Trump Owns COVID

Not disappearing

There’s a debate Thursday night.  Yeah, even though 90-some percent of Americans have already made up their minds, we’re gonna have another debate.  Under the “new rules” designed to make it more argument and dialogue, less interruption and shouting.

Right.

The subject of COVID is expected to be one of the topics for discussion during the debate.  There is no doubt that Trump will give himself an A+, 11 out of 10, highest rating for the great job he and his administration did and is doing about COVID.

Right.

So, what, exactly, did he do?

We know he’ll talk about his “China Ban” (which only restricted some travel; 40,000 still travelled from China to the US after the restrictions were in place, which were already too late).  Ditto the European Ban (missed the country with the largest number of cases – the UK – where Donnie has golf courses.  Coincidence?).  What else?

Oh yeah.  The President's Coronavirus Task Force.  It began on January 29, just nine days after the first US case, but really didn’t take off until a month later when VP Pence was called on to lead it.  It lasted all of two-and-a-half-months in “attack COVID” phase, then phase two began on May 15 – the “REOPEN AND SAVE THE MARKET” phase.  Remember, “the cure is worse than the disease?”

The Task Force’s major accomplishments were criticism of Dr. Anthony Fauci, criticism of the CDC, recognition that there were shortages of test kits, and…that’s about it.  Oh, they initiation “Operation Warp Speed” to speed up finding a vaccine, as if that wasn’t going to happen anyway, and they moved around some funding and the President signed some Executive Orders so that they could move around some more and control manufacturing of medical equipment (one wonders how many Trump supporters received windfalls because of this, but that’s a topic for another day).

There has been much more emphasis on the Phase Two operations than the short-lived Phase One.  “Getting on with life” and “MY STOCKS” seemed much more important to the Task Force and this administration than actually preventing the spread of the virus, or people getting sick and dying.

And what of the President’s actions?  That’s easy – Trump did what Trump always does:

• Sowed the seeds of doubt
• Sowed the seeds of distrust
• Sowed the seeds of confusion and chaos

Take a look at a timeline of some of his comments:

• March:  “We have tremendous control over it.”
• April:  “It’s gonna be gone.”
• May:  “This is going to go away without a vaccine.”
• June:  “It’s dying out.”
• July:  “Other countries don’t show cases.”
• August:  “It’s disappearing.”
• September:  “I’m doing very well with it.”
• October:  “We have done an amazing job.”  

And just last week:  “We’re doing fine.”  We are “…rounding the turn on the pandemic.” and “My plan: we're gonna crush the virus very quickly. It's happening already. It's happening.”

Right.

Oh, and there was also his pumping for hydroxychloroquine, which has been shown to have no effect on the virus and has been revoked by the FDA for use against the virus.  He also touted bleach and doing something with UV light.  And yes, folks listened to him and some got sick and a couple of folks died.

But mostly he’s ignored the problem.  Wishing it away.  Tossing everything and nothing at it.  With the obvious effect.

No one has more cases than America.  No one has more deaths than America.  He says we have more cases because we do more testing.  And we have more deaths because…

Well, he doesn’t talk about that.  What he does talk about is the great job he’s done.

Right.

And it’s getting worse.  After nine months, it’s not getting better.  We’re not “rounding the corner.”

Unless the corner points up.

More in Part Two later…