Lindsey Graham's Pandemic Sunday Show Idiocy

It's your Sunday Rundown!

Greetings, Wonkers, time for your rundown of all the terrible things that happened on the Sunday shows.

We begin with Fox News's "Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo," which had South Carolina senator and brett Kavanaugh defender (never forget) Lindsey Graham on to talk about the stimulus passed by Congress. But it was when Bartiromo brought up Nancy Pelosi that Graham got the vapors:

Sen. Graham pins Pelosi's attack on Trump as 'shameful, disgusting'    www.youtube.com   

BARTIROMO: Well take us behind the curtain to tell us how this all shook out, Senator, because Nancy Pelosi said she did jujitsu on this relief bill...

GRAHAM: Right.

BARTIROMO: ... to get it where it needs to be.

GRAHAM: Yes.

BARTIROMO: And this morning, this weekend, she is saying that the president is fiddling around while people are dying, Senator.

GRAHAM: No, what she said, she's blaming the president of the United States for people dying because of the way he's led the country.That's the most shameful, disgusting statement by any politician in modern history.Let me tell you, we have seen the best of America from our citizens helping each other, delivering groceries, having special shopping hours for senior citizens.She's the first politician to blame another politician for people dying.This is the same speaker of the House who held up the bill in the Senate for days because she wanted same-day voting, she wanted carbon neutrality for the airlines, she wanted $75 million for the endowment for the humanities, and $25 million for the Kennedy Center. She is the one that held up the package in the Senate for days to get the Green New Deal put in a recovery package.So it's the most shameful, disgusting thing I have heard yet. And it needs to stop.

Mind you that Lindsey Graham has been in Congress through Terri Schiavo,   Brett Kavanaugh and Dennis Hastert . But the kicker of hypocritical bullshit is Graham's "disgust" at blaming a politician for people dying like THIS motherfucker never heard of Benghazi and how Republicans blamed Hillary Clinton ("another politician") for "people dying" there.

So much so, that it reminds me of my favorite Susan Rice clip of all time:

"He's a piece of shit." — @AmbassadorRice on Lindsey Graham Hear the rest of her interview on tomorrow's… https: //t.co/IarYqwO6YP

— Pod Save America (@Pod Save America) 1571777378.0 

Bartiromo brought up a great point, and and Graham had to concede:

BARTIROMO: Well, you agreed to send $25 million to the Kennedy Center. You put that in a so-called relief bill, right?

GRAHAM: Yes, because she wouldn't let the -- yes, so, she put a gun to our head and said, we will not get this through the House until you put $25 million for the Kennedy Center.

Sounds like you got "jujitsu-ed", Graham.

Next we go to NBC's "Meet The Press," where Chuck Todd sometimes, by accident, stumbles into journalism. Todd had on Dr. Deborah Birx of Trump's Coronavirus task force to ask a few questions about the current state of our pandemic and what we should expect for the next few weeks. When Todd asked about state governments not being able to get the equipment they need, Birx hinted at a claim that would become much bigger later that day:

BIRX: I think at this moment we're asking every single governor and every single mayor to prepare like New York is preparing now. Know where every hospital is, public, private. Know where every one of your surgical centers are. […].Know where every piece of equipment is in the state.

This talking point seems to put the burden on medical equipment/supplies on states somehow not inventorying, instead of, as reported by the Washington Post , the unusual way the federal goverment has been fulfilling states' requests for supplies:

Anecdotally, there are wide differences, and they do not appear to follow discernible political or geographic lines. Democratic-leaning Massachusetts, which has had a serious outbreak in Boston, has received 17 percent of the protective gear it requested, according to state leaders. Maine requested a half-million N95 specialized protective masks and received 25,558 — about 5 percent of what it sought. The shipment delivered to Colorado — 49,000 N95 masks, 115,000 surgical masks and other supplies — would be "enough for only one full day of statewide operations," Rep. Scott R. Tipton (R-Colo.) told the White House in a letter several days ago. [...]

Florida has been an exception in its dealings with the stockpile: The state submitted a request on March 11 for 430,000 surgical masks, 180,000 N95 respirators, 82,000 face shields and 238,000 gloves, among other supplies — and received a shipment with everything three days later, according to figures from the state's Division of Emergency Management. It received an identical shipment on March 23, according to the division, and is awaiting a third.

Jesus yikes! It almost looks like he's letting people suffer just because they live in states that didn't vote for him. Seems like that should be a pretty gigantic scandal.

Birx was then asked about Trump's arbitrary Easter deadline to remove social distancing guidelines, which has now predictably been extended/tossed out the window, and the answers were sketchy:

Full Birx: Every Metro Should 'Assume' An Outbreak Like New York | Meet The Press | NBC News    www.youtube.com   

BIRX: What I wanted to be very clear on is every metro area should assume that they could have an outbreak equivalent to New York and do everything right now to prevent it. If they mitigate now before they start seeing cases in the emergency room and in the hospital, once you see those, the virus has been spreading for days to weeks. So this is really my call on every mayor to prepare now.

TODD: So it sounds like these guidelines are going to be extended at least another couple of weeks. Is that fair -- as Americans are watching, should they be prepared to be hunkering down for the rest of April?

BIRX: My job today is to put all the data together, the integrated data of testing, case reporting, the global situation, and prepare the best briefing I can for the president and vice president so they have all the data to make the decision that's best for the American people.

TODD: So what is your recommendation? What recommendation are you going to be giving to them? Or are you not sharing that with us?

BIRX: I'm going to share it with the president and vice president first.

It seems like it should have been an easy answer and the whole reason to appear on a Sunday show should be to share or inform the public, but it seems Birx still has to surf the waves of Trump's fickle narccissim.

Over on ABC's "This Week," Martha Raddatz had White House economic council director and half-melted wax figure Larry Kudlow speak about the just-passed stimulus. But Raddatz pushed back after Kudlow insisted no one expected this virus to be this serious:

Kudlow says one-third of the whole economy covered by new assistance package | ABC News    www.youtube.com   

RADDATZ: Mr. Kudlow, [...] it was also just a month ago you told CNBC that you thought the virus was contained in the country, even though doctors were warning others -- otherwise, you also downplayed the threat of a long-lasting economic tragedy. You have since said that was based on facts at the time.

KUDLOW: Yes.

RADDATZ: But why should people trust you this morning with your prediction?

KUDLOW: Look, I'm as good as the facts are. And at the time I made that statement, the facts were contained. The president had just put the travel restrictions on China and a lot of people agreed with me. In fact, at the time, a lot of people thought that the flu was worse than this virus. But as soon as the facts changed, we changed our whole posture and our whole strategy, and we've gone full bore, as I said. No package like this has ever been passed Congress before.

This would be more believable if we didn't know the White House had assessments that said different, as this helpful recap from "Meet The Press" illustrates:

 youtu.be   

It is absolutely ludicrous to think Kudlow was not aware of any of this, especially when Trump's incoming people were also briefed before his inauguration about this possibility, a briefing where now-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross "was spotted with his eyes closed on more than one occasion" and now-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was "especially dismissive in conversations on the sidelines of the session."

But Kudlow is especially renowned for his "impeccable" predictive skills:

 youtu.be   

Let's never forget that's who Larry Kudlow is.

Until next Sunday, have a week!

 
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