President Crankypants Getting His Coronavirus Briefings From Fox News Again

DUMB MEDICAL 'EXPERTS' ARE RUINING HIS BEAUTIFUL ECONOMY!

Donald Trump is bored, y'all.

And he wants to go outside and do a rally where all the deplorables scream praises at him, but he's not allowed, because the so-called "doctors" say if he does that, all the deplorables are just going to spray coronavirus on each other. Pfffffft, "doctors." Didn't they hear Trump has made a science medicine discovery that if you put some malaria drug in a milkshake and shake it around while you grab them by the pussy, coronavirus is cured? Like, Fox News totally says it works. (And we hope it does! In the meantime, Trump needs to STFU about it. The experts will let us know.)

Anyway, Trump is ALL-CAPS-ing.

Great. Awesome.

Trump spent last night tweeting that, and also RTing fellow deplorables, who somehow all seemed to have the same idea.

Look, "Renee" knows 15 days is enough. And @SexCounseling knows you can just stay away from people if you know they are sick. How is any of this complicated?

Sorry, Dr. Fauci, you've been replaced. By, um, "Steph93065."

It's almost like they're all reading from the same playbook. Hey, we wonder if maybe FOX NEWS said something about the lockdowns on Sunday night, something that featured these exact talking points! Is that a good thing for us to wonder?

Oh golly, here it is!

im having a hard time wrapping my head around this making it on air https: //t.co/8wnRuUL0xT

— Andrew Lawrence (@Andrew Lawrence) 1584941159.0 

What a very big surprise this is. Donald Trump copy/pasting brain thoughts from Fox News and tweeting them out as if the network doesn't have its hand up his puppet ass at all times? You don't say. And Fox News was being so responsible about coronavirus for like eight seconds , too!

The news is starting to report that, behind the scenes, Trump is getting frustrated with all these experts doing Deep State to him by ruining his beautiful economy, just because they don't want everybody to die.

So MAYBE — hear him out! — everybody should just go outside again? Because what do "experts" know about "pandemic" or "economy"?

[A]t the White House, in recent days, there has been a growing sentiment that medical experts were allowed to set policy that has hurt the economy , and there has been a push to find ways to let people start returning to work.

Pandemic expert Yaneer Bar-Yam says we actually need a five-week lockdown. Just FYI.

Trump is also annoyed with Dr. Anthony Fauci, who always goes out there and says the truth, even when it contradicts whatever lie Trump just told:

Mr. Trump has become frustrated with Dr. Fauci's blunt approach at the briefing lectern, which often contradicts things the president has just said, according to two people familiar with the dynamic.

(Speaking of Trump's lies, ultimate factchecker Daniel Dale has compiled a list of all the lies Trump has told about the novel coronavirus over at CNN. Trump's latest one? SURPRISE, the auto industry actually is not manufacturing ventilators, SURPRISE.)

Anyway, lest you think this is just Trump expressing his anal glands on Twitter, here's Larry Kudlow saying basically the same thing on Fox News today:

Here's video of Larry Kudlow telling Fox News that "the president is right" about possibly ending social distancing… https: //t.co/0Zgel7Ai7G

— Justin Baragona (@Justin Baragona) 1584980182.0 

It's becoming clear that Trump's embrace of "We've Only GotFour Minutes15 Days To Save The World" was a marketing campaign, and nothing else. He really thinks we can just go back to normal after next Monday and everybody will eat their malaria pills mashed up into peanut butter and then he can go back to campaigning.

And as the New York Times reports, Mike Pence even said at the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday that next Monday, they'll start letting people go back to work, if they've already been exposed and promise to wear a mask. (Of course, there's no way to know how many people have been exposed, or if the idea of herd immunity developing is even realistic, since we're still not broadly testing people. Also, how many people will have died by Monday?)

As we published this piece, the Washington Post updated its own reporting with ALL KINDSA horrifying new details, including that there really has been a "pivot" in thinking in the White House. Out is Fauci's gross so-called "science." In is ... this shit:

Conservative economists Steven Moore and Art Laffer have been lobbying the White House for more than a week to strongly consider scaling back the recommendation that restaurants, stores and other gathering spots be closed ...

Oh God. And what is Trump worried about? Not people dying, obviously!

[Trump] is worried about the impact of soaring unemployment and severe economic contraction on his 2020 presidential reelection bid, and fielded phone calls for much of the weekend from alarmed business leaders. He remains fixated on the plummeting stock market, is chafing at the idea of the country remaining closed until the summer and growing tired of talking only about coronavirus, one person said.

You guys, he's just SICK of talking about it!

Go read the rest of that article when you're done here. It's appalling.

It's not that the question of the economy isn't germane. Obviously we do have to figure out how to keep the economy from completely cratering past the point of no return during this crisis. For instance, maybe the Senate could pass a stimulus package that isn't just Republicans doing unchecked corporate giveaways, a package that actually helps the American people, like the Democrats are trying to make them do. That would be a start.

But ending social distancing next week ain't gonna do it, because of how MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WOULD GET SICK AND MANY WOULD DIE. Know what happens when you go back to normal too fast? Ask Hong Kong right now. And to be clear, we are nowhere near   the top of our peak in the US.

So in this scenario — what may end up being the Trump scenario — the pandemic spreads AND the economy gets even more fucked. Which ... is the result we would have expected with Trump in charge anyway.

Even Lindsey Graham understands this:

There is no functioning economy unless we control the virus.

— Lindsey Graham (@Lindsey Graham) 1584979632.0 

The surgeon general, Jerome Adams, went on "Today" this morning to give America a hard truth preview of what this week is really going to be like:

"I want America to understand: This week, it's going to get bad," [said Adams.] "We really, really need everyone to stay at home. … There are not enough people out there who are taking this seriously."

Like Donald Trump, we guess. And Rand Paul, when he was maybe helicoptering coronavirus all over everybody at the Senate gym.

Trump might be getting very bored and tired of social distancing, but he knows the part of the coronavirus response he wants to keep:

Just a big, beautiful WALL. That'll do it, for sure!

Stay safe, everyone. The federal government does not have this situation under control.

[ New York Times / Washington Post ]

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