Big media is covering up Trump’s terrifying incoherence in a time of emergency
By
Dan Froomkin
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Here is some of what Donald Trump had to say Wednesday evening at a briefing intended to inform and reassure the American public about a public-health emergency:
This will end. This will end. You look at flu season. I said 26,000 people. I never heard of a number like that: 26,000 people, going up to 69,000 people, doctor, you told me before. 69,000 people die every year — from 20 to 69 — every year from the flu. Think of that. That’s incredible. So far, the results of all of this that everybody is reading about — and part of the thing is, you want to keep it the way it is, you don’t want to see panic, because there’s no reason to be panicked about it — but when I mentioned the flu, I asked the various doctors, “Is this just like flu?” Because people die from the flu. And this is very unusual. And it is a little bit different, but in some ways it’s easier and in some ways it’s a little bit tougher, but we have it so well under control, I mean, we really have done a very good job. [ Watch video.]
Before and after knowledgeable public-health officials had made clear that a further spread of the coronavirus in the U.S. is inevitable:
I don’t think it’s inevitable. It probably will. It possibly will. It could be at a very small level or it could be at a larger level. Whatever happens, we’re totally prepared. We have the best people in the world. You see that from the study. We have the best prepared people, the best people in the world. Congress is willing to give us much more than we’re even asking for. That’s nice for a change. But we are totally ready, willing, and able to — it’s a term that we use, it’s “ready, willing, and able.” It’s going to be very well under control. Now, it may get bigger. It may get a little bigger. It may not get bigger at all. We’ll see what happens. But regardless of what happens, we’re totally prepared. [ Watch video.]
On the stock market declines:
I think the financial markets are very upset when they look at the Democrat candidates standing on that stage make fools out of themselves, and they say, “If we ever have a president like this” — and there’s always a possibility, it’s an election, you know, who knows what happens? I think we’re going to win, I think we’re going to win by a lot — but when they look at statements made by the people standing behind those podiums, I think that has a huge effect.
Reporter: You don’t you think it had to do with the coronavirus?
Well, I think it did, I think it did, but I think you can add quite a bit of selloff to what they’re seeing. Because they’re seeing the potential – you know, again, I think we’re going to win. I feel very confident of it. We’ve done everything – and much more — than I said we were going to do. You look at what we’ve done. What we’ve done is incredible, with the tax cuts and regulation cuts, and rebuilding our military, taking care of our vets and getting them choice and accountability. All of the things we’ve done. Protecting our Second Amendment. I mean, they view that, the Second Amendment, they’re going to destroy the Second Amendment. When people look at that, they say “this is not good.” So you add that in. I really believe that’s a factor. But, no, what we’re talking about is the virus. That’s what we’re talking about. I do believe that’s — I do believe in terms of CNBC and in terms of Fox Business, I do believe that’s a factor, yeah. And I think after I win the election, I think the stock market is going to boom like it’s never boomed before. Just like the last time I won the election. The day after the stock market went up like a rocket ship. [ Watch video.]
On the Democrats, in between asking for their cooperation:
I think Speaker Pelosi is incompetent. She lost the Congress once. I think she’s going to lose it again. She lifted my poll numbers up 10 points I never thought that I would see that so quickly and so easily. I’m leading everybody. We’re doing great. I don’t want to do it that way. It’s almost unfair if you think about it. But I think she’s incompetent.
I think she is not thinking about the country and instead of making a statement like that where I have been beating her routinely at everything instead of making a statement like that she should be saying we have to work together because we have a big problem potential only and may be it’s going to be a very little problem. I hope that it’s going to be a very little problem but we have to work together. Instead she wants to do that same thing with crying Chuck Schumer. [ Watch video.]
On his devastating budget cuts to the Centers for Disease Control:
We can get money. And we can increase staff. We know all the good people. There’s a question I asked the doctors before. Some of the people we cut, they haven’t been used for many, many years. If we ever need them we can get them very quickly. And rather than spending the money — and I’m a business person — I don’t like having thousands of people around when you don’t need them. When we need them, we can get them back very quickly. For instance, we’re bringing some people in tomorrow that are already in this great government that we have, and very specifically for this. We can build up very, very quickly, and we’ve already done that. I mean, we have a great staff, and using Mike, I’m doing that because he’s in the administration, and he’s very good at doing what he does and doing as it relates to this. [ Watch video.]
On staying healthy:
View this the same as the flu. When somebody sneezes, I mean, I try and bail out as much as possible when there’s sneezing. I had a man come up to me a week ago, I hadn’t seen him in a long time, and I said, “How you doing?” He said, “Fine, fine,” he hugged me, kissed me. I said, “Are you well?” He says “No.” He said, “I have the worst fever and the worst flu.” And he’s hugging and kissing me. So I said, excuse me, I went out and started washing my hands. So you have to do that. I really think, doctor, you want to treat this like you treat the flu, right? [ Watch video.]
Tell me this is normal.
Tell me this is unremarkable.
Tell me this is behavior by the President of the United States of United States of America at a critically important briefing about a potentially deadly pandemic that does not bear mentioning.
Wednesday’s briefing was arguably the most abnormal moment yet in a profoundly abnormal presidency.
But top news organizations, rather than accurately representing Trump’s alarming behavior, made it sound like nothing untoward happened at all.
They made it sound like some real news was made: That Trump put Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the government’s response to the coronavirus; that the president urged calm.
But even the Pence “news” appears to be a sham, and a clusterfuck: In addition to being basically a fuck-you to the medical community — given Pence’s proud defiance of scientific truths — it was apparently a last-minute decision based on political optics that blindsided Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who at the same time insisted that he was still in charge.
This one really wasn’t hard. It was obvious to anyone listening to Trump’s rambling, often incoherent, self-centered, stream-of-consciousness ad-libbing – much of it straight out of his political rallies — that:
Trump had no real understanding of what he was talking about.He had no sense of what was required of him as president.He sees this as being all about him.There are only so many things that can come out of his head.
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