President Trump To Bob Woodward On Virus: “I Wanted To Always Play It Down” (UPDATE ADDED)
[guest post by Dana]
[Ed. Paul Montagu had a quibble with the original title of the post. I agreed with his quibble, and have re-worked the title as a result.]
On Saturday morning, President Trump tweeted the following:
..Even whether it’s dumb warmongers like John Bolton, social pretenders like Bob Woodward, who never has anything good to say, or an unstable niece, who was now rightfully shunned, scorned and mocked her entire life, and never even liked by her own very kind & caring grandfather!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2020
This morning, excerpts from Bob Woodward’s new book, “Rage,” have been released. In the book, Woodward claims that President Trump admitted he knew weeks before the first confirmed US coronavirus death that the virus was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and “more deadly than even your strenuous flus”. That’s a far different story than what he told us in the early stages of the pandemic:
“This is deadly stuff,” Trump told Woodward on February 7.
In a series of interviews with Woodward, Trump revealed that he had a surprising level of detail about the threat of the virus earlier than previously known. “Pretty amazing,” Trump told Woodward, adding that the coronavirus was maybe five times “more deadly” than the flu.
Trump’s admissions are in stark contrast to his frequent public comments at the time insisting that the virus was “going to disappear” and “all work out fine.”
The book, using Trump’s own words, depicts a President who has betrayed the public trust and the most fundamental responsibilities of his office. In “Rage,” Trump says the job of a president is “to keep our country safe.” But in early February, Trump told Woodward he knew how deadly the virus was, and in March, admitted he kept that knowledge hidden from the public.
“I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told Woodward on March 19, even as he had declared a national emergency over the virus days earlier. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”
“Playing it down” lines up with what we have seen and heard from Trump himself over the past eight months, not just at the beginning of the pandemic. While I would give most presidents the benefit of the doubt about not wanting to create a panic, it’s difficult for me to give this particular president the same benefit. But, for argument sake, if we agree that there was an element of truth to his claim that he didn’t want to cause panic (at least in the very early stages of the pandemic), it must also be acknowledged that it was a decision of self-interest, and an effort to protect himself and his political future. In spite of having every possible medical expert available to him to fully inform him about the disease and what a full-blown pandemic would look like, as well as having a pandemic playbook to which to refer, he continued with his charade of minimizing the crisis. By rejecting social distancing protocols, including wearing a mask, Trump was no longer just downplaying the virus – he was flat-out refusing to lead Americans by example on how to combat the spread of the virus. Even when it became obvious to everyone that we were in a full-blown pandemic, Trump’s continued efforts to downplay it not only created confusion for the public but led to lives being unnecessarily lost.
Yet still, as recently as yesterday, Trump is downplaying the virus. While appearing at a campaign rally in North Carolina, he defied the state’s mask mandate, and even mocked such concerns:
It’s been ordered by the governor,” David Plyler, a Trump supporter and GOP chair of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners…
But when the president emerged Tuesday evening to address a cheering group of supporters, his face was fully exposed, a likely violation of the state’s coronavirus rules.
The same was true of many of the supporters behind his podium, especially those high up in the stands and out of view. And in fact, the whole event appears to have defied restrictions from North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D), who has limited outdoor mass gatherings at 50 people under the state’s current phase of reopening.
Trump jeered that crowd cap too, suggesting that his supporters received less leeway than the widespread demonstrations for racial justice that have swept the nation this summer…
“We call you peaceful protesters, you know why?” Trump told his supporters, who were tightly packed into several bleachers erected near Smith Reynolds Airport. “Because they have rules in these Democrat-run states that if you’re campaigning, you cannot have more than five people. They did that for me.”
Trump’s campaign told CNN that masks and hand sanitizer would be provided for Winston-Salem rally attendees, who would be screened before the event with temperature checks. Anyone signing up for a ticket was also required to acknowledge the possibility of infection, as has been true of other audiences on the campaign trail.
…
“The president of the United States sets the example for everybody else,” Plyler told CNN. “You can hear it: if the president of the United States says I don’t have to wear it, I’m not going to wear it. And I can guarantee you that will be done.”
Anyway, same ‘ol, same ‘ol with this guy.
Woodward’s book will be available September 15.
UPDATE: Watch Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana ignore reality, play deaf, and sacrifice his integrity as he desperately tries to defend Trump. It should be noted that defending Trump will almost always require a sacrifice of integrity:
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA): These gotcha books don't really interest me that much.
CNN's Pamela Brown: He's on the record. He's on the record.
Kennedy: These gotcha books don't really interest me that much.
Brown: He did 18 interviews with Bob Woodward … He's recorded. pic.twitter.com/GGuAZkw4KO
— The Recount (@therecount) September 9, 2020
Here is the full conversation denial of reality:
Brown asked Kennedy for his reaction to the book, and he said, “These gotcha books don’t really interest me that much” — a comment he said repeatedly as Brown pressed him for an answer.
“He’s on the record,” Brown replied.
“These gotcha books don’t really interest me that much,” said Kennedy. “There will be a new one out tomorrow.”
“But this is different,” said Brown. “He did eighteen interviews with Bob Woodward.”
“Right,” said Kennedy.
“He’s recorded,” insisted Brown. “You hear his voice. And you’re seeing that and you’re contrasting that with what he says to the public. Wouldn’t that be something of interest to you as a United States Senator?”
“Let me answer you again. These gotcha books don’t really interest me. There will be a new one out tomorrow,” Woodward said again, adding that in his experience, the Trump administration had not ignored the virus.
“But the bottom line is he told Bob Woodward privately that this was a deadly virus and that it was airborne,” said Brown. “Didn’t the public, didn’t the citizens in your home state of Louisiana deserve to know that as well so that they could change their behavior appropriately to protect themselves?”
Kennedy dismissed the criticism as “this infatuation in Washington with who said what to whom,” and Brown cut him off.
“No, Senator, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not going to let you do this. I understand there is so much politics right now, we’re two months away from an election. But this is life and death. You had 5,000 people that have died in Louisiana from coronavirus. Republicans are reluctant, as you are now, to ever criticize this president. But as a human being, how can you be okay with this?”
Kennedy said that he judged Trump more by his actions than his words, and Brown played several clips from Woodward’s recordings as they went back and forth a few more times, with Kennedy repeating the president’s talking point that he was trying to “prevent a panic.”
–Dana
So, here we go.
Dana (292df6) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:09 amDana, Sure this seems like this is exactly the type of dishonest self serving harmful statement we’d expect Trump to make but how do we know this isn’t just more Fake News by the liberal media (but I repeat myself) who are out to get Trump?
Time123 (daab2f) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:18 amSnark aside this is yet more proof that the only thing this liar cares about is himself. The rest of us can get sick and die and he’ll only care if it impacts what people say about him on TV.
Time123 (36651d) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:19 amDoes it really matter anymore?
How many ‘tell-all-books’ can you throw at this dude?
My professional experience w/media tells me the industry spin has spun over the line into the Over-Kill-Land of noise and static and media consumers are going to deliver a backlash against the Lemons, Mitchells, Maddows– and Woodwards simply out of retribution against the infamous ‘media elite’ who keep trying to tell everybody else how to think.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:27 amA competent president with some level of character should be able to do two things at once: (1) not create a panic and (2) not lie. Trump is not that president. Supremely unfit.
Paul Montagu (ad6b35) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:32 amI don’t think it matters to you.
Time123 (daab2f) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:36 amI mean… what’s the argument here? That Trump should’ve acted uninformed and hysterical and join in with the press telling everyone they could die?
It’s convenient the critics forget that both Dr. Fauci and Dr. Brix are on record stating that Trump took every recommendation they offered.
FWIW, on 2/18 Dr. Fauci downplayed it too:
whembly (c30c83) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:41 amhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhy2FgkP0Yw
That tells me Trump was taking that cue from his conversations with the taskforce.
@7 Actually, the press was DOWNPLAYING it from the beginning:
whembly (c30c83) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:42 amhttps://twitter.com/KynanB33/status/1251982512169127937/photo/1
The spaghetti against the wall test is a myth. It’s not a good way to test whether it’s done. It just wastes pasta and gets your wall dirty.
frosty (f27e97) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:43 am5.A competent president with some level of character should be able to do two things at once: (1) not create a panic and (2) not lie. Trump is not that president. Supremely unfit.
Eisenhower lied about the U-2.
LBJ lied about Vietnam.
Nixon lied about Vietnam and Watergate.
Reagan lied about Iran-Contra.
Clinton lied about sex.
GHWB lied about raising taxes.
Dubya lied about WMD.
Obama lied about keeping your doctor.
Character doesn’t matter; they all lie: supremely unfit.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:48 amHe lied to us. That’s the argument. Instead of putting the threat into context and laying out his plan to address it he told us there was nothing to worry about, that CV19 wasn’t dangerous, that it would go away on it’s own.
He was stating internally that it was a serious threat. So he wasn’t wrong, he lied. Again.
He had access to the best experts and best intelligence that was available. We spend fortunes on that. I’m going to hold the president to a higher standard then the media. I don’t understand why you put them on the same level.
What’s the point? That things Trump says can’t be trusted. Trump won’t accept any short term political pain if he can avoid it with a lie. Trump can’t be relied upon to put the welfare of the nation ahead of his own self interest.
Time123 (36651d) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:53 amOne quibble about the title, Dana. Trump’s own words were literally caught on tape. It’s not “according to Bob Woodward”, it’s according to Donald J. Trump.
Paul Montagu (c80bd3) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:54 am@10, none of them lied as often or as badly as Trump.
Time123 (36651d) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:54 am@6. It didn’t matter to voters in 2015- after the Access Hollywood tape surfaced.
Trump won.
In 2020, the media cacophony has surpassed noise and is now merely static.
He knows the audience; he’ll win again.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:55 amNoted, the morally vacant “everybody does it” defense, DCSCA.
Paul Montagu (c80bd3) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:55 am@12, doesn’t matter. What matters is whatabout the media or did you know that other people in the past have lied as well.
Time123 (36651d) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:55 amAlso, there’s the small thing with Trump being on tape, saying it out loud. It’s not Woodward “claiming” it, it’s Trump saying it, you can listen to him saying it.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:02 pm@11/@13. He lied to us. That’s the argument.
That’s no argument; merely a matter of fact. So Trump quelled panic.
They all lie.
Listen to the LBJ tapes. Then the Nixon tapes. All of them.
They intentionally sent Americans to their deaths in a war they knew was unwinnable, destroyed lives, property and confidence in government institutions.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:02 pmLooking at how things worked out Quell Panic and pretend there isn’t a problem seems to have worked out very poorly for the US.
Time123 (daab2f) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:05 pm@15. Morality is a transient, Paul. Or perhaps you still recoil at the sight of a feminine ankle, a miniskirt– and advocate hanging horse thieves in 2020.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:06 pm@11 Time123… what were the lies substantiated by this book?
He literally started the Task Force in January.
The media and Democrats were pissed at Trump, because the impeachment hearing was happening as well. (they were worried about Trump “wagging the dog” here).
His taskforce were also downplaying it early on. That’s not lying, that’s turning the panic temperature DOWN. Remember, there were runs to the grocery such that there were massive paper products shortages and the basics (we had egg shortages for about month too).
See Dr. Fauci on 2/29:https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/04/12/dr_anthony_fauci_at_this_time_there_is_no_need_to_change_your_habits_over_coronavirus.html#
Again, Dr. Brix and Dr. Fauci stated over and over that Trump listened and accepted recommendations from the taskforce.
Either, Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, etc (some who were Obama nominees too) lied to Trump/Democrats/public about the science (unlikely).
or….
This was such a complicated ordeal such that the taskforce and Trump administration did the best they could given the situation and reality on the grounds at the time. Yes, things could be better but in life we don’t have the benefit of hindsight either.
Furthermore, we’re less than 60 days away from the election… this screams “October Surprise” to me and the headline taken out of context further supports that imo.
whembly (c30c83) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:08 pm@19. ‘Personal responsibility’– “seems to have worked out very poorly for the US.”
Exercising common sense by wearing a mask instead of waving the Constitution at a bug likely could have quelled the problem significantly ‘right’ from the start.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:09 pmThe audience knows him, he’s going to lose in a landslide; he’ll be lucky to clear 200 votes in the EC.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:11 pmThe issue isn’t morality, DCSCA, it’s your intellectually vacant use of moral equivalencies. There’s no comparison between the scope and breadth of Trump’s lies and those of his predecessors. Since June 1st, 84,428 Americans have died from CV19, just a little over three months, and those deaths are on Trump, and it’s worse than the 55,000 Americans who died in Vietnam over 20 years.
Paul Montagu (c80bd3) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:16 pm@23. The audience loved- and loved to hate- J.R. Ewing on Dallas for 14 seasons, Wilhelm. They laughed at Klink on Hogan’s Heroes — which only ran 6 seasons.
He has always been lucky, Klink,– because adversaries have always underestimated him.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:21 pmMaybe…too bad the president spent so much time telling people the risk was overblown and they didn’t need to things like wear a mask.
Time123 (36651d) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:22 pmSince June 1st, 84,428 Americans have died from CV19, just a little over three months, and those deaths are on Trump
Rubbish.
Trump didn’t kill anybody.
If he told you a sure fire cure for Covid-19 was to jump off a bridge, would you do it?
The stubborn stupidity, blatant ignorance and idiocy of crowds waving the Constitution waving are the imbeciles ignoring Personal Responsibility who got sick– and end up killing themselves.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:26 pmCool story bro. Trump has always been a minor celebrity and a second or third tier branding spokesmodel. In 2016 he was a political blank slate running against the most reviled politician in a generation, neither things that are applicable today.
Also 200k dead Americans from Covid, and Trump down talking it for 6 months while…200k dead Americans, 7.5M few jobs than when he started, violence in the street nationwide. Trump is president, the buck doesn’t stop over there, it sits in his lap.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:29 pmNeither did LBJ or Nixon, but thanks again for employing yet another stupid moral equivalency.
Paul Montagu (c80bd3) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:30 pm@26. Maybe…too bad the president spent so much time telling people the risk was overblown and they didn’t need to things like wear a mask.
Do you need the ‘Great White Father’ – a Dddy- to tell you to were a mask like a good follower or exercise some basic common sense? Would you salute and jump off a bridge if he told you it was a cure for Covid 19– or drink bleach cocktail?
PERSONAL RESONSIBILITY.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:30 pm^Responsibility
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:31 pm@29. Except they did, Paul. Unless you believe intentionally, relentlessly bombing Hanoi killed nobody- and missed everybody.
They KNEW.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:33 pmSo playing down the virus to prevent panic is a bad thing?
I will wait for my liberal betters to show me the stats on why that is wrong. Show your work. Show me where the deaths that playing up the virus would have prevented, but also showing me how much the panic would have cost in terms of lives lost.
We can then discuss other foreign and domestic policies that Republicans and Democrats have sold the citizens throughout the years without giving the public the whole story.
Hoi Polloi (093fb9) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:35 pmNote: Paul Montague had a quibble with the original title of the post. I agreed with his quibble, and have re-worked the title as a result.
Dana (292df6) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:35 pm“That’s no argument; merely a matter of fact. So Trump quelled panic.”
Would you have panicked?
“That’s not lying, that’s turning the panic temperature DOWN.”
Same question.
Davethulhu (4c5c2a) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:35 pmAnd who was the loudest and most insistent voice cheering on those red-capped idiots for months, Deezy-eska?
Dave (1bb933) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:39 pmAnd…Trump KNEW…your argument against them is the same argument against Trump. It’s like you don’t understand that 2+2=4, you seem to believe 2+2=kumquats.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:40 pmDr. Fauci on Fox just blew it out of water. He said at no time did Trump mislead the public. He said he felt like what they discussed in Oval office, he relayed that to American public.
whembly (c30c83) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:44 pm@28. Trump has always been a minor celebrity and a second or third tier branding spokesmodel.
Truth ain’t a story, ‘bro.’ Guess you missed the 1980s in NYC– the media capital of the planet. Chiefly three meglo-maniacs ran Steady-Eddie-Koch’s NY: George Steinbrenner -[w/assists from Yogi, Billy & Reggie]- Leona Helmsley– and Donald Trump. Long before his pitchman and NBC ‘Apprentice’ days [which ran 15 seasons, Wilhelm.] Helps to know the players before calling play-by-play on the game.
Never forget: in this era, Americans don’t want to be governed, they wish to be entertained. Trump’s a wholly owned GOP creation, spawned in the cesspool of Ronnie & Nancy’s go-go 1980’s:
Reaganoptics.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:47 pmWell, if you’re the kind of imbecile that thinks it’s worthwhile to listen to Trump (it’s not) the fact that he was loudly telling the country that CV19 wasn’t a problem and would go away on it’s own might impact your decision making about if mitigation steps are needed.
do you see how that works? or is more explanation needed?
Time123 (daab2f) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:48 pm@37. Nonsense. Trump knew the bug was bad- pretty much the whole planet did- but he didn’t drop Covid-19 bombs on Manhattan. Do get with the program.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:51 pmHow do the steps go when Trump lies or says something terrible?
1. He didn’t say that.
2. He said it but didn’t mean it.
3. He meant it but it didn’t matter.
4. It mattered and he’s sorry and won’t do it again.
5. He’s not sorry and he’ll do it again but it’s OK because it owns the libs and whattabout.
Whembly is stuck on #1
Time123 (daab2f) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:52 pmHoi is at #3
DSCA is working #5 like a boss
WShen conservative ass-kissing pays off:
Trump announcing his list for potential SCOTUS noms:
Cotton and Cruz on it.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:52 pmSo did Trump, DCSCA.
Paul Montagu (c80bd3) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:53 pmBefore June 1st, you can put most of the deaths on Xi and Cuomo and DeBlasio and Trump. After June 1st, they’re pretty much all on Trump. When Europe had it contained, the US went in the other direction, and it was because Trump downtalked, lied and defied the science.
These ultra-rare occasions when Trump actually admits the truth are so revealing. Here’s another exchange on a different subject:
(The WaPo article has the recording, and Trump’s tone was definitely mocking and incredulous.)
Dave (1bb933) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:53 pmDoes it really matter anymore?
How many ‘tell-all-books’ can you throw at this dude?
Trump Books Keep Coming, and Readers Can’t Stop Buying
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:53 pm…….
In the last four years, there have been more than 1,200 unique titles about Mr. Trump, compared to around 500 books about former President Barack Obama and his administration during Mr. Obama’s first term, according to an analysis by NPD BookScan. There have been so many high-profile books about the Trump era that there’s even a forthcoming book about all the Trump books: “What Were We Thinking,” by the Washington Post book critic Carlos Lozada, who surveys some 150 titles that try to explain how Trump won and has governed, and what his presidency tells us about the country that elected him.
………
OT: Halloween cancelled in LA County.
https://abc7.com/health/la-county-cancels-halloween-says-no-trick-or-treating-this-year/6414973/
Would love to see them try to enforce this. The optics would be spectacular. Dems gotta be Dems.
beer ‘n pretzels (109445) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:55 pm@42. You do know the objective is to effectively neuter the modern ideological conservative movement.
The George Will-Jonah-Goldberg-types still doesn’t realize they’ve been totally Bill Buckley’d.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:56 pmThe October Surprises keep coming. Problem is, they all say pretty much the same thing and it’s nothing new, at this point. We all know who Trump is at this point.
Democrats should probably turn the tables and stop the violent protests. That will get them more votes than another expose on Trump’s mindset.
Hoi Polloi (093fb9) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:58 pmDana, thanks for hearing me, but I have one more small quibble, and I almost hate to bring it up: There’s no “e” at the end of my screen name. Montagu is an old family name on my wife’s mother’s side.
Paul Montagu (c80bd3) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:58 pm@46. Great for publi$hing– and rating$:
Reaganomic$!$!$! 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:58 pmWhembly Do you have that quote in context. No on with a room temp IQ is going to give a blanket statement that Trump is being honest. Below are a sample of Trump’s statements that aren’t consistent with what he’s recorded as saying to woodward.
If he’d said it wasn’t a problem and acted like it was I’d buy the argument that he was just trying (ineffectively) to quell panic. But he also acted like it wasn’t a problem.
Time123 (daab2f) — 9/9/2020 @ 12:59 pmWhistle-Blower: D.H.S. Downplayed Threats From Russia and White Supremacists
……
Brian Murphy, the former head of the intelligence branch of the Homeland Security Department, said in a whistle-blower complaint filed on Tuesday that he was directed by Chad F. Wolf, the acting secretary of the department, to stop producing assessments on Russian interference. The department’s second highest ranked official, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, also ordered him to modify intelligence assessments to make the threat of white supremacy “appear less severe” and include information on violent “left-wing” groups, according to the complaint, which was released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee.
In so doing, the two top officials at the department — both appointees of President Trump — appeared to shape the agency’s views around Mr. Trump’s rhetoric and interests.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 9/9/2020 @ 1:01 pm…….
@42
You’re going to have to point out why I’m at #1. Specifically.
whembly (c30c83) — 9/9/2020 @ 1:02 pm“I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”
Yeah, that sure prevented panic buying.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 9/9/2020 @ 1:03 pm@52
Here’s the vid:
https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1303768493247082498
Also, you pulled those other stuff from the bulwark site. It’s their job to spin against Trump.
whembly (c30c83) — 9/9/2020 @ 1:05 pm@44. No, Paul. Ignoring PERSONAL RESPONSIBLITY is the culprit. They killed themselves.
Unless you believe relentlessly, intentionally B-52s bombing Hanoi had the unintended consequences of killing people and the dead lacked the personal responsibility of getting out of the way of a 2,000 lb., bomb, landing on their homes, made in U.S.A..
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 1:05 pmWhy do you assume that telling the truth will start a panic, hoi? Such a mentality presumes a low opinion of the People he swore to serve.
Paul Montagu (c80bd3) — 9/9/2020 @ 1:10 pm@56 thank you for the link I’ll check it out. I pulled the quotes from google. But if they’re accurate I don’t see how source matters.
Time123 (1a13a0) — 9/9/2020 @ 1:11 pmUnless you believe relentlessly, intentionally ignoring a pandemic had the unintended consequences of killing people and the dead lacked the personal responsibility of getting out of the way of a pandemic landing on their homes, made in U.S.A..
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 9/9/2020 @ 1:14 pmThere’s a pandemic that has killed 200k Americans, don’t panic.
There are tan people protesting in the street that a few people have died for, PANIC!!! JOE BIDEN WILL MAKE THE TAN PEOPLE DESTROY THE SUBURBS OR SOMETHING. PANIC!!!
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 9/9/2020 @ 1:18 pmFalse. The virus killed them, DCSCA, a virus that Trump lied about and downtalked and encouraged governors to shirk CDC guidelines on reopening. The blood of tens of thousands of dead Americans is on Trump’s hands, by his dishonesty, his negligence, his incompetence and his personal cruelty.
Paul Montagu (c80bd3) — 9/9/2020 @ 1:21 pm@62. Keep trying, Paul. The more you paint, the smaller the corner gets.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 1:22 pmPERSONAL RESPONSIBILTY.
Wear a mask, avoid crowds and no Clorox Cocktails– the Great White Father doesn’t drink ’em.
Only Diet Coke.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 1:26 pmFauci was being very careful with his words, limiting his observations to what he actually saw in meetings and the post-meeting press conferences he attended. He was not invited to a number of press conferences and Trump was a no-show at task force meetings for extended periods and he did not speak at task force press conferences for extended periods.
Paul Montagu (c80bd3) — 9/9/2020 @ 1:34 pmAlso, Fauci did not recall his remarks to Woodward.
Before athletic events right before the anthem Trumps face should appear on the jumbotron – seeing the crybabies kneeling would be hilarious.
mg (8cbc69) — 9/9/2020 @ 1:34 pmThanks. Your opinion is categorically rejected.
Paul Montagu (7ad313) — 9/9/2020 @ 1:37 pmThanks again, Dana. You’re one of the good ones.
Paul Montagu (c80bd3) — 9/9/2020 @ 1:38 pmTrump live on TV today.
He’s a cheerleader, he doesn’t want to frighten people, but it’s about leadership, and strength of the nation, or something. Of course these “Americans” are too weak to be told the truth, he’s done great leadership and strength.
You want the truth, you can’t handle the truth.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 9/9/2020 @ 1:53 pm…and then you’ll blame Trump for adding to the media frenzy generated panic buys.
Tell me I’m wrong.
whembly (c30c83) — 9/9/2020 @ 2:03 pmWell, we’ll never know because that hypothetical didn’t happen, he didn’t trust the American public with the truth, he lied, intentionally to downplay it.
So, if we’re waiting for Trump to be honest, that’s a hypothetical that I’ll never have to test.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 9/9/2020 @ 2:07 pmYou beat me to Colonel Jessup, Klink.
Paul Montagu (c80bd3) — 9/9/2020 @ 2:08 pmFor the sake of argument, taking his words at face value, Trump has such a low opinion of America that he had to lie. In Bizarro TrumpWorld, America could not handle the truth. There’s really no excuse.
As opposed to playing it way up:
No, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Didn’t Spawn 250,000 Coronavirus Cases
https://reason.com/2020/09/09/no-the-sturgis-motorcycle-rally-didnt-spawn-250000-coronavirus-cases/
harkin (cd4502) — 9/9/2020 @ 2:15 pm_
“…and then you’ll blame Trump for adding to the media frenzy generated panic buys”
Would you have panicked?
Davethulhu (4c5c2a) — 9/9/2020 @ 2:18 pmof course they didn’t
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/09/devos-makes-federal-grant-money-contingent-upon-compliance-with-first-amendment/
bolivar de gris (7404b5) — 9/9/2020 @ 2:29 pm@74 No, I wouldn’t panicked. I’d bitch at Trump for fueling to the fire if he did panicked.
Again, Dr. Fauci didn’t get the sense that Trump downplayed it though:
https://dailycaller.com/2020/09/09/fauci-didnt-get-any-sense-trump-downplayed-coronavirus-questions-woodward-claims/
Remember, the media initially didn’t think it was a big deal (China/WHO definitely muted it).
https://twitter.com/DrewHolden360/status/1255258199189528576
Then, when the number started rising, Trump was blamed as if he could’ve prevented the pandemic (which is laughable).
whembly (c30c83) — 9/9/2020 @ 2:30 pmsome of what I was speaking of last night
https://apelbaum.wordpress.com/2020/09/09/the-anti-defamation-league-must-go/#respond
in the midst of the two minute hate
bolivar de gris (7404b5) — 9/9/2020 @ 2:31 pmSquirrel…you can listen to Trump say it, you don’t have to take Fauci’s word for it. He stated it on the record, you can listen to it, he said it out loud today.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 9/9/2020 @ 2:35 pm” No, I wouldn’t panicked. ”
Who would have panicked?
For that matter, who did panic, in countries outside the US where their leaders weren’t as sensitive to their constituents feelings?
Davethulhu (4c5c2a) — 9/9/2020 @ 2:53 pm43, Josh Hawley is also on that SCOTUS list…might be to clear the decks for (link text belies the first key point)…
https://news.yahoo.com/party-bushes-romney-john-mccain-144928561.html
urbanleftbehind (592b24) — 9/9/2020 @ 3:03 pm1. Telling people things are fine when they can see that they’re not doesn’t reduce fear. It increases it because they think nothing is being done to address their fears.
Time123 (c9382b) — 9/9/2020 @ 3:26 pm2. Trump hasn’t shown any tendency to reduce fear in other areas such as BLM or immigration. His usually pitch is to ratchet up tension and claim he alone can fix it.
3. His response in other ways was terrible; testing was a broken, no contact tracing, no unified message about how to react based on events.
4. Where I live there was plenty of panic. I remember people hoarding toilet paper and some food items. If he was trying to reduce fear, he failed.
5. None of this matters, his fans will present implausible excuses. They don’t care if he’s corrupt, criminal, a liar, or a failure. If he ‘owns the libs’ they’ll fall in line.
White House orders end to COVID-19 airport screenings for international travelers
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 9/9/2020 @ 3:39 pmDarling, it’s not them that are the dirty disease infested “furiners”, it’s us. We can’t leave because few will take us.
I’m trying to set up some travel to Pula in Croatia, and you can’t get there from here because we can’t have PCR certifications back in 48 hours, at least not on a consistent enough basis that I’d want to book 2 weeks out. Dubai will accept 96 hours out, but that still means you’d probably then have to stay a week there to get another PCR to be accepted anywhere in the EU because you’d probably age out, and driving from Zagreb or the ferry from Venice is a giant pain because direct flights are out.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 9/9/2020 @ 3:59 pm@67. Facts are stubborn things, Paul. Especially when they explode your own opinion spin.
Visit a bomb crater in Hanoi.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 4:20 pmWow! So much furor over a little nothingburger that Trump said something on the record seven months ago and it’s never been worth mentioning up until now. But I suppose the “bombshell” claim that Trump called our war dead suckers and losers two years ago has gotten kind of old and stale, they need a new nine-days wonder to keep up the outrage. I wonder what they have planned for the next bombshell report about something Trump said last year? Or the one after that, or the one after that, or the one after that. I know they’ve got a whole string of reveals planned, I can hardly wait for the big finale they have planned for October 30th.
Jerryskids (702a61) — 9/9/2020 @ 4:27 pmI’m trying to set up some travel to Pula in Croatia,
This route was still open in May, but that’s a long time ago these days: Go to Newark. From Newark fly to London. In London, book a flight to Budapest. From Budapest, take automobile transportation to the Croatian border. Walk across the border, having made arrangements for transportation to be waiting for you there.
I am not making this up.
nk (1d9030) — 9/9/2020 @ 4:38 pmI’ve updated the post with a brilliant example of how far Trump loyalists will go to protect and defend the Presidet from criticism – even if the evidence is screaming in their face.
Dana (292df6) — 9/9/2020 @ 4:40 pmPlease tell me who was screaming bloody murder about the virus in January up to mid February? Let’s have some names.
beer ‘n pretzels (27da31) — 9/9/2020 @ 5:01 pmNPR Poll: Financial Pain From Coronavirus Pandemic ‘Much, Much Worse’ Than Expected
……
Nationally, the NPR poll finds very substantial proportions of households reporting that their savings have been depleted by the pandemic (if they had any savings to start with) or that they have fallen behind on housing payments or have had problems paying debts and/or utility bills.
“Before federal coronavirus support programs even expired, we find millions of people with very serious problems with their finances,” says Robert J. Blendon, a poll co-director and executive director of the Harvard Opinion Research Program at the Harvard Chan School. “And it’s going to get worse because there is nothing for the people we surveyed who earn under $100,000 a year to fall back on.”
Blendon says the Harvard team expected to find substantial economic damage because of the unprecedented shutdown of the economy, “but this is much, much, much worse than I would’ve predicted.”
“This is what I would expect without a national emergency relief bill,” Blendon says. “We had a $2 trillion relief bill to lift people up and put a pillow under them. But it is not helping nearly as many people as we had expected.”
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 9/9/2020 @ 5:03 pm……
…..[H]igh rates of households in the four cities have been unable to get medical care or have delayed needed health care (ranging from 19% in New York City to 27% in Houston), with over half saying that this has led to negative health consequences (ranging from 55% in Chicago to 75% in Houston). There were multiple reasons given, with many reporting that they could not find a doctor to see them, as hospitals around the U.S. have delayed or canceled medical procedures to focus resources on treating COVID-19.
……
Personal Responsibility!
For the UK you need to have had a PCR test within 48 hours, for Budapest you need a PCR test within 48 hours, for walking or driving across the border in Croatia you need a PCR test within 48 hours. All of that 48 hours is before you cross the border, each one. US to Rotterdam to Pula is the shortest, but you have to hit the 48 hour window.
If we could get a PCR test, with results within 1 day, that would give you 24 hours to get from here to there. The best bet would be JFK to Venice in about 13 hours from Cincy, then jump on the Ferry. Croatia’s not in the Schengen so you still have a border check, especially now with Covid, so it would be close’ish, the ferry’s 4 hours, but only 1 of the ferries is operating, and it’s a crap shoot if it’s going to sail. It would be easier if your sitting in JFK in the morning hoping you get test results, then start the clock, that would give you 4 more hours.
But since our Covid testing is orders of magnitude worse than the rest of the world, it is what it is. Going from being homebound here to spending the winter there would be great, we’d sign up to be quarantined for 2 weeks in a heartbeat.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 9/9/2020 @ 5:09 pmYou’re ahead of me. Thank you. I’ll save your information for future reference.
nk (1d9030) — 9/9/2020 @ 5:12 pmWell, Trump’s National Security Advisor was one in January. There’s also Biden’s article about it.
Then the president of the United States downplayed it, so maybe if he’d have shared the information people may have acted differently. Using the president covering up the danger as an excuse for people not knowing the impact of the danger is among the most dishonest overt dishonesty around, but thanks for proving Dana’s point.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 9/9/2020 @ 5:17 pmFor those who excuse Trump by claiming all politicians lie some of the time, Trump lies all the time.
DRJ (aede82) — 9/9/2020 @ 6:04 pmI agree. When you present facts instead of brainless moral equivocating, maybe you’ll actually have something to say. You’re the one who blamed dead Americans–the ones who died from CV19–when you said “they killed themselves”.
Paul Montagu (ad6b35) — 9/9/2020 @ 6:31 pm@94. They did. Trump didn’t. Deal w/it.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 6:44 pmBiden, for one. He took it seriously in late January. Trump never took it seriously.
Paul Montagu (ad6b35) — 9/9/2020 @ 6:47 pm@96. ROFLMAO He’s old: of course he took it seriously. Hell, he was coughing at a car lot today.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 6:52 pmNo, you’re once again making invidious overgeneralizations, because Americans loyal to Trump took him at his word and behaved accordingly, and political sycophants fell in line with Trump instead of the CDC. If you want to go on this personal responsibility jag, Trump is personally responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of your fellow citizens.
Paul Montagu (ad6b35) — 9/9/2020 @ 6:55 pmLet’s be fair, Mr. Paul. Mr. President Donald Trump did make it more inconvenient, for a while, for his billionaire friends, Russian and Arab oil state both, and their Slovenian “models”, to jet-set at will in and out of the United States. Until today, that is.
nk (1d9030) — 9/9/2020 @ 7:02 pm“ Biden, for one. He took it seriously in late January. Trump never took it seriously.”
__ _
Kelb Hull
@CalebJHull
. @pdoocy just grabbed Joe Biden on his way out and asked why he was still hosting rallies in MARCH if he was supposedly warning Trump about the seriousness of COVID-19 in JANUARY.
harkin (cd4502) — 9/9/2020 @ 7:14 pm_
“Picking up on this point at a time when many countries in Europe are suffering from a second wave of covid infections (as shown in the chart above) DB’s Jim Reid writes that “in recent days and weeks, concern has risen that Europe could be at the beginning of a second wave of the pandemic.” He adds that just in his native UK “the number of confirmed cases rose by 2,988 yesterday, which was the largest daily increase since May 22.”
Yet noting the point brought up by Goldman above, Reid then counters that even as case numbers have risen, “hospitalizations and deaths have thankfully not.”
A key reason for this – as we first discussed in July in “The Under-40s Dilemma” – is that it’s now younger people who are more likely to get the virus.
As Reid points out, while most of this evidence has been anecdotal across the world the attached chart from Public Health England provides some telling statistics: back at the peak of the pandemic in late March, 61% of the confirmed cases were among those over 60. But they now make up just 11% of cases. For over 80 year olds it’s dropped from 28% to 3%. For those under 40 it’s the reverse picture with cases increasing from 14% to 67% of the total.“
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/wall-street-explains-why-despite-second-wave-covid-cases-deaths-have-barely-budged
harkin (cd4502) — 9/9/2020 @ 7:20 pm_
@98. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY, Paul; age risk dummies who go carouse at karoke bars; maskless college students defiantly partying nose to nose; bikers rallying snout to snout;imbcils waving the Constitution at the bug. They did it to themselves. Can’t blame ‘The Great White Father.’ Deal w/it.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/9/2020 @ 7:23 pmLike Ms. Fisher said.
Paul Montagu (ad6b35) — 9/9/2020 @ 7:31 pmOmg, we’re in the throes of a pandemic, and DCSCA is channeling Hillary??
Dana (292df6) — 9/9/2020 @ 7:42 pmLOL
Biden really is the lamest candidate imaginable. I’ll still vote for him but he is so lame. The debates will be hilarious.
Dustin (333d9f) — 9/9/2020 @ 7:43 pmThe problem, of course, is that criticism of Trump is excused by claiming that it has been intentionally manufactured/spun to make him look bad. It can’t possibly be because he really is bad.
Dana (292df6) — 9/9/2020 @ 7:45 pmSpin. Woodward’s tape recorder is all the spin we need. When will the Trump spin machine spin from “He didn’t say it” to “He was just bragging, he didn’t really know, that’s how Trump is”, I wonder?
nk (1d9030) — 9/9/2020 @ 7:55 pmOh, yeah, and let’s not forget “Liberate Michigan”. The murderous, corrupt, criminal traitor.
nk (1d9030) — 9/9/2020 @ 8:00 pm“So I said to my people, ‘SLOW THE TESTING DOWN PLEASE!’“
Dave (a64a40) — 9/9/2020 @ 8:20 pmhttps://mobile.twitter.com/shipwreckedcrew/status/1303862466678382592
Bolivar di griz (7404b5) — 9/9/2020 @ 8:36 pmBiden, for one. He took it seriously in late January. Trump never took it seriously.
Trump issued a China travel ban — you know, the one that Biden criticizes as “reactionary” in the article.
But, Biden can plausibly deny making that call, since there is zero chance he wrote any of it.
beer ‘n pretzels (91a694) — 9/9/2020 @ 8:36 pmThis dumb girl needs to get a clue that her job is simply to tell painfully blatant lies on behalf of the President:
I’m being generous to McEnnany.
Dana (292df6) — 9/9/2020 @ 8:44 pmand he banned muslims like four years ahead of this.
he’s basically a covid genius
Dustin (333d9f) — 9/9/2020 @ 8:46 pmF*** what Biden did. His oath office expired on January 20, 2017. It was the filthy scumbucket Trump whose duty it was to take every step to prevent the spread of the pandemic. Instead, he promoted it.
And I’ll tell you something else, too. If there was any panic the murderous traitor wanted to prevent, it was in the stock market. So his cronies would have time to bail out before it crashed. As they did. And it did.
nk (1d9030) — 9/9/2020 @ 8:51 pmIf people quote Trump’s words in all their absurd, dishonest, cretinous glory, that must be “spin,” because it “makes Trump look bad.”
But when Trumpists say we have to “take him seriously, not literally,” and they presume to tell us what he really meant, and what’s actually in his heart, and why it’s incumbent on us all to disregard the bad stuff and the idiocies — well, that’s just being honest, apparently.
Radegunda (e1ea47) — 9/9/2020 @ 8:56 pmOmg, Laura Ingraham, there is no “alleged” about it: THERE ARE TAPES OF HIM SAYING IT!
Dana (292df6) — 9/9/2020 @ 9:09 pmYou mean the ban that wasn’t a ban that you know wasn’t a ban that you continuously lie about it being a ban? Is that the not-ban you’re talking about?
Have you figured out yet what the word “ban” means?
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 9/9/2020 @ 9:09 pmMakes sense.
Paul Montagu (ad6b35) — 9/9/2020 @ 9:12 pmWhat your laser focus on then
https://patterico.com/2020/02/07/maybe-people-should-pay-for-that-witness-against-trump-to-be-booted-out-of-white-house/
Bolivar di griz (7404b5) — 9/9/2020 @ 9:12 pmNo, he didn’t, beer. This was covered.
Paul Montagu (ad6b35) — 9/9/2020 @ 9:13 pmThey lie about everything, all the time.
It’s a bit unfair to expect them to keep their stories straight.
Dave (1bb933) — 9/9/2020 @ 9:13 pmTwo hours ago, we were notified that my daughter’s school has switched entirely to remote learning. Her residence hall and one other are under complete quarantine, with the students having the option to either remain prisoners in their rooms with meals delivered to them or return home for the year and get a refund of the housing fee. The milk of human kindness for Covid-19 deniers and their Fifth Avenue four-flusher is definitely not flowing in my heart.
nk (1d9030) — 9/9/2020 @ 9:14 pmAre we really still calling it a travel “ban”?
Dana (292df6) — 9/9/2020 @ 9:19 pmYou mean the ban that wasn’t a ban that you know wasn’t a ban that you continuously lie about it being a ban?
Biden specifically called it a “reactionary travel ban” right there in the article that bears his name that he didn’t actually write, and you didn’t bother to read, Klink. Keep bringing the awesome, dude.
beer ‘n pretzels (91a694) — 9/9/2020 @ 9:21 pmNot enough pretzels, plenty of beer though
Dustin (333d9f) — 9/9/2020 @ 9:22 pmI’m sorry to hear that, nk. That sure didn’t take long to happen. Will she return home or remain a prisoner there?
Dana (292df6) — 9/9/2020 @ 9:22 pmFor DCSCA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=100X1R2fkKA
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/9/2020 @ 9:23 pmNo, he didn’t, beer. This was covered.
Great, Paul. You didn’t read the article either.
beer ‘n pretzels (91a694) — 9/9/2020 @ 9:23 pmI’m sorry to hear that, nk. That sure didn’t take long to happen. Will she return home or remain a prisoner there?
Thank you, Dana. We brought her back home for now. She wants to go back if the quarantine is lifted.
nk (1d9030) — 9/9/2020 @ 9:33 pmI bet they didn’t offer to pay the plane fare.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/9/2020 @ 9:37 pmTrump advocated that Obama “close down the flights from Ebola infected areas.” Instead, Obama implemented restrictions, not a ban. Ironically, Trump didn’t implement a ban either, despite all the Trump sniffers claiming otherwise.
Paul Montagu (ad6b35) — 9/9/2020 @ 9:41 pmTough break, nk.
Paul Montagu (ad6b35) — 9/9/2020 @ 9:44 pmWe ran into several recent Whitman College grads on our Walla Walla wine-guzzling trip last month. They all said it would be toughest on the incoming studentry.
Except Biden’s article was published five-days *before* Trump announced his travel restrictions, so it’s pretty hard to see how he could have been referring to them, given that they didn’t exist yet. But keep bringing the awesome, dude.
As Paul M explained, Biden was referring to Trump’s hysterical calls for a complete travel ban during the Ebola scare.
Dave (1bb933) — 9/9/2020 @ 10:08 pmSsshhhh, you’ll confuse them with reality, it might break their brains, it’s been so long since they’re actually experienced it.
Trump, it’ll blow your mind bra…!!! Just take a hit.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 9/9/2020 @ 10:13 pmYou can find a timeline of the times that Trump has downplayed the coronavirus threat here.
Dana (292df6) — 9/9/2020 @ 10:13 pm“This post will be continually updated.”
LULZ
Dave (1bb933) — 9/9/2020 @ 10:17 pm“This post will be continually updated.”
Not in any way that helps Trump. It’s The Post
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/9/2020 @ 10:55 pmHere’s what I find most amusing about this comedy of errors. If Trump thinks of Woodward as a “social pretender,” why would he agree to eighteen interviews with him? Two at the White House, one at Mar-a-Lago, and fifteen over the phone from his residence, all recorded–every word on tape–what was he thinking? (Answer: he wasn’t.) Did he not know who he was talking to? Woodward and Bernstein brought down Nixon, for crying out loud!
Hey, Bob Woodward has been around Washington, DC, for a very long time. He is one of the most highly respected journalists in town. While he no longer works as a reporter, just writes books, he has contacts like no one else. His rolodex probably reads like who-to-call encyclopedia. And he knows who to call. Every one of them will answer. He meticulously verifies his sources and doesn’t publish anything without multiple confirmations.
More importantly, he records his interviews. Part of the reason for that is so that he can quote accurately, but also so that after publication if someone says “I didn’t say that!” he can say “I have it on tape.”
Eighteen interviews equates to about 50 hours of Trump on tape. In his own words. Will it matter? No, not much, not to Trump cultists.
I came to this conclusion when my brother flew down to help clean up and sign papers after our mother died. Much to my surprise, he has drunk the Kool-Aide.
“I can’t believe you’re watching CNN,” he said. I like to watch and read multiple points of view, is there something wrong with that?
Then we got to talking about Covid-19. He wasn’t very concerned about it, because he lives in a remote area Maine, where there are few cases. I tried to explain to him a paradox. When I was teaching junior high in the 1980s, the superintendent ordered mandatory testing for tuberculosis for all students, teachers and staff throughout the district. I thought it was ridiculous at the time–to me tuberculosis was a dead disease, why do I need to be tested for it? I was shocked when the results came back and one-third of the students, and this is just at one junior high, tested positive for at least exposure to tuberculosis. I have no idea what the results were for all the other elementary, junior and high schools in the entire district were, but I suppose they were about the same.
I tried to explain this to my brother–this is how a disease spreads. And he said, “That was because of all the illegal immigrants from South America. Trump is the only one who has done anything about it.”
I was dumbfounded. I should have smacked him upside the head, but I love my brother and wasn’t going to argue with him. But think about it.
Illegal aliens from South America infecting students in South Texas with tuberculosis in the 1980s? And only Trump stopped it? Are you kidding me? Trump was filing his fourth bankruptcy at the time, and dealing with innumerable lawsuits.
You cannot talk to a Trump cultist. You cannot, not even to your own brother. Theirs is a world in a complete detachment from reality.
But Bob Woodward has it all on tape.
Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:08 pmDidn’t Trump say that in public almost six months ago? But nobody believed him.
https://apnews.com/dbddbcf6cb4b17420e4a08820b73d4be
Sammy Finkelman (b66da2) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:59 pmYes, that’s a distortion of the truth. (about not wanting to create a panic.
What Trump really didn’t want to create was a recession. And that mostly for political reasons.
Where he didn’t want to create a panic was in the stock market.
Sammy Finkelman (b66da2) — 9/10/2020 @ 12:03 amJoe Biden is wrong when he calls it a ‘ban’ in his OpEd. Also I know you’re not going to accept him as a definitive source on things that don’t agree with your priors.
Time123 (235fc4) — 9/10/2020 @ 4:09 amLOL, he’s not wrong because it hadn’t happened yet.
He wasn’t talking about Trump’s January 31 executive order, because it was January 26.
He was likely referring to Trump’s unhinged tweets during the Ebola scare calling for Obama’s resignation if even one person in the US got sick (not even died).
Dave (1bb933) — 9/10/2020 @ 4:36 amSammy, at 9/10/2020 @ 12:03 am.
Exactly. The Dow went from 29,500 on February to 18,500 on March 23. He wanted to give his rich jerkoff friends and family time to get out while it was still riding high.
nk (1d9030) — 9/10/2020 @ 5:29 amBad enough, full stop. But some people inexplicably think they’re helping Trump with the lol argument that the victims bare personal responsibility for believing going into the tent was a good idea. Or as the great moral philosopher, Otter, once said, “You f____d up! You trusted us!!” (nsfw)
lurker (d8c5bc) — 9/10/2020 @ 5:43 amYep:
Paul Montagu (ad6b35) — 9/10/2020 @ 6:48 amThe GOP will now pretend like mass panic was prevented as if that’s what happened in countries that countered the pandemic aggressively.
Indeed.
@144 Preventing panic and calming the public is part of what makes Trump Trump.
Donald J. Trump
Time123 (457a1d) — 9/10/2020 @ 7:23 am@realDonaldTrump
The Democrats never even mentioned the words LAW & ORDER at their National Convention. That’s where they are coming from. If I don’t win, America’s Suburbs will be OVERRUN with Low Income Projects, Anarchists, Agitators, Looters and, of course, “Friendly Protesters”.
Trump is right in one respect: It has been along time since you could openly support the GOP and get a job, or advance in your career, with many news organizations. If you got the goods on a Democrat, there would be no high-fives in the newsroom; more open stares of disbelief.
It’s a problem in a democracy when large portions of the electorate have lost faith in the news media. Trump uses this to disparage all criticism, and manipulates media seen as “fair” with his control of large sections of their viewership.
Not sure how this changes. A press seen as captive of the Left won’t remain free for long.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/10/2020 @ 7:24 amGawain’s Ghost (b25cd1) — 9/9/2020 @ 11:08 pm
Why does anybody? Woodward seems not to have disclosed his secret.
I suppose he tells people he has a story about them and wants to get their side of the story. And you know what? Woodward allows himself to be “corrected” and he doesn’t, in fact, use it in the end. And then he conducts very long interviews during which he slips in some difficult questions or winds up getting disclosures. He also never uses it immediately. I wonder if he said the boook wouldn;t be out till after the November election. Maybe he didn’t. He’s been publishing books during a president’s first term.
He may also agree not to use some things in exchange for other information and maybe gives references (previous interviewees)
But Woodward tells lies. Like the impossible interview with former CIA Director Bill Casey after he had brain surgery. And even in this book. One person said he spoke to Woodward but he never said
what Woodward says he said. Of course Woodward never tells in his books (or usually doesn’t) where he got the information from, so maybe somebody else told that to Woodward. Or he made it up..
He’ll prevent Woodward from publishing untrue bad thins about him. And indeed he “prevented” it.
Well, so he says, or said in the 1970s.
And also gives the peole interviewed confidence he won’t make up quotes.
No. But it’s better to deal with something that is openly opinion.
Maybe TB has a reservoir in Mexico but lots of Americans cross the border and many Mexicans cross the border legally. A person who has TB does not have ahigh chance of making another perso sick.
Sammy Finkelman (b66da2) — 9/10/2020 @ 7:29 am144. Paul Montagu (ad6b35) — 9/10/2020 @ 6:48 am
The New York Daily News (heavily anti-Trump) has an editorial today in which it says in part that Trump caused panic. Of course, it was panic about something else.
That was when he suddenly cut off airline travel from Europe with a short deadline, causing many Americans to rush back to the United Sates to beat the deadline, causing extremely crowded conditions and long lines at airports.
Sammy Finkelman (b66da2) — 9/10/2020 @ 7:34 amThat being said, I need to read Woodward’s book to see the context here. Why did Trump downplay this? What did he expect to happen that would justify this calm-mongering? What is the time-frame here? It is hard to believe, seeing a coming tidal wave, he’s telling people to go to the beach. He expected a different result. Why?
I know that people are reacting to this along predictable, Trump-partisan lines. If you are already anti-Trump, this feeds it. If you support Trump, you ignore or spin it as #fakenews.
I see a different question: why did a political animal like Donald Trump think that downplaying the danger of this pandemic was a good idea? Was it King Canute thinking the tide would not come in? Or was it expectations based on information supplied by others that proved untrue?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/10/2020 @ 7:35 amI am reading that White House aides repeatedly warned Trump not to do the interviews with Woodward, but the President chose to ignore any warnings and insisted on doing them. This sounds exactly like something Trump would do. No way he would turned down the opportunity to talk endlessly about himself to a iconic writer who would release a book with his comments. This fed right into Trump’s narcissism and insatiable need for attention.
Dana (292df6) — 9/10/2020 @ 7:35 amAlso, he’s absolutely convinced that he’s smarter than everyone else in the world, and thus could easily run circles around the hapless Woodward.
Dave (1bb933) — 9/10/2020 @ 7:47 amHe focuses heavily on the stock market and what people say about him.
He doesn’t care if a statement is correct or incorrect.
His time horizons are very short.
Put that together and it explains this.
Tell people everything is fine so the market will be good and you’re winning today.
If tomorrow is worse you’ll have to tell them something else so you win tomorrow.
There’s plenty of evidence to support this.
Time123 (457a1d) — 9/10/2020 @ 7:52 amYou know who else is like that? Serial killers The police have no trouble getting them to confess, they have trouble getting them to shut up.
nk (1d9030) — 9/10/2020 @ 7:55 am149. Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/10/2020 @ 7:35 am
Probably the latter.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/press-briefing-members-presidents-coronavirus-task-force
Sammy Finkelman (b66da2) — 9/10/2020 @ 7:58 amAnd when he says something that’s too stupid even for his devotees to buy, they say he’s “just trolling” or “controlling the narrative” and the hapless libs and NeverTrumpers “fall for it every time.” LOL.
Radegunda (e1ea47) — 9/10/2020 @ 7:59 amWe had a serial killer like Trump. John Wayne Gacy. He worked as “Pogo the Clown” and “Patches the Clown”. He was funny as a clown, not so funny as a killer. Just like Trump — funny as an orange buffoon, not so funny with 191,000 Americans dead and still counting.
nk (1d9030) — 9/10/2020 @ 8:01 amSammy, you’re arguing that Trump was wrong because he got bad information. That’s not what his quote indicates.
Time123 (457a1d) — 9/10/2020 @ 8:02 amSammy, you’re arguing that Trump was wrong because he got bad information. That’s not what his quote indicates.
Everything we read about Woodward’s yet-to-be-published book comes from people who hate Trump and want what they write to hurt. So, the quotes are chosen and portrayed in the worst possible light.
Up until February, Trump was distracted by the Senate trial and assuaged by both Chinese and WHO lies that the pandemic was controlled. His limitations on travel from China on Jan 31st can be seen as an attempt to ensure that the Chinese outbreak did not come here (never mind that it already WAS here). Maybe this was wishful thinking, but it is also in line with the advice he was getting at the time.
I would like to see how Woodward puts it together rather than reading the snippets we are offered by DNC operatives with bylines.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/10/2020 @ 8:13 amIt’s hard to get Sammy to think the worst of anyone, or to say anything bad about anyone, or to anyone. That’s why we like him.
And he is right in another way, too: You can never go wrong saying nice things about people. But, personally, I don’t mind going wrong once in a while.
nk (1d9030) — 9/10/2020 @ 8:20 amWhere he didn’t want to create a panic was in the stock market.
And in this he mostly succeeded. Back in mid-March, when we entered this singularity, the market took it in the shorts, but it’s now flirting again with all-time records. Amazon (a big beneficiary of lockdowns) is trading double what it was in March and significantly higher than its earlier peaks. The NASDAQ and S&P indices were recently at all-time highs.
It would have been better though to have our Come-to-Jesus moment in February and not March.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/10/2020 @ 8:25 amThe quotes I read all focus on Trump understanding the deadly nature of the virus in early February, and contrasting it with his public statements, but the context is missing.
I could say that Ebola was a terrifying virus, but at the same time say that there was no reason for Americans to worry if they have not traveled in that area of the world. Until much later, Trump apparently believed that the virus was not a danger to Americans. Why did he believe that? It’s important.
Of course, maybe he was just lying and I’m being naive in a “If only Stalin knew” kind of way. But Woodward doesn’t say that (or it would have been part of the press release for the book).
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/10/2020 @ 8:32 amBut let’s say that on Feb 1, as the Senate trial begins to wrap up, Trump announces a major emergency due to the growing pandemic and orders, say, all international air travel stopped on Feb 7th, and a quarantine for all arriving passengers prior to that date.
After all, this is what people say now that a better president would have done. I suspect some judge in Hawaii would have belayed that order.
I also think that we are going to have to reconsider what we mean by “2020 hindsight”.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 9/10/2020 @ 8:39 amI think there are two big things Trump can be criticized for:
Trump may have misstated the probability of dying from the disease (once you got it) compared to the flue – but this was hard to tell.
Trump also at one point early on wanted to make the statistics on cases in the United States look better and he didn’t want to let Americans disembark from a cruise ship where there were infections even if they went into quarantine. (although he said he let others make the final decision)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWLn86Mu_g
Sammy Finkelman (b66da2) — 9/10/2020 @ 9:23 am.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/07/which-is-trump-more-worried-about-coronavirus-numbers-or-coronavirus-patients
57. Time123 (457a1d) — 9/10/2020 @ 8:02 am
There are other later quotes (from Birx I think)
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/dr-birx-claims-u-s-was-slow-to-respond-to-coronavirus-outbreak-because-china-withheld-a-significant-amount-of-data
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/birx-trump-china-late-warning-human-human-transmission/story?id=70145796
This is about how the experts were fooled by China into thinking it could be contained fairly easily..
The quotes from Jan. 31 indicate that they say they can contain the virus, and mostly keep it from escaping from China, and there wouldn’t be many cases within the boundaries of the United States.
That would answer Kevin’s question @149 as to why Trump felt it was safe for him to play it down.
Playing down the danger, once infected, would be safe if very few people got infected in the USA. Which is what the public health experts were telling hm they could do.
Sammy Finkelman (b66da2) — 9/10/2020 @ 9:36 amBut then Trump says in March that he thought it was going to be a pandemic presumably before the
infectitious disease experts did.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/us/politics/trump-coronavirus.html
The New York Times then goes to try to prove that Trump was lying about his foresight.
Sammy Finkelman (b66da2) — 9/10/2020 @ 9:48 amI think the contradiction that the Woodward book has is that Trump said to Woodward it was (potentially) more deadly than the flu or more deadly once it gets going, but in public he was saying (having this disease around) was not any worse than having the flu around.
Sammy Finkelman (b66da2) — 9/10/2020 @ 11:19 am@98. Trump is personally responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of your fellow citizens.
No, Paul.
By your logic, Bob Woodward is. Woodward knew: Bob Woodward is responsible for ‘the deaths of tens of thousands of your fellow citizens.’ He sat on the information until now- to sell books.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/10/2020 @ 12:06 pm@104. Omg, we’re in the throes of a pandemic, and DCSCA is channeling Hillary??
ROFLMAO – see #46, Dana: “In the last four years, there have been more than 1,200 unique titles about Mr. Trump, compared to around 500 books about former President Barack Obama and his administration during Mr. Obama’s first term, according to an analysis by NPD BookScan.”
It’ll take another four years just to read ’em all. 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/10/2020 @ 12:11 pmSpeaking of “play it down”, Brian Murphy, the former head of the intelligence branch of the Homeland Security Department, was told by Wolf and Cuccinelli to play down Putin’s attempts to sabotage our election and to play down the threat of white nationalist violence, because apparently Trump is a higher priority to them than our national security.
Paul Montagu (ad6b35) — 9/10/2020 @ 12:59 pmMeantime, Putin’s hackers tried to hack the Biden campaign.
Trump told Woodward that the (death rate) from coronavirus was 5% and from flu, 1%. They were saying 5% but it is wrong.
Trump and Woodward also agree that it affects children. That doesn’t show great insight, because what affects children is something a bit different. It’s an over active immune response and, if identified, is easily treated with steroids. And it seems too me this also happens in hospitalized patients with very serious disease. And it also happens with people who have recovered. Young children can get that Kawasaki-like syndrome without ever becoming sick from standard Covid in the first place. (and I suspect a vaccine could also cause this, but maybe no.)
Trump now sas the goverment of China stopped it from spreading into the rest of China (well it sort of pretends to) but they didn’t stop it from spreading into the rest of the world. He also says you didn’t really think n February it was going to be whre it was. Trump still thinks ventilators are good. (too many people got them)
Trump made his avoid panic comment in order to explain his pivot from no danger to danger.
Sammy Finkelman (b66da2) — 9/11/2020 @ 3:33 am