Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Trump's COVID-19 Briefing: Working Group Briefing With More of His Erratic Message

Many Faces and Messages from the LinC (Liar-in-Chief)
(Well over 16,000 lies to date: What to believe)

Updated (March 17) – new Trump steps now (ABC News): Now he puts the blame squarely on China again casting the effort in military terms and referring to the disease with a term that has sparked backlash in the past – to wit:

He stated (Wednesday, March 18) at W/H CoVID-19 working group PR briefing to the nation on how the government is responding to the coronavirus crisis by saying:I would like to begin by announcing some important developments in our war against the Chinese virus.” 

And, then this:We’ll be invoking the *Defense Production Act (DPA – 1950) just in case we need it. In other words – I think you will know what it is – and it can do a lot of good things if we need it, and we will have it all completed, signing it in just a little while, right after I'm finished with this conference. I'll be signing it.” 

(NOTE: This gives him the power to direct civilian businesses to help meet orders for products necessary for the national defense).


*The DPA provisions are in Pub. L. 81–774 and has been reauthorized more than 50 times since 1950. The Act contains three major sections.

The first: Authorizes any president to require businesses to sign contracts or fulfill orders deemed necessary for national defense.

The second: Authorizes the President to establish mechanisms (such as regulations, orders or agencies) to allocate materials, services and facilities to promote national defense.

The third section: Authorizes the President to control the civilian economy so that scarce and/or critical materials necessary to the national defense effort are available for defense needs.

The Act also authorizes the President to: (1) requisition property, (2) force industry to expand production and the supply of basic resources, (3) impose wage and price controls, (4) settle labor disputes, (5) control consumer and real estate credit, (6) establish contractual priorities, and (7) to allocate raw materials towards national defense.

The authority to place contracts under the DPA is the part of the Act most often used by the DOD in the 1970s.

Most of the other functions of the Act are administered by the Office of Strategic Industries and Economic Security (SIES) in the Bureau of Industry and Security in the Department of Commerce.

Trump also announced: We are sending, upon request, two Navy hospital ships. They are being prepared right now. They are massive ships. They’re the big white ships with the Red Cross on the sides. One is called the Mercy and the other is called the Comfort. And they are in tip-top shape.”

He also said: Today I can announce further steps expand testing capacity. We are working with several groups to determine if the self-swab, the much easier process than the current process that is not very nice to do. I can tell you, because I did it.”

Finally he said:Now it's our time. We must sacrifice together, because we are all in this together, and we will come through together. It's the invisible enemy. That's always the toughest enemy. But we are going to defeat the invisible enemy. I think we are going to do it even faster than we thought, and it'll be a complete victory. It'll be a total victory.”

Trump then tweeted also on Wednesday morning “That by mutual consent the U.S. will be temporarily closing the northern border with Canada to non-essential traffic. Trade will not be affected, as the number of U.S. cases of the novel coronavirus jumped overnight to nearly 6,000 across all 50 states and as Americans enter the third day of a 15-day critical period meant to flatten the curve of the virus spreading.”


WASHINGTON — For weeks, Trump minimized the coronavirus, mocked concern about it and treated the risk from it cavalierly. On Tuesday (March 17) he took to the White House lectern and made a remarkable assertion: He knew it was a pandemic all along, telling reporters: “This is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”

Ding, not true – totally false. His trails of coVID-19 lies and BS:

·       On January 22, when he was asked by a CNBC reporter whether there were “worries about a pandemic,” he replied: “No, not at all. 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.”
·       On February 26, at a White House news conference, commenting on the country’s first reported cases he said in part: We’re going to be pretty soon at only five people. And we could be at just one or two people over the next short period of time. So we’ve had very good luck.”
·       On February 27, at a White House meeting:It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.”
·       On March 7, standing next to President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil at Mar-a-Lago when asked if he was concerned that the virus was spreading closer to Washington:No, I’m not concerned at all. No, I’m not. No, we’ve done a great job.” (NOTE: At least three members of the Brazilian delegation and one Trump donor at Mar-a-Lago that weekend later tested positive for the virus.)
·       On March 16, in the White House briefing room, warning that the outbreak would “wash” away this summer he said:So it could be right in that period of time where it, I say, wash — it washes through. Other people don’t like that term. But where it washes through.”
·       That was part of Trump’s inching toward a more urgent tone in recent days, but that assertion he made on Tuesday (March 17) that “he had long seen the pandemic coming” was the most abrupt pivot yet from the voluminous number of claims and caustic remarks he has made about the disease. On Tuesday (March 17) Trump spent much of a lengthy news conference praising his administration’s response to the pandemic, saying the only mistake his administration made had been a mismanagement of relationships with the news media.
·       Then when asked why he had suddenly adopted a somber and realistic tone about the virus on Tuesday (March 18), he denied that he had changed his mind at all, saying:No, I’ve always viewed it as very serious. There was no difference yesterday from days before. I feel the tone is similar, but some people said it wasn’t.”

Besides denying the seriousness of the coronavirus over the past two months, he had also displayed an acerbic tone toward people who took it more seriously. For example:

February 28, at campaign rally in SC, Trump accused Democrats and the news media of hysteria and unfairly criticizing his administration by engaging in what he said was a political “hoax.”

Some of his critics have stretched his comment to suggest that he was calling the virus itself a hoax, but his supporters have argued that he was referring to the Democratic criticism, not the virus itself.

And until recently, he and several of his advisers had privately mocked HHS Secretary, Alex Azar II, as an alarmist. And, another theme has been Trump’s offering inaccurate information.

February 10, at a campaign rally he suggested that the virus would be gone by April, a claim he has frequently repeated, even though his advisers had warned him that much about the virus was still not known.
As his administration came under intense criticism for a lack of urgency in issuing guidance to Americans or expediting tests for the virus, Trump himself continued misrepresenting what was available.

On March 6 while visiting the CDE in Atlanta:Anybody right now and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They’re there. They have the tests and the tests are beautiful.”

During that same CDC visit, Trump praised his own “natural ability” to grasp scientific theories, and then he likened the quality of the test to a White House recounting to reporters and asking them about his Ukraine phone call with Zelensky saying: The transcription was perfect, right? This was not as perfect as that, but pretty good.”

While his administration struggled to form a uniform answer about testing, Trump also made misleading claims about whether there would be a vaccine for the virus.

On February 29, he said a vaccine would be available very quickly and very rapidly,” as he praised his administration’s actions as “the most aggressive taken by any country.”

His statement about how long it would take for a vaccine to be publicly available was then on the spot corrected by Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of the coronavirus task force, who spoke right in front of reporters and Trump, who just stood there expressionless.

This week, rump announced that a vaccine candidate was entering a clinical trial — only the first phase in a lengthy process to find a preventive measure that could up to 18 months according to medical professionals.

My 2 cents: As I have said before and again, Trump is not responsible for this deadly virus. 

However and thankfully, he is now finally taking action to help overall, but he reacted slowly and in always in true and typically Trump.

With his flare for bragging and fluffing by others - is that only he knows the issue better than anyone else even before and after medical experts dispute and correct him.  He simply does not care or seem to be honestly concerned as his is style as the examples above clearly show and in his own words NOT mine or anyone else’s.

Now with a lot of action by States and Congress watch him start taking credit for the steps they are taking without even blinking, but sustaining his blaming when he feels like it. 

In short, the man is incorrigible. 

Thanks for stopping by.

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