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Coronavirus/COVID-19 Updates
- After seeing an ad critical of his performance created by The Lincoln Project, Trump went on a Tweetstorm slightly before 1 AM.
The President unleashed a series of Tweet: “A group of RINO Republicans who failed badly 12 years ago, then again 8 years ago, and then got BADLY beaten by me, a political first timer, 4 years ago, have copied (no imagination) the concept of an ad from Ronald Reagan, “Morning in America”, doing everything possible to….”
“….because they don’t know how to win, and their so-called Lincoln Project is a disgrace to Honest Abe. I don’t know what Kellyanne did to her deranged loser of a husband, Moonface, but it must have been really bad. John Weaver lost big for Kasich (to me). Crazed Rick Wilson….
“….lost for Evan “McMuffin” McMullin (to me). Steve Schmidt & Reed Galvin lost for John McCain, Romney’s campaign manager (?) lost big to “O”, & Jennifer Horn got thrown out of the New Hampshire Republican Party. They’re all LOSERS, but Abe Lincoln, Republican, is all smiles!”
- President Trump on Tuesday said Anthony Fauci will be allowed to testify before the Senate next week, but that he would prevent the government’s top infectious diseases expert from appearing before the Democratically-controlled House because he believes it’s full of “Trump haters.”
When asked why he will not permit Fauci to appear before the House, Trump replied, “Because the House is a set up. The House is a bunch of Trump haters … they, frankly, want our situation to be unsuccessful, which means death.”
- President Trump downplayed the significance of a key forecasting model used by the White House that now shows the U.S. death toll doubling as states ease restrictions from roughly 70,000 lives in early August to nearly 135,000 by that time.
Trump inaccurately claimed that the model doesn’t take into account mitigation measures.
- Vice President Pence says the White House task force on coronavirus will begin winding down and is set to be scaled back by Memorial Day, a surprising decision that comes as most states are preparing to loosen restrictions meant to slow the spread of the pandemic. Members are likely to return to their respective departments and manage the coronavirus response from there.
- The Trump administration’s former vaccine chief repeatedly warned top officials about shortage of critical resources and supplies for fighting the coronavirus as early as January but the administration took no action, according to a whistleblower complaint from Rick Bright, the former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority who was ousted by Trump officials.
He also said he was pressured to “award lucrative contracts for… drugs even though they lacked scientific merit.”
- Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, the chairman of the Senate’s small business committee, blocked an attempt by Democrats to pass a bill that would require the Trump administration to report new details on how small business aid is being dispersed amid the coronavirus pandemic as they seek to ensure funds go to small businesses.
- “They will be, and so will other doctors, and so will other experts in the field,” the president said Tuesday when asked if Fauci and Birx, who both serve on the task force, would continue advising the White House on its COVID-19 efforts. “We are bringing our country back.”
- Guidelines at the Honeywell plant in Arizona, which is mass producing N95 face masks crucial for health care providers during the pandemic, read: “Please wear your mask at all times.”
Trump and his officials didn’t wear a mask on their tour of the facility, even though when asked before the trip if he’d wear a mask, the president had responded: “If it’s a mask facility, I will. I don’t know if it’s a mask facility.”
- President Trump on Tuesday said some people would be “affected badly” by the decision to begin reopening the country despite the coronavirus pandemic, but that it was important to get the economy moving.
Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open and we have to get it open soon,” Trump said Tuesday. He later doubled down, saying in an ABC News interview: “It’s possible there will be some [deaths], because you won’t be locked into an apartment or a house or whatever it is.”
- Trump told David Muir that Obama left him with broken tests.
NOTE: The COVID19 virus didn’t exist until 2019.
- The Pentagon’s top uniformed official maintained that available evidence indicates the virus that has caused a global pandemic was natural and not man-made or released purposely from a Chinese lab.
“The weight of evidence — nothing’s conclusive — the weight of evidence is that it was natural and not man-made,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Army Gen. Mark Milley said of the coronavirus.
- A complaint filed by a whistleblower alleges that the team established by Jared Kushner which was responsible for PPE had little success in helping the government secure such equipment, in part because none of the team members had significant experience in health care, procurement or supply-chain operations. In addition, none of the volunteers had relationships with manufacturers or a clear understanding of customs requirements or Food and Drug Administration rules, and two senior administration officials.
Supply-chain volunteers were instructed to fast-track protective equipment leads from “VIPs,” including conservative journalists friendly to the White House, according to the complaint and one senior administration official.
Other Administration News
- CBS White House correspondent Paula Reid on Tuesday embraced a dig from President Trump that she is not like iconic actress Donna Reed, who often portrayed a ’50s housewife in film and television, with Reid responding: “Fact Check: True.”
“It wasn’t Donna Reed, I can tell you that,” Trump said in an interview with the New York Post. “Paula Reid, she’s sitting there and I say, ‘How angry. I mean, what’s the purpose?’ They’re not even tough questions, but you see the attitude of these people, it’s like incredible,” he added.
Reid responded with a tweet to her more than 266,000 followers.
“President Trump tells @nypost I am nothing like 50’s American archetypal mom Donna Reed. Fact-check: True,” she wrote, earning more than 17,000 likes.
- President Trump rejected the idea of granting statehood to the District of Columbia, arguing in a new interview it would be too politically beneficial to Democrats.
“D.C. will never be a state,” Trump told The New York Post during an Oval Office interview. “You mean District of Columbia, a state? Why? So we can have two more Democratic — Democrat senators and five more congressmen? No thank you. That’ll never happen.”
Sources: ABC News, Axios, CBS News, CNN, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Vanity Fair, Washington Post
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