The President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, wants you to know that America will defeat the COVID-19 virus, “which began in China.”
Addressing the nation this evening, President Trump made one thing very clear: he is not to be blamed for this virus. After namechecking China at the start of his remarks, President Trump then immediately and incorrectly placed the blame for American cases of COVID-19 firmly on Europe.
President Trump blamed “Europe” for seeding cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. — he referred to the virus mostly as “the virus” throughout his address, but did once refer to it as “coronavirus” — responding to the threat of its spread across the European Union by suspending for 30 days all travel from Europe.
“Anything coming from Europe to the U.S. is what we’re talking about,” President Trump clarified, adding that exemptions would be made for cleared individuals and the U.K.
The President then read off a litany of policy measures which at times it appeared he was reading and attempting to process for the first time: health insurance copays waived for coronavirus treatment (but conspicuously not for testing. [UPDATE: Spokesperson for health insurance lobby says Trump got it backwards, “For testing. Not for treatment.” h/t Sarah Owermohle]), making “antiviral therapies available” (in something called “record time”) and touting coronavirus testing capabilities that are “expanding rapidly, day by day, we moving very quickly.”
“The risk is very, very low,” Trump reassured Americans, describing a virus which just moments ago had caused him to suspend travel from Europe, adding that “young and healthy people can expect to recover very quickly” from infection. “The elderly population must be very, very careful,” said the 73-year-old man.
President Trump then wound himself up for a quote just short and bland enough to imagine he came up with it himself, “Smart action today will prevent the spread of the virus tomorrow.”
The President then pivoted to the presumed actual reason for his national address:
“This is not a financial crisis,” President Trump said, which is, of course, an exceedingly strange way to describe a stock market which has seen just this week the Dow Jones tumble 12.4%. The President did offer did offer words of encouragement for Wall Street (and, um, everyone?), “This is just a temporary moment of time that we will overcome together as a nation and a world.” Indeed.
President Trump added that he had directed the Small Business Administration to administer $50 billion in capital and that he would authorize tax deferments to “certain individuals negatively impacted” by the spread of coronavirus. He called on Congress to provide immediate payroll tax relief, then moments later spiked the political football, pleading, “We must put politics aside, stop the partisanship, and unify as one nation.”
“The virus will not have a chance against us. Our future remains brighter than anyone can imagine.”
Then you’ll forgive me if I’m wearing shades, Mr. President. My eyes are watering.
UPDATE: If Trump was hoping to calm markets, yeah, it didn’t work.
h/t Ashley Feinberg
“I don’t give a shit about you fuckers. I care about money. Sweet precious money.”
As always, so much to unpack…first off, Mr Cocaine Nose was out in full force tonight.
Next, Trump is referring to some health plans “waiving” the costs of testing (see the fine print) which Cigna said it would do. Of course, there’s no guidance on how this works for the rest of the hundreds of health plans that give us FreedomChoice. I assume if you live through the coronavirus, you get the privilege of calling multiple departments to try and be reimbursed for what you paid up front.
It was pointed out by Seth Abramson and others that blaming the EU but excluding the UK works in Putin’s favor, as most things do in this presidency.
Trump wants to give travel and hospitality some welfare payments for their loses. Funny? Who has a lot of hotels? Trump. You can’t tell me that his book-cooker won’t find a way to say that they lost a trillion dollars to coronavirus and need to be compensated.
I want to puke/cry that Trump wants to stop the payroll tax to provide temporary relief to Americans. No. No. No! All of these moves are self serving, stupid, and don’t address any of the problems we’re facing. You know, business as usual.
I’m sure the SBA will administer that $50 billion with the utmost transparency.
100% the UK would have been included if Brexit hadn’t taken place. Plus they’re trying to get a trade deal so you know the Master Negotiator is going to try and use this as leverage.
Am I the only one concerned about what “fast tracking therapies” means to this moron? I feel like I’ve seen this movie. Mr Tits is pretty sure Wil Smith was in it.
I’Robot?
Yes, the French remake.
Jesus cocksucking christ.
Do we think the Republican Senators’ brain rot is so bad they aren’t even having remorse over letting this fucker remain in office? I bet they’d feel a lot better with Pence at the helm (although I wouldn’t really). I think he’d, at the very least, attempt to solve the problem though.
Who knows what they think or how they sleep at night?
I know at least one Trump voter who voted for/agreed with Trump but was hoping “something” would happen and Pence would be president. Pence, of course, gives off more of a classical President vibe, but I don’t think he’s brilliant. He would listen to the advisers and could probably pull off the day to day of being president, though.
In the post mortem of this presidency, when each GOP member is going to want to mew about how they were just following orders and protecting the country in their own way, I’m sure it will come out that the plan was to use Trump as a puppet to get what they wanted (they’ve been semi-successful). But I don’t think they banked on Trump being Trump and that he already had an inner circle of sycophants (Kushner, Ivanka, Miller, Bannon) who already claimed dibs. They’re cowards because they’ll take table scraps in exchange for their dignity.
I don’t know if I’m emotionally prepared for the great disowning of Trump, should sweet karma show us mercy and the Republicans suffer a bloodbath in the fall.
I don’t know if the Kool Aid will flush from their systems that soon. The GOP is very good at walking away from disasters they create. Being fiscally conservative and stopping the national debt from growing? Don’t know her. Me saying that Trump is a disaster for our party? Don’t know her, me love Trump!
It sure is something that even your regular Republican in government has picked up Trump behaviors and attitudes. Maybe Mittens is too brainwashed by being Mormon to go full Trump, but I think he’s the lone exception.
…you’d have to go a long way to find someone worse to be in the position of president right now…that speech seemed to read a lot like
“I, dotard j chump, of my own free will compounded by a compulsive need to compound my ignorance with conscious mendacity, do hereby offer graphic evidence that where this shit is concerned, as with so many things pertaining to the office of the presidency…I am way the fuck hopelessly out of my depth”
It’s deeply ironic that Donald Trump, a President whose great political trick is his shamelessness and his willingness to deny reality in favor of his chosen political narrative, has been outmaneuvered by arguably the only living thing capable of not caring what Donald Trump says or does or thinks.
I miss Ashley.
Mr Trump said the European Union had “failed to take the same precautions” as the US in fighting the virus.
i am strangely offended….lol
anyhoo…last i heard we are fresh out of genetically manipulated mice for vaccine testing sooo dont expect one of those anytime sooon…
course i also heard we are considering just skipping animal testing and going straight to human trials (nothing on the big name news places that ive seen tho so take it with a pile of salt)
anyhooooo…i for one welcome the accidental zombie apocalypse :p
“UPDATE: If Trump was hoping to calm markets, yeah, it didn’t work.“
That’s just the Deep State. Pay it no mind.
It’s really shocking to me how Deep State got the whole rest of the world to agree to get sick as part of their scheme to beat Cheetolini, it’s been truly impressive.
It’s worth clicking over to Ashley’s article just for the embedded sound clip of Trump saying “Ah, fuck!” before the broadcast.
Also, did anyone else notice how his right eye was almost shut during the whole thing? Did he have a stroke or something?
“Does anybody have any white stuff?”
Liiiike COCAINE?
Or whiteout? WTF is his addled brain talking about.
his defenders are saying white but that is more confusing than cocaine. Who the fuck puts white out on their shirt stains.