Trump started yesterday’s press brawl by reading a statement, adding his own random remarks. It’s faintly comical how easy it is to pick out the ad libs.

In the span of just a few short months, we’ve developed a testing capacity unmatched and unrivaled anywhere in the world, and it’s not even close.  This is a core element of our plan to safely and gradually reopen America.  And we’re opening, and we’re starting, and there’s enthusiasm like I haven’t seen in a long time.

See them?

In the span of just a few short months, we’ve developed a testing capacity unmatched and unrivaled anywhere in the world, and it’s not even close.  This is a core element of our plan to safely and gradually reopen America.  And we’re opening, and we’re starting, and there’s enthusiasm like I haven’t seen in a long time.

This one made me laugh:

his week, the United States will pass 10 million tests conducted — nearly double the number of any other country.  We’re testing more people per capita than South Korea, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Sweden, Finland, and many other countries — and, in some cases, combined.

“and, in some cases, combined” – thus making a nonsense of “per capita” and revealing that he has no idea what it means and wouldn’t understand if you told him.

Later on he tells a straight-up lie about it.

Thanks to the courage of our citizens and our aggressive strategy, hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved.  And we have saved — and if you look at on a per-100,000 basis, we’re at the best part of the pack, right on the bottom.  Germany and us are leading the world.  Germany and the United States are leading the world — lives saved per hundred thousand.

No we’re not. We’re fourth from the top, not anywhere near the bottom. Also, “us are leading the world” ain’t the right way to say that.

He’s upbeat though.

Day after day, we’re making tremendous strides.  With the dedication of our doctors and nurses — these are incredible people, these are brave people, these are warriors — with the devotion of our manufacturing workers, food suppliers, and lab technicians, and with the profound patriotism of the American people, we will defeat this horrible enemy, we will revive our economy, and we will transition into greatness.  That’s a phrase you’re going to hear a lot because that’s what’s going to happen.

Unscripted rah-rahs bolded.

We’re going into the third quarter, and we’re going to do well.  In the fourth quarter, we’re going to do very good.  And next year, I think we’re going to have one of the best years we’ve ever had because there’s a tremendous pent-up demand.  It’s a demand — and I’m feeling it.  I’ve felt things a lot over my life, and I’ve made a lot of good calls.  It’s a demand like I don’t think I’ve ever seen.  There’s a pent-up demand.  There’s a — there’s a spirit of this country like few have seen.  And I think you can say — and we’ve helped a lot of the countries a lot.  Really, a lot.  There’s a tremendous spirit all over the world to beat this terrible, terrible thing.

Fight fiercely Harvard!

Trouble is Coronavirus don’t give a shit. Coronavirus eats you whether you’re a warrior or not, whether you have a tremendous spirit or not, whether you have a tremendous pent-up demand or not, whether you’re transitioning into greatness or not.

Then he brags about the border, and the wall, and how awesome it all is, and how few people are coming in. He doesn’t pause to consider that that could be because of the pandemic as opposed to his overwhelming genius.

The first question was about how the system broke down such that people in the White House tested positive and Fauci had to go into quarantine.

I don’t think the system broke down at all.  One person tested positive, surprisingly, because, the previous day, tested negative.  And three people that were in contact — relative contact, who I believe they’ve all tested totally negative, but they are going to, for a period of time, self-isolate.  So that’s not breaking down.  It can happen.  It’s the hidden enemy.  Remember that.  It’s the hidden enemy.  And so things happen.  But the three tested negative.  The one who tested positive will be fine.  They will be absolutely fine.

Let’s linger for a moment over ” One person tested positive, surprisingly, because, the previous day, tested negative.” Let’s wonder all over again how he thinks that’s supposed to go – that if you test negative one day it’s impossible to test positive the next day? But then how would anyone ever – oh never mind.

Notice also his blithe certainty about the future health of the infected person.

And then there’s this:

I think one of the things we’re most proud of is — this just came out — deaths per 100,000 people, death — so deaths per 100,000 people: Germany and the United States are at the lowest rung of that ladder.  Meaning, low is a positive, not a negative.  Germany and the United States are the two best in deaths per 100,000 people, which, frankly, to me, that’s perhaps the most important number there is.

Uh…no. That’s not right.

Aaron Blake at the Post this morning:

President Trump has made a series of obviously false claims about the coronavirus. But at Monday’s news briefing — the first in weeks in which Trump and coronavirus task force officials took questions — he offered one of his biggest whoppers yet.

After being asked about a mysterious condition affecting children, then having task force member Adm. Brett Giroir correct him that the condition has actually proven fatal, Trump turned to better news. Or at least what he wrongly stated was better news.

He quotes that passage I just quoted.

It’s true that, while the United States has the most confirmed coronavirus cases and the most confirmed coronavirus deaths, it lags behind some Western European countries when it comes to per capita deaths. I wrote about this a week ago, noting that the raw number can be deceiving when it comes to the total impact on countries.

But the United States is nowhere close to having one of the lowest per capita death rates. In fact, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, we rank ninth-highest out of more than 140 countries for which information is available.

We’re near the top of the 140 as opposed to near the bottom. The opposite of what Trump said – what Trump, the president, said on camera to the country and the world.

Pairing the United States with Germany is another puzzling decision. Germany is one of the envies of the Western world when it comes to its coronavirus response, having ramped up testing very early and then dealing with a far less significant outbreak than its neighbors. But putting the United States next to it is ridiculous; Germany has about nine deaths per 100,000 people, as compared with about 24 per 100,000 people in the United States.

Ok but Trump’s granddaddy came here from Germany so that makes it ok.