The Discussion
Positive Political Discussions Among Family & Friends
(Underlined wording indicates a URL link to the source)
Comments, corrections and additions welcomed!
Mel

Republican Videos:
- President George W. Bush: A Message of Hope [skip the ad if it comes up]
- The Lincoln Project - We are Republicans & We Want Trump Defeated: Mourning in America
- Former NJ GOP Governor Christy Whitman: Trump Thinks He’s Above the Law
- Republicans for the Rule of Law: Donald Trump Acts Like He's King

President[ial?] Trump: "...a stone cold loser ... a husband from hell ... did you hear the latest con job from President Obama ... they're all losers ... Bush "was nowhere to be found in speaking up against the greatest Hoax in American history!"

- Greta Thunberg: Our House is on Fire

- President Obama: The Coronavirus “would have been bad even with the best of governments...It has been an absolute chaotic disaster when that mindset - of ‘what’s in it for me’ and ‘to heck with everybody else’ - when that mindset is operationalized in our government.”

1984 by George Orwell (published in 1950): 
- Orwell: "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”
- Trump: “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening. I alone can fix it."

MAY 10: HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

May 9: NPR: No social distancing and no face masks...

  • COVID-19 is now also in President Trump’s inner circle. It was revealed this week that a military aide who worked in the West Wing, as well as Katie Miller, Vice President Pence’s press secretary and wife of White House adviser Stephen Miller, both tested positive. Trump and Pence continue to be tested routinely and have both tested negative.
  • “This is why the whole concept of tests aren’t necessarily great,” Trump said Friday. “The tests are perfect, but something can happen.” ... especially if YOUR people don't wear face masks & do not social distance.[Note: the 'Hunter Biden letter' was perfect too.]
  • It’s actually the opposite. The new White House cases demonstrate why testing needs to be more widespread, not that testing doesn’t matter. Miller is being quarantined, but imagine if the White House wasn't routinely testing – the president would likely inevitably get it.
  • And routine testing is not even close to the case for the normal Americans, who are now – out of fear for their livelihoods – going to be venturing out of their homes as states reopen.
The Great Recession of 2008 and 2009, which lasted for 18 months, was the longest period of economic decline since World War II. Employment has risen and unemployment has fallen since President Obama's election in 2009. 

May 8: Trump & Job Growth & Unemployment

?: Did Obama’s Last 3 Years See More Jobs Created Than Trump’s First 3 (and this is BEFORE COVID-19 Pandemic)? 

I will keep re-visiting this ... 

Yes. Obama's did!

  • During the final three years of Barack Obama's presidency, the number of jobs added was 1.5 million greater than the number added during President Donald Trump's first three years in office.
  • While Trump spent the year boasting that the U.S. job market was the strongest it’s ever been, 2019 saw job growth slow to an eight-year low.
  • What’s more, the best year for jobs during Trump’s presidency — 2.31 million in 2018 — fails to reach the job growth in any of the three final years of Barack Obama’s presidency. It adds a degree of irony to his rhetorical record: Trump ran for president in 2015 and 2016, telling the nation that the economy was horrible and he’d make it vastly better. But annual job growth totals from both 2015 and 2016 were better than any year of Trump's tenure.

May 7: Seven days before Trump took office, his aides were issued a warning: 


'The worst influenza pandemic since 1918’

  • Seven days before Donald Trump took office, his aides faced a major test: the rapid, global spread of a dangerous virus in cities like London and Seoul, one serious enough that some countries were imposing travel bans.
  • In a sober briefing, Trump’s incoming team learned that the disease was an emerging pandemic - a strain of novel influenza known as H9N2 - and that health systems were crashing in Asia, overwhelmed by the demand.
  • But roughly two-thirds of the Trump representatives in that room are no longer serving in the administration. That extraordinary turnover in the months and years that followed is likely one reason his administration has struggled to handle the very real pandemic it faces now, former Obama administration officials said. “The advantage we had under Obama was that during the first four years we had the same White House staff, the same Cabinet,” said former deputy labor secretary Chris Lu, who attended the gathering. “Just having the continuity makes all the difference in the world.”
May 6: Kayleigh McEnany, Trump's Press Secretary, in her 2nd official briefing, when asked why she downplayed Coronavirus Threat, she turned the tables on the media - She's Good!
  • See May 2 for more details on her press conferences.

May 4: Our Leader and his aides fail to wear face masks during a tour of a Honeywell factory in Arizona that makes face masks. He instead opted to wear protective eyeglasses - that will really help cut down on COVID-19 spread! 
  • Honeywell employees, meanwhile, were pictured wearing masks and socially distancing by sitting apart while waiting for Trump to speak.
  • Note the sign: "face mask required in this area.”

May 4: They’re all LOSERS’: Trump lashes out at conservative critics over new coronavirus ad.
The minute-long spot from The Lincoln Project apparently infuriated the president.he ominous, minute-long spot — titled “Mourning in America,” a play on the famous 1984 campaign commercial and slogan of President Ronald Reagan — savaged the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and questioned: “If we have another four years like this, will there even be an America?”

Trump's Names for Himself: Mr. Brexit, Your Favorite President, King of Debt, Tariff Man, The Chosen One ...


Trump's Opinion of Himself: ...my great an unmatched wisdom ... … I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president… I give myself an A+...I give myself a 10 out of 10 ...


Trump's Names for Others:  Cheatin', Clown, Crazy, Corrupt, Crazy Woman From Michigan, Crooked, Deranged, Dicky, Dopey, Dumbo, Dummy, Fake, Fat, Flailer, Flunky, Foul Mouthed, Frankenstein, Goofy, Head Clown, Husband From Hell, Little, Loser, Low Energy, Low IQ, Lyin', Mad Dog, Mr. Magoo, Nut, Nutty, Pencil Neck, Psycho, Puppet, Rocket Man, Shady, Sleepy, Sleepy Eyes, Slimeball, Sneaky, Sour Lemon, Stone Cold Loser, Truly Weird, Wacky ...

May 4: Dr. Deborah Birx, Coordinator of President Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force


"Some activities that Americans are engaging in across the country are potentially putting lives in danger as the coronavirus pandemic continues to plague the nation."


In a "Fox News Sunday" interview, Birx weighed in on recent incidents ranging from crowds flocking to Califonia beaches to the reopening of salons and spas, but came down particularly hard on Michigan protesters who stormed the state capitol in large numbers without wearing masks.


"It’s devastatingly worrisome to me personally because if they go home and infect their grandmother or their grandfather who has a co-morbid condition and they have a serious or a very unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of our lives," Birx said. "So we need to protect each other at the same time we’re voicing our discontent."


Birx also noted that even activities that are now being permitted by certain state governors may not be in the public's best interest, and reminded people that the White House's guidelines are there to let people know how to stay safe. Several states have begun reopening, even though none have met the White House's recommended 14-day decline in cases before doing so.

Kayleigh McEnany: White House Press Secretary since 2020 & a grduate of the Harvard Law School.


May 6: In her 2nd official briefing, when asked why she downplayed Coronavirus Threat, she turned the tables on the media - She's Good!


May 1: "I will never lie to you" but: misquoted an FBI agent's written comment about former national security adviser Michael Flynn; mischaracterized a Friday tweet by President Donald Trump about protesters in Michigan.  Trump tweeted: 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.”;. Gave an inflated figure for the cost of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Said Mueller offered a "complete and total exoneration" of the President, something Mueller explicitly said he was not doing. Mueller's report: "...while this report dos not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."
May 2:  COVID-19 - The CDC forecasts a continued increase in COVID-19 Cases & Deaths through the end of May. CDC forecasts only go 1 month in advance at a time:
  • May 2:         the US has  32% of the cases worldwide and 27% of the deaths worldwide
  • April 19:      the US has  31% of the cases worldwide and  25% of the deaths worldwide  
  • April 4:       the US has  25% of the cases worldwide and  12% of the deaths worldwide
  • April 1:        the US has  22% of the cases worldwide and  9% of the deaths worldwide
  • March 28:  the US has  15% of the cases worldwide and   5% of the deaths worldwide
May 2: Truth Tellers & Inspector Generals Don't Do Well Under Trump:
May 1: Trump lied when he stated that his administration was not initially able to meet the increasing demand for ventilators to treat COVID-19 patients because “we weren’t left ventilators by a previous administration.” "We had a ventilator problem that was caused by the fact that we weren’t left ventilators by a previous administration. The cupboards were bare, as I say  - LIE - often. And not only are the cupboards full now, we have ventilators; we’re the king in the world of ventilators. We have thousands and thousands of them now being delivered".

April 29:  Trump Misquotes Dr. Fauci.

Defending his early response to the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump wrongly claimed that in late February, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was saying, “This is no problem. This is going to blow over.”


Trump: Yeah, yeah. Well, I think probably a lot more to the Democrats, because a month later, Nancy Pelosi was saying [Trump is lying], “Let’s dance in the streets of Chinatown.” You go back and you take a look at — even professionals, like Anthony [Fauci], were saying this is no problem. This is late in February: “This is no problem. This is going to blow — this is going to blow over.” And they’re professionals, and they’re good professionals.


Most people thought this was going to blow over. And if you can go — we did, I think, on January — toward the end of January, [Trump is lying] we did a ban with China. That was a very — I think you just said, a little while ago, that was a very important step. And then ultimately, we did a ban on Europe. That was very early in the process.


Because if you take the ban and you look at it, I was badly criticized by Sleepy Joe Biden, by others. I was criticized horribly for — I mean, he called — he said all sorts of things. We won’t even say it. And then he apologized because — two weeks ago, he put out a statement that I was right. We did a ban. … And many people — Democrats, professionals, probably Republicans — said that this would never happen, there’d be nothing; no big problem. You saw that, I think, better than anybody, Deborah. This was after the ban. So, obviously, I took it very serious. I’m not going be banning China from coming in if I didn’t take it seriously. And I did that early.

Tucker Carlson opened Wednesday's edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" by slamming Democratic public officials who he claimed are abusing their powers and ignoring the disparity between the effects of coronavirus and those of the draconian measures they are instituting.

"Across the country, our leaders are making a mockery of the quarantines they so enthusiastically enforce," Carlson said, later adding, "They have no intention of abiding by the restrictions that they impose on their fellow citizens, they have no interest in any scientific development ... [even as] evidence accumulates that mass quarantines are not achieving what politicians claimed they would achieve, not even close."

The host criticized former President Barack Obama for ignoring stay-at-home orders in the District of Columbia and Virginia to go golfing at the elite Robert Trent Jones Country Club in Prince William County, Va., about 40 miles from his Washington home.

Showing a photo of Obama golfing that was published by Politico, Carlson said the former president "is clearly enjoying himself and honestly, why wouldn't he be? It's beautiful out on the links.

"You'll notice there aren't many people around," the host added, "and that's because both Virginia and Washington, D.C., are still under quarantine. Everybody else is locked at home, as they have been for more than a month, but not former President Obama. For him, golfing at his country club was an essential activity."
 

The real question is: 

What does a parent or grandparent tell their children or grandchildren when they ask - after seeing Vice President Pence not wear a mask and President Trump saying he won't ware a mask:


  • Why should I wear a face mask?
  • Why should I have to follow the rules?

May 3:  “I didn't think it was necessary, but I should have worn a mask at the Mayo Clinic and I wore it when I visited the ventilator plant in Indiana”


April 29: Vice President Pence wears a face mask to tour of GM plant. 


April 28: Leaving Off Mask At Mayo Clinic, Pence Said He Wanted To Look Workers 'In The Eye'.


11:18 AM: Mayo clinic had informed @VP of the masking policy prior to his arrival today. 
April 28:
Trump lied when he stated:  "We are way ahead on testing. We are the best in the world on testing. We’ve tested much more than anybody else, times two - or every country combined." In fact, 3 countries alone - Russia, Germany and Italy - have done more combined testing than the US. Worldometer, for example, shows the U.S. doing 18,216 tests per 1 million people, as of April 29. But that was a lower figure than those of 41 other countries.

Dr. Trump:

 ”… I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.


Dr. Fauci ...
  • Biden’s Misleading Ad About Sending Experts to China - An ad for Joe Biden’s campaign hammers President Donald Trump for failing to send U.S. health experts to China to investigate the novel coronavirus. But the ad fails to mention that the administration tried several times soon after the outbreak, although without success, and an international team with two U.S. members was admitted in mid-February.
  • Trump Suggests Injecting Disinfectants as COVID-19 Treatment - The U.S. president's comments prompted doctors and the makers of household disinfectants to issue statements urging people not to ingest or inject cleaning products. 
  • THE PRESIDENT - Dr. Trump : Thank you very much. So I asked Bill a question that probably some of you are thinking of, if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too. It sounds interesting.
  • ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BRYAN: We’ll get to the right folks who could.
  • THE PRESIDENT - Dr. Trump: Right. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you’re going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds — it sounds interesting to me. So we’ll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute, that’s — that’s pretty powerful.

GRETA THUNBERG:  TIME'S Person of the Year for 2019.


Greta Thunberg is donating $100,000 to help children affected by coronavirus pandemic.


Human Act, a Danish worldwide development organization, recently gave Thunberg $100,000 for her global activism, but now that money will go to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), according to a statement from the agency. Human Act has pledged to match Thunberg's donation by contributing another $100,000 to launch a campaign specifically aimed at safeguarding children's rights and welfare at this time.

April 22: Earth Day
  • Earth Justice: The untold story of the Trump administration’s agenda to unwind environmental protections
    • In three years, Earthjustice has filed more than a hundred lawsuits to defend environmental and health protections. Three years into the Trump administration, the attacks on our health and our environment are still pouring out of D.C. at a record pace. The motivation is simple: prioritize corporate profits over the safety and health of the people.
    • Consider this: In the three years since Trump took office, scientists have been increasingly warning of the looming climate crisis as more species face extinction and rising oceans swallow coastal towns and cities. Around the world, devastating floods, droughts, and wildfires are making communities uninhabitable, driving more and more people from their homes. To make matters worse, air pollution worsened in 2017 and 2018. Nearly 10,000 lives could have been saved if pollution levels had remained at their 2016 levels, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. The increase occurred partly because the administration has decreased enforcement against corporations that violate federal pollution limits. Make no mistake about it, the Trump administration is causing harm and erasing lives for polluter profits.
    • In fact, the administration has employed 281 former lobbyists - the vast majority of whom represented corporations - in government jobs over the last three years. That’s quadruple the number Obama appointed in a six-year period. These lobbyists seek to weaken required federal protections to reduce the costs of pollution-control technology for their friends in corporate America.
    • For the full story, go to: https://earthjustice.org/features/inside-trump-administration-public-health-environment
  • USAFacts: State of the Earth in Numbers: A data-driven portrait of American’s energy, climate & environment.
    • To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, USAFacts analyzed metrics from government agencies responsible for measuring the nation’s air, land conservation, and energy production. This data snapshot touches on environmental numbers from 2019 back to 1895.
April 20: 
  • Remarks by Trump in the COVID-19 Press Briefing
    • Question: You held rallies in February and in March.
      • THE PRESIDENT: “Oh, I don’t know - I don’t know about rallies. I really don’t know about rallies.”
    • Question: You had about five rallies in February.
      • THE PRESIDENT: “I know one thing: I haven’t left the White House in months, except for a brief moment to give a wonderful ship, the Comfort -”
    • Question: You held a rally in March.
      • THE PRESIDENT: “I don’t know. Did I hold a rally?”
    •  FACT: Trump held rallies & played golf at least 14 times Between January 9 and March 8
  • Question: If your spouse or parent or son or daughter would make patently false statements on worldwide TV, would you:
    • Be concerned?
    • Talk to the person?
    • Do nothing?
    • ?

April 18:
April 17:
April 16:
April 15:
    • Trump lied: when he stated that the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that coronavirus "was not communicable"
    • Trump lied again when he sated there was "credible information" to suspect human-to-human transmission
    • Trump lied again when he stated the WHO "actually fought" the Us over imposing travel restrictions on China.
    • State of the Earth in Numbers: A data-driven portrait of American’s energy, climate & environment.  To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, USAFacts analyzed metrics from government agencies responsible for measuring the nation’s air, land conservation, and energy production. This data snapshot touches on environmental numbers from 2019 back to 1895. 
April 15: 
    April 13:  
    3:
    April 12: Easter Sunday
    • Trump administration turnover: (1) 15 Trump Cabinet members have left since he took office, which is higher than any president going back to Clinton, despite Trump’s being in office for a shorter period of time. (2) Among Trump’s "A Team," 66 percent of positions have seen at least one turnover through April 8. President Trump’s “A Team” turnover is 85% as of April 7, 2020: 6% of President Trump’s “A Team” departures have undergone serial turnover as of April 7, 2020.
    April 11:
    April 10:
    April 8:
    April 7:
    • "Dr. Trump" stated "What do you have to lose" from taking chloroquine for coronavirus? 
      • Already, an Arizona man died and his wife was hospitalized after self-administering a variant of chloroquine, prompting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to send out a warning.
      • The American Medical Association says it “strongly opposes” prophylactically prescribing chloroquine as well as pharmacies and hospitals “purchasing excessive amounts” of the medication.
      • Some people have health conditions that mean they shouldn’t take chloroquine because of potential side effects. 
    April 6:
    • Dr. Trump lied when he stated "There's a study out that people with lupus aren't catching this horrible virus". On the day that Trump made his false claim about lupus patients, the Lupus Foundation of America put out a statement that said, “There is no evidence that taking hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil) is effective in preventing a person from contracting the coronavirus (COVID-19). People with lupus should follow the guidance of their doctor and the safety guidelines being issued by the CDC.”
    • Trump lied when he stated: … the Obama administration left Trump with a “stockpile with a cupboard that was bare.” While the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted shortcomings in the nation’s stockpile of emergency supplies and equipment, Trump did not inherit bare inventory. It was full of supplies, but not enough to handle this particular pandemic.
    • Trump tries on a fourth chief of staff in the middle of a devastating crisis. “One of the principal reasons we are in this mess is because Trump has never had a chief of staff who will tell him hard truths." No one expects Meadows to try to change the often mercurial president, aides and allies say. But Meadows also has no problem standing up to the president or nudging him in a specific direction.
    April 5
    April 4:
    • COVID-19: Worldwide: (1,095,924 cases & 58,785 deaths; USA: 275,143 cases & 7,067 deaths)
      • April 4: the US has 25% of the cases worldwide and 12% of the deaths worldwide
      • April 1: the US has 22% of the cases worldwide and 9% of the deaths worldwide
      • March 28: the US has 15% of the cases worldwide and 5% of the deaths worldwide
    • REMINDERS: March 17: Trump stated: “I don’t take responsibility at all” … it was a “set of circumstances” and “rules, regulations and specification from a different time”; I guess Trump is not a “The Buck Stops Here” president. March 16: Trump asked about coronavirus response, gives himself a 10 out of 10; March 10: Trump stated “It will go away. Just stay calm." March 10: Trump stated: “This was unexpected. And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it.” February 28: “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear”; February 24 Trump tweeted: The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA
    • Trump lied when he stated that fired inspector general Michael Atkinson brought a “terrible, inaccurate whistleblower report” to Congress. Trump said that the intelligence community inspector general passed along an inaccurate report. In reality, the complaint got nearly every detail correct. The whistleblower report closely aligned with the White House partial transcript of Trump’s conversation with Zelensky. The whistleblower said Trump urged an investigation of former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. That happened, according to the call summary. The whistleblower said Trump revived the unfounded rumor that a hacked Democratic Party server was in Ukraine. Again, correct. The whistleblower said the only corruption cases mentioned in the call were the Democratic server and the Bidens. That’s also correct.
    • Trump '#Sharpiegate' Retrospective: Trump lied when he stated that originally "almost all models predicted" Dorian would hit Alabama.
    • Trump says he won't wear face mask despite announcing new CDC guidelines suggesting all Americans wear one when in public. "I won't be doing it personally. It's a recommendation”; “I just don’t want to wear one myself. They say ‘recommendation’, they recommend it. I’m feeling good,” – a remark that ignored evidence that many virus carriers do not show symptoms; 
    • Trump ego: “…in my great and unmatched wisdom…”; ”… I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president…”; 
    • Trump lied when he stated “people with lupus” who take hydroxychloroquine “aren’t catching this horrible virus.”
    • Strategic National Stockpile description altered online after Jared Kushner's remarks: The official government webpage for the Strategic National Stockpile was altered Friday to seemingly reflect a controversial description of the emergency repository that White House adviser Jared Kushner offered at a news conference Thursday evening.  According to a brief online summary on the Department of Health and Human Services website, the stockpile’s role “is to supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies. Many states have products stockpiled, as well.” But just hours earlier, the text characterized the stockpile as the “nation’s largest supply of life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency severe enough to cause local supplies to run out.” The previous language stated that when “state, local, tribal, and territorial responders request federal assistance to support their response efforts, the stockpile ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need them most during an emergency.” Also stripped from the new summary is a sentence that affirmed the stockpile “contains enough supplies to respond to multiple large-scale emergencies simultaneously.” The revisions come after Kushner argued at the White House coronavirus task force press briefing Thursday that the stockpile’s reserves are the property of the federal government, not the states.
    • Trump Broke the Agencies that were there to protect us:
      •  the 4 top jobs at the Director of Homeland Security and the Office of Director of National Intelligence have all be filled with temporary acting officials every day that we have had Covid-19.
      • last summer, Trump accepted the resignation of Dan Coats and forced out the career principal deputy of national intelligence, Sue Gordon. Coats’ temporary stand-in, career intelligence official Joseph Maguire, then served so long that he was coming close to timing out of his role—federal law usually lets officials serve only 210 days before relinquishing the acting post—when Trump ousted him too, as well as the acting career principal deputy. In their place, at the end of February—weeks after the U.S. already recorded its first Covid-19 case—Trump installed U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell as his latest acting director, the role that by law is meant to be the president’s top intelligence adviser. Grenell has the least intelligence experience of any official ever to occupy director’s suite. 
      • on April 10, the role of Homeland Security secretary will have been vacant for an entire year, ever since Kirstjen Nielsen was forced out over Trump’s belief she wasn’t tough enough on border security. DHS has numerous critical roles in any domestic crisis, but its acting secretary, Chad Wolf, has fumbled through the epidemic; in February, Wolf couldn’t answer seemingly straightforward questions on Capitol Hill from Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana about the nation’s preparedness—what models were predicting about the outbreak, how many respirators the government had stockpiled, even how Covid-19 was transmitted. “You’re supposed to keep us safe. And you need to know the answers to these questions,” Kennedy finally snapped at Wolf. Wolf has been notably absent ever since from the White House podium during briefings about the nation’s epidemic response.
      • DHS is riddled with critical vacancies; according to the Washington Post’s appointment tracker, just 35 percent of its top roles are filled.
      • there are no Senate-confirmed leaders of any of DHS’ three border and immigration agencies—Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 
      • At the Pentagon, the Navy faced last week’s Covid-19 crisis aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt without a Senate-confirmed Navy secretary; Richard Spencer departed last fall amid the controversy of Trump’s pardoning of a Navy SEAL accused of war crimes. Now that Spencer’s successor as acting Navy secretary has himself resigned amid the carrier fiasco, the undersecretary of the Army—the only one of the three service under secretaries now filled and a post he took up only two weeks ago—will apparently be filling as acting Navy secretary. To say that it’s less-than-ideal for all of those roles—which serve as each military service’s chief management officer—to be vacant in the midst of an unprecedented, global crisis is an understatement.
      • Trump is already on his fourth White House chief of staff, his fifth homeland security secretary and his fourth defense secretary—though the current occupant, Mark Esper, actually is technically the fifth person to occupy the role, since he was also “acting” secretary for 21 days before handing over the reins to Richard Spencer for eight days last summer while he was officially nominated for the permanent position.
      • The new head of the Office of Presidential Personnel, which is in charge of choosing appointees across the government, was fired earlier in the administration over allegations of financial crimes, and one of its top deputies is still a college student.
    April 3: 
    April 2:
    April 1:
    March 31:
    March 30:
    March 29:
    March 28: 
    March 27: 
    March 26:
    March 24:  
    March 21: 
    • President Donald Trump falsely declared that automakers, including Ford and General Motors, were manufacturing much needed ventilators “right now” when in fact, it wasn’t until nearly a week after the president’s claim that General Motors and Ventec Life Systems announced that the car company would begin retooling its manufacturing facility in Kokomo, Indiana, to make “critical care ventilators” that could be ready to “ship as soon as next month.”
    • A new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll that surveyed Americans last week found that most American do not trust what they’re hearing from President Trump on the pandemic. It also found that their faith in the federal government’s response has sharply declined since last month. The president struck a bipartisan tone after previously taking shots at Democratic governors and officials. By the end of the week, though, the president was going after the media and seemed to differ from top health official Anthony Fauci about what Trump called the “tremendous promise” of using a common malaria drug to treat people who become sick with the virus. “It may work, it may not work. I feel good about it. That's all it is, just a feeling,”
    •  Trump said. “I'm a smart guy, I feel good about it and we're going to see,” he said. But Fauci threw some cold water on the hope of the drugs, saying evidence for it working was only “anecdotal” and that while Trump felt optimistic, “I like to prove things first.” Trump has a salesman’s optimism. That’s his instinct. But there’s a fine line between giving hope and giving false hope when what’s needed in a pandemic is sobriety and competence from leaders. It’s a line Trump is going to continue to try and walk, as uncertainty abounds about the magnitude of the coronavirus, its effects on families, American workers and the economy.
    March 20: 
    March 19: 
    March 18: 
    March 17: 
    March 16:
    March 15: 
    March 14: 
    •  The House passes a worker and business relief bill with paid leave guarantees for certain workers, expanded food assistance and unemployment insurance benefits, and employer tax credits.
    March 13:  
    • Trump stated: “I don’t take responsibility at all” … it was a “set of circumstances” and “rules, regulations and specification from a different time”; I guess Trump is not a “The Buck Stops Here” president.
    • Trump’s H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic Spin: In tweets and other appearances, Trump has repeatedly compared his response to the new coronavirus with President Barack Obama’s handling of the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. But Trump’s information is frequently incorrect or misleading — and the two viruses are very different. Trump declares a national emergency to access $50 billion for states and territories, and clears the way for fast-track waivers for hospitals and doctors as they respond to the virus. How many yeas will go by before Trump blames someone else? 
    • Trump states he personally was not responsible for dissolving the Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, which had been part of the National Security Council until his administration disbanded it and rolled its officials into another office. However, Democrats Misconstrued Trump Budget Remarks.
    • Trump’s spin on H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic: Trump is correct on the number of H1N1 cases and deaths, but it’s misleading to compare those figures to the current outbreak of COVID-19, which has just begun. It’s also not true that the Obama administration did nothing or waited a long time to act on the H1N1 influenza pandemic.
    March 11:  
    • Trump wrongly and falsely stated in his address to the nation that the health insurance industry has “agreed to waive patient co-payments for coronavirus treatment”. 
    • Trump incorrectly stated a freeze on cargo and falsely said the health insurance industry has "agreed to waive all co-payments for coronavirus treatments."
    • The World Health Organization (WHO) declares COVID-19 a pandemic
    March 10: 
    March 9:  
    March 8: 
    March 7: 
    March 6: 
    March 5:
    March 4: 
    March 2: 
    February 29:
     February 28: 
    • Fox News reported that Trump stated " we are totally prepared."
    • Cases rise across Europe, including Italy, Germany, France, England, Switzerland and Belarus.
    • Trump stated: “We’re ordering a lot of supplies. We’re ordering a lot if, elements that frankly we wouldn’t be ordering unless it was something like this. But we’re ordering a lot of different elements of medicine.”
    February 27: 
    February 26: 
    February 25: 
    •  Trump stated: “the CDC & my administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus”
    February 24: 
    February 23: 
    February 20: 
    February 14: 
    •  Trump stated: "We have a very small number of people in the country, right now, with it. It’s like around 12. Many of them are getting better. Some are fully recovered already. So we’re in very good shape."
    February 11: 
    February 4: 
    February 2: 
    January 30: 
    • Trump blocks travel from China.
    • Trump states in a campaign rally: We think we have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment - five. ... we think it’s going to have a very good ending for it."
    January 29: 
    January 24: 
    •  Trump tweeted: China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!
    January 22: 
    • Trump statement: A reporter asks if there are worries about a pandemic. Trump responds: "No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s — going to be just fine."
    January 21: 
    January 20: 
    January 3: 
    • Mike Pence falsely stated Qassem Soleimani "assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States." There is no evidence to support this statement.
    December 31:

    Share by: