trump winding down this task force, it does make me think that his plan is to have no plan, because he’s incapable of doing anything else.
Paul Montagu (b3f51b) — 5/5/2020 @ 9:38 pmSF: Trump has, or is about to, abandon efforts to improve things medically because he’s launched Operation Warp Speed…
Paul Montagu (b3f51b) — 5/5/2020 @ 9:26 pm
I meant that, in his mind, there’s nothing more to do, and now he can focus on something he likes better.
For all that, Operation Warp Speed is slower than what President Gerald Ford did in 1976 in developing and getting out the swine flu vaccine. Regulators hadn’t gummed up the works as much as they do now. What we have now is not normal.
There were two problems with the swine flu vaccine:
1) It had serious side effects in some people (although this isn’t clear) Some got uillain-Barre syndrome, and others got a bad case of the flu or somwthing.
2. There was no swine flu in the world to vaccinate against.
This was perfectly obvious to me and as the year went on it became only more certain.
The only reason they did it is because all the infectious disease experts were thinking on a very abstract level, and said various things, without considering how that would work.
They had influenza strains or similar ones coming back periodically. A rule? We were sort of scheduled for it. They;v been predicting very bad flus ever since.
And they had it somehow being around without being visible.
The fact is, the Fort Dix flu had been completely eliminated. It was extinct.
Sammy Finkelman (7b1b59) — 5/5/2020 @ 9:57 pmAccording to Trump cheerleaders, whatever non-plan he has is better than what the experts say, because the experts don’t know everything and they didn’t have a cure already cooked up in advance and their projections aren’t spot-on … so what do they know? Why should we listen to them anyway?
Funny thing is, the experts aren’t claiming to have the omniscience that the anti-experts trash them for not having.
And why should we listen to Trump instead? Because he does claim omniscience? Or because he’s “practical.” Or because his “sharp instincts” enable him to see what the silly experts miss!
The Trump faithful want to replace the “tyranny of experts” with the arrogance of an ignoramus.
Radegunda (354236) — 5/5/2020 @ 11:24 pmLike any good parasite, Trump knows his host. Which host is the United States of America. Strong. Resilient. Rich. He has not been leading her. He has been feeding off of her. He knows that she will recover from this, despite anything he does or does not do and he will continue to feed off of her.
But I ask you, Radegunda, as a woman is Trump the gigolo you’d pick?
nk (1d9030) — 5/5/2020 @ 11:34 pmShut down the coronavirus task force? Led by Pence? Oh, Oh, I get it. He wants to upstage Biden’s VP pick with one of his own. Trust me on this.
noel (4d3313) — 5/6/2020 @ 4:50 amI had a thought. It’s seven in the morning so it’s a sober one too.
Does Trump respect Mike Pence? Of course not. He doesn’t respect anyone who is a sycophant even though he demands exactly that type of behavior from all of those around him. So, who does he respect? I suppose we all should know that answer too… Putin, Kim Jong-un and Erdogan. Etc.
noel (4d3313) — 5/6/2020 @ 5:15 amKushner put a lot of inexperienced 20 year olds in charge of sourcing PPE. They didn’t accomplish much:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kushner-volunteer-coronavirus-ppe-whistleblower_n_5eb25572c5b6f8deb4e95546
So sure, they did a terrible job and so it’s time to stop. Let someone else clean up the mess.
Victor (4355e3) — 5/6/2020 @ 5:22 amI don’t really see this as a big deal. Under a mediocre leader or in a competent administration this task force would help micromanage the mitigation plan and stop/slow the spread of CV19 while the economy opens. But Trump’s a terrible leader and has a broke d*(k administration so i doubt there will be any practical effect.
To me it seems like high risk marketing on his part. He’s saying the worst is past us so we can declare victory and disband the task force. If a situation arises in the future where the task force could have been useful it will make him look worse, but he probably imagines he can lie his way out of that.
I never really liked Trump but his terrible work in this has really lowered my opinion of him.
Time123 (66d88c) — 5/6/2020 @ 5:38 am26. noel (4d3313) — 5/6/2020 @ 4:50 am
He plans to wind it down by or on or after Memorial Day.
But this morning, the news reports were saying that he’s “considering” it. Is this an attempt to avoid premature criticism, or is there some backtracking going on? That is, are they backtracking on the spin, or maybe also the reality?
Drs Fauci ad Birx will only give interviews after that if this task force is dissolved, not appear on this regular platform that is on TV every day.
I don’t think it’s that. And if he were, there’d be inescapable signs of that.
Pence edorsed it by the way – it’s accomplished its job etc.
I think in fact the reason Pence didn’t wear a mask at the Mayo clinic is because Trump doesn’t, and doesn’t believe in it either, really. At least when he was offered the alternative of testing. (and the advice used to be that a mask other than the N95s is to limit or stop a person who is infected from passing it on, but not to prevent someone from getting infected because, first of all, it doesn’t do that – actually it could minimize it – and second you won’t encounter an infected person or virus particle very often when you have no information that anyone is covid positive.
I described it as the one led by Pence, in order to identify it better.
There’s another one already, led by Jared Kushner. It’s more focused on the economics and re-opening. but the New York Times has a story today about how it, or this could be something else Kushner was in charge of, was charged with acquiring supplies to pass on to the states and was incompetent at it.
People were assigned to get supplies who were familiar with business but not with the special requirements of importing, or with the requirements to import anything medically related or even at frst with what they were trying to obtain.
They were layered over the career people who maybe weren’t so good at getting things, and hadn’t stockpiled, but still maybe knew a few things about this.
Volunteers selected by Jared Kushner were supposed to collect information about possible sources of supply, and pass on the best, but they were also told to pay special attention to leads that came from Trump supporters or Republican members of Congress. As a result of all of that New York State bought something that hasn’t been delivered.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/us/jared-kushner-fema-coronavirus.html
Not vetted, I suppose means, they didn’t ask him questions to make sure he actually had access to and could deliver ventilators.
Sammy Finkelman (375edc) — 5/6/2020 @ 6:05 am27. noel (4d3313) — 5/6/2020 @ 5:15 am
Initially, he didn’t consider the task force important, and wanted to give Mike Pence something to do. It was initially mostly to maintain liaison with state governments. (or perhaps that was wat Mike Pence decided was his job) This came only a day or so after a previous task force headed by the Secretay of HHS had been formed.
Mike Pence wondered why he was picked and gave two reasons, one of which was that he’d handled two sort of similar things (infectious disease outbreaks) as Governor of Indiana. Indiana had had one of the two MERS cases in the United States.
One day, after about two weeks, on March 14 I think, Trump dropped in and wanted to watch the coronovirus task force press briefing. But they told him he couldn’t just sit in the audience – presumably because all the attention would be on him – so he went to the podium.
He liked it, and started attending every day and took the lead. Pence would speak at the end.
Sammy Finkelman (375edc) — 5/6/2020 @ 6:17 am“We will have something in a different form,” Mr. Trump told reporters….
“I think we are looking at Phase 2, and we’re looking at other phases,” Mr. Trump said after he was asked whether it was a good idea to shut down the task force while the virus was still spreading through the country.
“We’re looking at Phase Wonderful…Ivanka will be in charge, Phase Warrior which Eddie Gallagher will lead, and Phase The Best, which I personally will head.”
Will Birx and Fauci still be playing a role?
“They will be, and so will other doctors, and so will other experts in the field,” he said, nodding at a field of onions in the distance, adding, “We are bringing our country back.”
Ragspierre (d9bec9) — 5/6/2020 @ 6:20 amYou might need an update, Dana, because Trump just changed his mind about winding down the CV Task Force. I know this because I read it from the Enemy of the People, which got their information from a Trump tweet.
Paul Montagu (b3f51b) — 5/6/2020 @ 6:32 amI never really liked Trump but his terrible work in this has really lowered my opinion of him.
A shocking turn of events! Some 7,325 comments later, you divulge your dislike. Didn’t see that one coming.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2020 @ 7:28 am@34, I’m not surprised that for you, the most important part of that comment is if I like or dislike your mascot.
Time123 (66d88c) — 5/6/2020 @ 7:56 am@33, Trump has no long term plan or even strategy. He’s in over his head. Has no idea what to do and is timidly flailing about in an effort to ‘win’ a news cycle. He’ll keep rambling until he finds something that garners praise and then stick to that for as long as it get’s him positive reinforcement.
Time123 (66d88c) — 5/6/2020 @ 7:59 amMission Accomplished!
John B Boddie (f7954e) — 5/6/2020 @ 8:12 amhttps://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/researcher-verge-making-very-significant-coronavirus-findings-shot-death-n1200896
Such a shame on so many levels.
Ragspierre (d9bec9) — 5/6/2020 @ 8:13 amMr. President, the most statesmanlike thing you can do is resign. It would be wonderful. Ten pornstars will make your every wish come true. Congress will give you 10 billion dollars, because this would be just incredibly wonderful, and every government official will stay at your hotels at inflated rates. We know how important it is that you are a billionaire, and that might not actually be true now, given the state of the economy. Putin will let you have his dacha on the Baltic, if you need a place to get away. Your mighty leadership in giving up leadership would set standards everywhere. I know a lot of people are saying if President Xi followed an example like that, and more would be saying it if the fake news media in their countries would let them. Mr. President, imagine the praise that will surround you, if Mr. Acosta was aiming his barbs at Pence.
Appalled (1a17de) — 5/6/2020 @ 8:17 amDempeachment III: This Time We Really Mean It!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2020 @ 8:57 amWhen McConnell loses the Senate in November, he will pay Pelosi to bring a second impeachment.
nk (1d9030) — 5/6/2020 @ 9:02 amHow’s your bubble treating you?
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2020 @ 9:04 amSeeBS… https://www.projectveritas.com/news/cbs-news-this-morning-aired-faked-covid-19-drive-through-testing-site-line/
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2020 @ 9:12 amHe isn’t even the sugar daddy I’d pick.
Where is the “bubble” that prevents people from hearing and seeing Trump directly, so they don’t realize how awesome he really is?
Radegunda (354236) — 5/6/2020 @ 9:21 amMark Knoller reports:
I guess Ivanka and Jared must be available…
Dana (0feb77) — 5/6/2020 @ 12:46 pmAlso, per Reuters:
Dana (0feb77) — 5/6/2020 @ 12:58 pm“New cases” is a shibboleth. It just means more testing. The actual number of cases could be rising or falling. When testing is constant, case counts will have meaning but until then, not.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 5/6/2020 @ 1:03 pmWhen McConnell loses the Senate in November, he will pay Pelosi to bring a second impeachment.
If Trump wins, the Senate will stay GOP. If not, not.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 5/6/2020 @ 1:04 pm