Trump keeps saying, in his usual random way, that the virus wuz maed in a labb by the Chyneez. Fauci says there’s no reason to think so.

Now, before we play the game of “he said, he said” remember this: Only one of these two people is a world-renowned infectious disease expert. And it’s not Donald Trump.

Well, yes, but that’s only the barely visible tip of the iceberg of the difference between the two. Fauci is a world-renowned infectious disease expert, and a trained scientist, and a grownup. Trump is a world-renowned liar and hustler.

Fauci and people like Fauci have a habit of not just making shit up without even pausing to ask if there’s any reason … Read the rest

Trump weighs in on the gun-toting “protest” yesterday.

The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire. These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 1, 2020

What would Trump be saying if 200 lefty protesters carrying assault rifles had gathered on Pennsylvania Avenue, just yards from the White House, with signs saying “TYRANTS GET THE ROPE” and similar exhilarating calls to action?

Not, I’m guessing, “These are very good people, but they are angry.” I don’t think he would be saying he should give a little. I don’t think he’d be saying he … Read the rest

Trump is tired of all this pampering of children, he wants them to go back to school now.

President Donald Trump on Monday urged the nation’s governors to “seriously consider” reopening schools as part of his push to restart the economy, though many states have already recommended against resuming the school year.

“Some of you might start thinking about school openings, because a lot of people are wanting to have school openings. It’s not a big subject, young children have done very well in this disaster that we’ve all gone through,” Trump told the governors on a teleconference call, according to audio of the call obtained by CNN.

Huh? It’s not a big subject? It is if any of … Read the rest

If only he wouldn’t ad lib. It wouldn’t change anything or fix anything of importance, but still – if only he would stop doing that.

Starting at 27 seconds:

The US has the most coronavirus deaths in the world, but Trump begins the April 18 #TrumpPressConf by claiming America "has produced better health outcomes than any other country, with the possible exception of Germany." pic.twitter.com/puRZgsvIeh

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 18, 2020

Reading in the robotic monotone he reads everything:

While we mourn the tragic loss of life

Then the pause – the looking up – the tilt of the head – the blink – and the ad lib:

And you can’t mourn it any stronger than we’re mourning

He is saying, over and over and over again, that he has absolute and total power. In those words. In the face of journalists saying no actually he doesn’t. He just keeps shouting them down and saying yes he does. It’s scary.

REPORTER: In regard to some of your tweets earlier today, what provision in the Constitution gives the president the power to open or close state economies?

TRUMP: "Numerous — numerous provisions. We can give you a legal brief if you want." (He never named one.) pic.twitter.com/nMzmbgEGYJ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 13, 2020

TRUMP: "When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total. And that's the way it's gotta be. It's total." pic.twitter.com/zIuiBn1Mhw

—

Those spiteful self-interested turds.

Vice President Mike Pence has blocked Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, as well as other top U.S. health officials, from appearing on CNN following the network’s decision to not air the White House coronavirus press briefings in full.

Will they send them to bed without dessert next? Take away their allowance? Say they can’t go to the picnic?

“When you guys cover the briefings with the health officials then you can expect them back on your air,” a spokesman for the vice president told CNN.

Trump and the White House Coronavirus Task Force, led by Pence, have been giving daily briefings to the press for several weeks after rising numbers of Americans have

I just want to underline this, even though I said it yesterday when he did the press rally. ABC News reports:

Concerns about what is now known to be the novel coronavirus pandemic were detailed in a November intelligence report by the military’s National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), according to two officials familiar with the document’s contents.

The report was the result of analysis of wire and computer intercepts, coupled with satellite images. It raised alarms because an out-of-control disease would pose a serious threat to U.S. forces in Asia — forces that depend on the NCMI’s work. And it paints a picture of an American government that could have ramped up mitigation and containment efforts far earlier

He’s going to kill every last one of us.

Trump just fired the Inspector General overseeing the relief package. And threatened another who reported PPE shortages.

Inspectors General are charged with doing independent oversight and exposing corruption.

Their job is to uncover the truth.

Exactly why Trump fears them. https://t.co/dDCnb227c8

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) April 7, 2020

… Read the rest

One doesn’t want to rush into calling Trump the worst president ever, because time has a way of changing our minds, but Max Boot says it’s safe to call it now.

With his catastrophic mishandling of the coronavirus, Trump has established himself as the worst president in U.S. history.

His one major competitor for that dubious distinction remains Buchanan, whose dithering helped lead us into the Civil War — the deadliest conflict in U.S. history. Buchanan may still be the biggest loser. But there is good reason to think that the Civil War would have broken out no matter what. By contrast, there is nothing inevitable about the scale of the disaster we now confront.

The situation is

Maureen Dowd starts with Bush 2 and his helpless incompetence in emergencies.

The same blend of arrogance and incompetence informed the Bush administration’s handling of Katrina — the earlier lash of nature that exposed the lethal fault line between the haves and have-nots. W. retreated to clinical states’ rights arguments as a beloved city drowned.

Now we have another pampered scion in the Oval, propped up by his daddy for half his life, accustomed to winging it and swaggering around. And he, too, is utterly unprepared to lead us through the storm. Like W., he is resorting to clinical states’ rights arguments, leaving the states to chaotically compete with one another and the federal government for precious medical equipment.

It’s … Read the rest

Yesterday Chuck Schumer asked Trump to streamline the process for mandating production to deal with the pandemic. Trump’s response was to send this foul letter:

Dear Senator Schumer:

Thank you for your Democrat public relations letter and incorrect sound bites, which are wrong in every way.

As you are aware, Vice President Pence is in charge of the Task Force. By almost all accounts, he has done a spectacular job.

The Defense Production Act (DPA) has been consistently used by my team and me for the purchase of billions of dollars’ worth of equipment, medical supplies, ventilators, and other related items. It has been powerful leverage, so powerful that companies generally do whatever we are asking, without even a … Read the rest

What changed that blob of vanilla pudding known as Trump’s “mind”?

Pictures, and graphs, and the fact that people he actually knows have the virus.

“We’re thinking that around Easter that’s going to be your spike. That’s going to be the highest point we think, and then it’s going to start coming down from there,” Trump said Monday on “Fox & Friends.” “The worst that can happen is you do it too early and all of a sudden it comes back. That makes it more difficult.”

Yes, but people were telling him that all along, and he ignored them.

The bleak forecasts were carried into the Oval Office by Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, who displayed to Trump

States that voted Trump get what they need. States that didn’t vote Trump can just choke on their own blood.

There may be a cause and effect thing here. Early this morning Nancy Pelosi told Jake Tapper that Trump is fiddling while people are dying.

.@SpeakerPelosi says the President downplaying the severity of #coronavirus is “deadly."

“As the President fiddles, people are dying. We just have to take every precaution.” #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/y8bFNbaPJy

— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) March 29, 2020

What would we expect from the #AmericanNero?

Pelosi on Trump's coronavirus response: 'As the President fiddles, people are dying' https://t.co/McuWbeF9Yw

— Richard W. Painter (@RWPUSA) March 29, 2020

So naturally, being the disordered toxic narcissist he is, he decided to show us how fiddly he can be.

This is what you are to him, Americans.

An audience.

It’s not just god who isn’t built for this, it’s also Trump.

The pain and hardship that the United States is only beginning to experience stem from a crisis that the president is utterly unsuited to deal with, either intellectually or temperamentally… The coronavirus pandemic has created the conditions that can catalyze a destructive set of responses from an individual with Trump’s characterological defects and disordered personality.

Yes but he pisses off the liberals, so it’s all worth it.

The qualities we most need in a president during this crisis are calmness, wisdom, and reassurance; a command of the facts and the ability to communicate them well; and the capacity to think about the medium and long term while

Trump is restless. Trump wants all this to stop now. Trump thinks two weeks are MORE than enough, because that’s what he wants.

“WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF,” Trump tweeted late Sunday night. “AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!”

SHOUTING AT US SO THAT WE WOULD KNOW HE REALLY MEANT IT.

Aides say Trump is itching for the guidelines to be eased when the 15-day period ends a week from Monday, but realistically there are few health experts who think that’s enough time to know whether the measures he announced last week– including recommending closing schools, limiting gatherings

Kiss the ring or die.

.@JBPritzker, Governor of Illinois, and a very small group of certain other Governors, together with Fake News @CNN & Concast (MSDNC), shouldn’t be blaming the Federal Government for their own shortcomings. We are there to back you up should you fail, and always will be!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2020

“should you fail”…meaning, we’ll stand here and watch while you’re swamped by the pandemic, and then we’ll bury you. Are we generous or what?!… Read the rest

REPORTER: Why do you keep calling the coronavirus the "Chinese Virus"? There are reports of violence against Asian-Americans.

TRUMP: "It comes from China. That's why." pic.twitter.com/rBXUVDHIcS

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 18, 2020

… Read the rest

Lying scumbag.

I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the “borders” from China – against the wishes of almost all. Many lives were saved. The Fake News new narrative is disgraceful & false!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2020

That’s a lot of lies in a small space.

This is a lie. You squandered 8-12 weeks. More Americans will die. Your failure is the greatest blunder in presidential history.

— Jen "get knocked down, get back up " Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) March 18, 2020

He is going to keep calling the coronavirus the “Chinese Virus” until it becomes an acceptable