TRUMPS ACTIONS

I originally was going to take the 7^th day as a day of rest, as others of greatness have suggested.  I was also going to concentrate on my manuscript, however, a few things came to my attention while reading 2 newspapers and watching Meet The Press.  So appalling the information gleaned from the media, I had to transcribe the boorishness, lies, and outright incompetence this avaricistic, aphoristic lying clown we have as a leader.

The first tidbit was from Meet The Press when Dr. Fauci, director of the NIH, stated that the delay in response created a situation where more lives could have been spared.  A nice way to sugar coat the death toll would be less with a rapid response

A NY Times headline article was “Despite Timely Alerts, Trump Was Slow to Act”.  Huh! Ok put two and two together you get Trump caused unnecessary deaths.  Let us examine and let the reader make his/her own conclusion. 

January 18^th at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Alex Azar HHS secretary briefed Trump on the seriousness of the outbreak and Trump projected it as a “passing problem”.  On January 28^th a senior medical advisor Dr. Mecher, with the Department of Veterans Affairs, warned in an email distributed to government and university medical experts, of the rapid spread of the virus which was hard to believe.

  This was a week before the first case was diagnosed in the U.S. and 6 weeks prior to Trump taking aggressive actions. Dr. Mecher was attempting to give a wake-up call.  It must be noted he was not alone in his assessment.  Top advisors, cabinet department leaders, the defense department and intelligence department were all sounding the alarm.  Trump fiddled like Nero and the appearance was of a slow reaction attempting to distort the message and assign blame.  Was his greed and avarice with a booming economy to blame for his inaction, knowing a disruption would destroy gains?  Was he too busy talking to the corporate executives rather than medical experts? 

A memo by peter Navarro, Trumps trade advisor, outlined the potential for ½ million deaths and trillions of dollars in economic loss. On Jan. 30^th Alex Azar II, directly warned Trump of the possibility of a pandemic.  This was the second warning and Trump called Azar “an alarmist”.  Mr. Azar in Feb., announced that the government was going to establish “surveillance” system in cities to establish hot spots and where to concentrate efforts.  This effort was delayed for weeks. 

Dr. Kadlec and a group of doctors wanted to meet with Trump, but he was away on a trip to India. In a memo on Feb 14^th, (the third week in Feb!!) they agreed to make their case for social distancing and other drastic measures upon The President’s return.  Health experts joined together to recommend a plan of action to corral the virus. The memo did not advocate an immediate shutdown, only suggested a plan. 

Their recommendation was social distancing, sheltering in place, and staying away from work with the exception of essential services.  Prior to his return, Dr.Messionner  a Director for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, jumped the gun and issued the warning about the impact of the virus.  The stock market dumped, Trump had not been warned and he was furious that Messionner had unnecessarily scared the public.  In mid-March, a 2 week delay, Trump finally agreed to social distancing across the country, bringing the economy to a standstill.  The thought of a bad economy was an omen for his re-election.  The daily White House briefings are Trump’s attempt to re-write history.  He declared he “felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic”, uh yeah!  He also stated he had to be a “cheerleader for the country”.  This explains his pension for foisting the responsibility onto the states for the virus response.  From Feb 26^th to Mar 16^th, the cases grew from 15 to over 4200.  Trump insisted on focusing on false messaging and assignment of Pence to shoulder the blame.

   Trump took his first action by restricting flights in Jan. from China to the U.S.  It was March 11^th before he gave the order to ban flights from Europe after knowing of the ravages of the virus in Italy, Spain, and Iran.  The pandemic had an initial U.S. outbreak in Seattle, where there a large number of Chinese citizens that frequent their relatives abroad.  The second wave was in New York where travelers from Italy, Spain and various other European countries were initially allowed to return.  His actions were a farce.  400,000 individuals returned after his shutdown of flights and 40,000 came back from China. The bulk came back from Europe where the Virus had taken hold.  This made the communal spread a sure bet.  Even Kelly Ann Conway had to impress upon him the lunacy of loosening the restrictions prematurely.  She said if the result was a resurgence, the deaths would be on his hands.  I wonder how Trump thinks of the deaths he caused with the Mike Pence’s inaction?  It was obviously his fault since he was assigned as the pandemic task force leader.  Just like it is Jerrod’s fault for the lack of peace in the Middle East?  Per capita, we are No.1 in both numbers of infected individuals and the No.1 in Deaths in the world.  Trump is keeping the U.S. #1.

Happy Easter!