The Donald Trump Score Card

Coronavirus Live Updates: Trump, Facing Criticism, Says He Will Increase Swab Production
The New York Times
April 19, 2020

Coronavirus Live Updates: Trump, Facing Criticism, Says He Will Increase Swab Production

excerpt:

"U.S. will delay some tariff payments for importers hit hard by the crisis, Trump says.

The Trump administration said late Sunday that the United States would defer certain tariff payments for 90 days to help some importers who have been hurt by the pandemic.

For weeks, American businesses, trade groups and lawmakers of both parties have lobbied the White House to roll back the tariffs President Trump had placed on hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign products, saying the taxes were compounding financial pain for companies struggling with economic fallout from the virus.

But the deferral will not apply to the tariffs that businesses have criticized the most — including those that Mr. Trump has placed on more than $250 billion of Chinese products, as well as on foreign steel, aluminum, washing machines and solar panels. The 90-day delay also excludes a large class of tariffs that the United States levies against foreign producers who receive unfair subsidies or sell their products at unfairly low prices.

Mr. Trump, who has proclaimed himself a “tariff man,” has frequently rebuffed calls to roll back tariffs, falsely stating that the levies are paid for solely by foreign firms. In fact, numerous studies have shown that American businesses and consumers bear the brunt of the tariffs.

The executive order allows the administration to defer tariff payments for goods imported in March and April. The option will only be available for importers with significant financial hardship, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement."

 

In new poll, 60 percent support keeping stay-at-home restrictions to fight coronavirus
Mark Murray
NBC News
April 19, 2020, 9:03 AM EDT

In new poll, 60 percent support keeping stay-at-home restrictions to fight coronavirus

excerpt:

"Trump’s overall job rating stands at 46 percent who approve, 51 percent who disapprove, which is identical to his score in March and is consistent with his numbers over the past two years.

Only 36 percent of respondents in the poll say they generally trust what Trump has said when it comes to the coronavirus, while 52 percent say they don’t trust him.

By comparison, 69 percent say they trust the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 66 percent trust their own governor; 60 percent trust Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert; 46 percent trust New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo; and 35 percent trust Vice President Mike Pence."

 

60 percent isn't exactly a high number considering, so should be under 50 in another couple of weeks

Not that it really matters, it will be kids, teens and their mothers that break containment first

 

January 22, 2020:

JOE KERNEN: the CDC-- has identified a case of coronavirus-- in Washington state. The Wuhan strain of this. If you remember SARS, that affected GDP. Travel-related effects. Do you-- have you been briefed by the CDC? And--

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I have, and--

JOE KERNEN: --are there worries about a pandemic at this point?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No. Not at all. And-- we’re-- 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.

JOE KERNEN: Okay. And President Xi-- there’s just some-- talk in China that maybe the transparency isn’t everything that it’s going to be. Do you trust that we’re going to know everything we need to know from China?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I do. I do. I have a great relationship with President Xi.

 

Is that when Biden visited there?

 

US coronavirus death toll surpasses 40,000
By John Bowden
04/19/20 07:58 PM EDT

US coronavirus death toll surpasses 40,000

 

The U.S. military death count for the Korean War is about 37,000.

 

Sports played in small groups are going to have a negligible effect on the viruses transmission

No need for emotions to determine policy rather than common Sense. Crazier restrictions are more likely to see the community as a whole give up faster

With the exception of Dick Cheney wanting to go duck hunting again, single player sports are harmless

 

Started by a Democrat

 

Trump's 'total authority' boast should've enraged Republicans. Instead they shrugged.
For decades, conservatives have pointed to the 10th Amendment as the very essence of decentralized government. Now, it's not clear what Trump's GOP supporters believe.
By Charlie Sykes, editor-at-large of the Bulwark and MSNBC contributor
April 16, 2020, 8:30 AM UTC

Opinion | Trump's total authority boast reveals the paradox — and perils — of Trumpism

excerpts:

There is something quintessentially Trumpian about the claim of total authority and zero responsibility. He alone can save us, he insists, but don’t blame him if he doesn’t.

So it was perhaps not surprising that the day after he claimed "total authority" over the decisions of state governments, he backed off. Instead, he said Tuesday night, he was "authorizing" the states to make their own decisions about reopening amid the coronavirus pandemic. Of course, the states didn't need his authorization, but the appearance of Trump as the man in charge but not responsible had to be maintained."


"This week his constitutional know-nothingism was again on proud display. When reporters asked Trump whether any governor agreed that he had total authority to countermand their orders, he answered: "I haven't asked anybody. Because you know why? I don't have to." When another reporter asked him to cite what constitutional provisions gave him the power to override governments that remained closed, Trump said, "Numerous provisions," but he didn't name any — because there are none."

 

Being an Actual Authoritarian Is Too Much Work for Trump
The president doesn’t like constraints on his power, but he doesn’t exactly like using his power either.
Quinta Jurecic, Contributing writer at The Atlantic and managing editor of Lawfare
Benjamin Wittes, Contributing writer at The Atlantic and editor in chief of Lawfare
April 14, 2020

Being an Actual Authoritarian Is Too Much Work for Trump

excerpt:

"The current crisis brings out Trump’s stark ambivalence toward his own political power. On the one hand, he loves the trappings of dictatorship. He famously envied the way Kim Jong Un’s people ritually revere the North Korean leader, at one point commenting that Kim “speaks, and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.” Likewise, Trump loves declaring that he has the “absolute right” to do things. Shows of authority clearly float his boat.

But wielding actual authority is hard work for a lazy man. And while crisis response can sometimes have an element of glamour—think of Cuomo’s success in winning over critics with his combination of decisive pandemic response and bomber jackets—the federal government’s role in addressing a plague spread out across 50 states is largely managerial, the life-or-death equivalent of fixing potholes. It involves tasks such as keeping track of supply chains and distributing ventilators and protective equipment.

This is not the kind of work that Trump enjoys. At a March press conference on the coronavirus, he complained, “Governors are supposed to be doing a lot of this work … The federal government is not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. You know, we’re not a shipping clerk.”

Even worse, if you wield actual authority, you become accountable for outcomes. The nature of executive power—embedded in the word “executive”—is that it is the power to do things: not to vote or to appropriate money or to deliberate, but to actually do. And if a leader does things, it follows perforce, particularly in an electoral system, that he can be held accountable for the things he did, or didn’t do, or did badly. Trump hates accountability beyond all things. This is the man, after all, who said only a few weeks ago of the federal government’s catastrophic response to the coronavirus, “I don’t take responsibility at all.”"

 

Being an Actual Authoritarian Is Too Much Work for Trump

excerpt:

"But Trump is not acting like a dictator—neither in the Roman sense nor in the modern sense. He likes to make noise about how much power he has, while he remains shy about using any of it. Instead of drawing on his authority under the Defense Production Act to force companies to manufacture ventilators and protective equipment, for example, he’s made a lot of noise about invoking that authority while declining to use it aggressively. He’s perfectly content to give daily press briefings while governors decide how to handle the situation in their states. He then criticizes them, both on behalf of those disgruntled by the measures themselves and for not making the virus go away faster.

Trump is doing this for a reason. He’s savvy enough to know that the coronavirus crisis is not going to crown him with laurels. Perhaps he could have managed to win accolades had he acted quickly and aggressively and been very lucky—but he wasn’t lucky, and his government badly botched nearly all aspects of the early response. And the result is an unenviable one for a politician who has to face voters in a few short months: tens of thousands of dead Americans and a cratering economy that cannot revive while everyone is shut up at home to prevent the death toll from skyrocketing further."

 

Trump, Head of Government, Leans Into Antigovernment Message
With his poll numbers fading after a rally-around-the-leader bump, the president is stoking protests against stay-at-home orders.
By Maggie Haberman
April 20, 2020
Updated 9:21 a.m. ET

Trump, Head of Government, Leans Into Antigovernment Message

excerpt:

"Not even the president’s re-election campaign can harness him: His team is often reactive to his moods and whims, trying but not always succeeding in steering him in a particular direction. Now, with Mr. Trump’s poll numbers falling after a rally-around-the-leader bump, he is road-testing a new turn on a familiar theme — veering into messages aimed at appealing to Americans whose lives have been disrupted by the legally enforceable stay-at-home orders.

Whether his latest theme will be effective for him is an open question: In an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released on Sunday, just 36 percent of voters said they generally trusted what Mr. Trump says about the coronavirus.

But the president, who ran as an insurgent in 2016, is most comfortable raging against the machine of government, even when he is the one running the country. And while the coronavirus is in every state in the union, it is heavily affecting minority and low-income communities."

 

Trump, Head of Government, Leans Into Antigovernment Message

excerpt:

"Mobilizing anger and mistrust toward the government was a crucial factor for Mr. Trump in the last presidential election. And for many months he has been looking for ways to contrast himself with former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and a Washington lifer.

The problem? Mr. Trump is now president, and disowning responsibility for his administration’s slow and problem-plagued response to the coronavirus could prove difficult. And protests can be an unpredictable factor, particularly at a moment of economic unrest."

 

Trump theatrics.


Trump shocks in time of crisis with his standard approach
Stephen Collinson Profile
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN

Updated 9:19 AM ET, Mon April 20, 2020

Trump shocks in time of coronavirus crisis with his standard approach - CNNPolitics

excerpt:

"The President's plan to use Sunday's briefing to polish his own personal narrative became clear when he read out and held up a Wall Street Journal opinion column praising his leadership.

He also played an out-of-context video of New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo praising his administration's work — including on providing ventilators — and said reporters should praise him too.
Yet Trump insisted after his trawl for personal credit: "It's not about me. Nothing is about me."

This came on the day when US deaths from the pandemic topped 40,000 and raced upwards, though Trump claimed he had saved a million lives through his leadership — despite taking several months to recognize the magnitude of the unfolding disaster."

 

Trump, Head of Government, Leans Into Antigovernment Message

excerpt:

"On NBC's "Meet the Press," Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said he could "probably double, maybe even triple testing in Ohio virtually overnight," with more reagents.

The President, however, appeared to mock such complaints, appearing in the briefing room with a swab that he opened with a theatrical flourish in front of the cameras.

"Reagents and swabs are so easy to get," Trump said. But in a recognition that the opposite is the case, the President invoked the Defense Production Act to surge production of swabs to an addition 20 million per month.

But his move again raised the question of why he waited so long to act, a consistent undercurrent of his leadership during the pandemic. Experts and medical professionals have been warning for months that a reagent shortage was almost certain to occur."

 

Yeah because in the early 1950's in America there was a strong communist movement. It was a very partisan opinion to want to fight the Chinese.

Have you heard of the Cold War or Vietnam? Do you see a pattern?

 

Yeah, Democrats love starting wars

 

Lol You might wanna look a bit better into it.