The Trump Presidency: Part 20

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A lot of "skeptics" here consumed by irrational hatred. I don't blame the president. I blame the virus. And Democrats.
 
calebprime said:
I've seen every Cuomo conference, most of the Trump conferences. I've followed Trump's remarks. The list of his public statements has been reprinted multiple times on this forum.

Cuomo doesn't get credit for being way ahead. Rather, when the situation was clear, he began to act appropriately.

His state has to bid against other states for dwindling supplies. That's one of the simple reasons why this isn't a state-by-state problem.
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This exactly!^
 
Trump Tweets

Just finished a very good conversation with President Xi of China. Discussed in great detail the CoronaVirus that is ravaging large parts of our Planet. China has been through much & has developed a strong understanding of the Virus. We are working closely together. Much respect!
 
Kings Full said:
Here's the thing though, Trump has always made everything about him. When he says he 'just felt' something he's almost certainly getting that 'feeling' from advisors.

There hasn't been one single documented case of anyone needing a ventilator and one not being available. That may, and probably will, change. But 30 to 40K? Even I think that's a high number. Remember that the patient either recovers or dies thus freeing up a ventilator for someone else. I don't think anyone actually believes Cuomo in this case but none will say so because "Trump".


I do wish Trump would phrase things differently, but he doesn't and he never has and he's not going to change now.
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That's true. He's not going to change now. So, could he step aside and let someone else be President? All that "Trump being Trump" stuff makes him ineffective.

Oh, and do we really need 30k ventilators in the state of New York?. I have no idea. Seems high to me. Do you think Trump knows? He should. Or at least he should be able to find the paper where it's written down. He should know, without even looking at the piece of paper, whether the projected number of ventilators will be adequate to meet the projected need. I don't think he knows.

When he said a month ago that the number of cases would soon be down to zero, I think he really believed that, and I think he acted accordingly.
 
Kings Full said:
Here's the thing though, Trump has always made everything about him. When he says he 'just felt' something he's almost certainly getting that 'feeling' from advisors.
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Absolute BS. Three years of Trump's presidency has demonstrated that claim is asinine, and you bringing it up reeks of political hackery.
 
Meadmaker said:
ETA: And I think, "That's going to be another campaign commercial." but the theme of that campaign commercial is that he undersupplied ventilators, and people died, and people will be outraged and they will collectively say, "Take that, Donald! Now you have to move back to the top of your skyscraper!"
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Honestly, at this point, if he were willing to go, I'd be willing to let him go, scott-free. He's on the verge of conducting a massive experiment with the United States, one in which, if his hypothesis about the severity of this pandemic is wrong, hundred of thousands, and maybe millions, of Americans are going to die.

Letting him get away with all the **** he's pulled is a small price to pay to avoid that.

Not that he'll do it, of course. He's going to ride this flaming wreckage all the way into the ground.
 
Kings Full said:
:sigh:

I made it clear that there's blame to go around. But instead you call me an apologist while you excuse Cuomo's response and blame it on Trump.

:rolleyes:
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Well, you are an apologist.

Your previous quote that I just commented on demonstrates this quite clearly.
 
Why would I give equal blame (or praise) to two people who's decisions and responses have been so different?

That's not unfair or biased.
 
By the way, there's another new looming crisis that anyone can see coming.

How bad will it be? That's the kind of thing you need more data for. The President of the United States could get that data, so I hope he has, and that his lack of visible action means that he has evaluated the data and the answers from the team of experts assembled, and concluded that it will not cause the type of crisis that requires active intervention now.

Sooner or later, the rate of infection among cashiers, food handlers, truckers, and production workers at food plants will reach a level where the remaining workers decide it isn't worth the risk to show up to work. The result would be that our problems got a whole lot worse than anything we are dealing with now.

A few weeks ago, I would have dismissed that sort of talk as sensationalism. On the other hand, three weeks aog, when I couldn't get toilet paper at Costco, I said that that situation would be resolved within a week. I was obviously wrong, and there is obviously a problem.

Is the country prepared? Has the government carefully evaluated the problem and concluded it's not an issue? There's simply no way for you and I, sitting out here in the world, to know the answer to those questions, but I have zero confidence that the guy at the helm has even thought of it.
 
Giordano said:
Estimate about 1 in a hundred infected persons will need to be placed on ventilators:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/us/coronavirus-deaths-estimate.html
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As an example of how quickly this virus is spreading, New York City, as of last night (03/27) reported 23,000 cases. I attended a business meeting on Friday evening 03/13 in Midtown Manhattan. We considered cancelling the meeting but at that time there were less than 200 cases reported in New York City out of a population around eight million. So the meeting went on and none of us have suffered any ill effects. But in two weeks the numbers have increased one hundredfold. That is truly scary.

Cuomo says New York is going to need 30,000 ventilators. Trump says he doesn't believe it. Okay, Trump can think that -- what is it based on, how many ventilators does Trump think New York will need? -- but why does he have to say it publicly? Background: New York state has been prosecuting Trump.
Then there’s the fact that the offenses where Trump has the greatest potential liability in New York — for example, tax or other kinds of corporate fraud — are ones the New York attorney general’s office is particularly adept at handling. Over the past 15 years, New York has steadily stepped up its prosecutions of financial crimes. “Fraud cases are the linchpin of what most attorneys general do, and the laws are particularly strong in New York,” said Paul Nolette, a political science professor at Marquette University who studies state attorneys general. Trump knows this firsthand, because of a previous tangle with former attorney general Eric Schneiderman. The state sued Trump University for defrauding customers in a case that was settled for $25 million. Link
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Trump has made it clear in recent weeks that there are personal conditions to New York getting help from the federal government.
President Donald Trump appeared Thursday [Feb. 13th] to link his administration's policies toward New York to a demand that the state drop investigations and lawsuits related to his administration as well as his personal business and finances. Trump continued, “New York must stop all of its unnecessary lawsuits & harrassment, start cleaning itself up, and lowering taxes.”

Trump’s invocation of “lawsuits & harrassment” was a reference to the state’s numerous lawsuits against his administration and also against Trump’s business, which is based in New York. That prompted Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.), one of the House managers who prosecuted Trump’s impeachment in the Senate, to accuse the president of “expanding his abuse of power to blackmailing U.S. states (threatening millions of people he supposedly works for). In this case, he's holding New York state hostage to try to stop investigations into his prior tax fraud.” Link
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Trump supporters would probably argue this is reasonable: If someone has broken the law and faces prosecution -- and then becomes president -- why shouldn't he use the power of his office to try and get prosecutors to stand down? :(
 
Kings Full said:
And I've never said it was a state by state problem. EVER!

But don't say that Trump should have seen this or that he isn't doing anything all while you excuse the state governors for their exact lack of foresight / response.

The states, all of them, do have a responsibility here.

Is it really that hard to comprehend?
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Trump's actions have made the situation worse in the WHOLE of the USA.

Other people, from Governors to people who carried on as normal because they didn't think coronavirus was anything more than flu, may have also the situation worse in their PART of the USA. Where might they have got such a stupid idea?

It was dumb to vote for Trump. It shows terminal dumbness to not admit after more than 3 years the man is completely unfit to lead a country.

Is it really that hard to comprehend?
 
Kings Full said:
Ok, and this leads me back to my initial post here that came from the main Covid-19 thread.

Why is there no criticism of Cuomo? It seems clear from your post, if we're going to accept your numbers, that he and the state of NY were totally blindsided by this pandemic. One that some will tell you was clear for all to see.

If there is blame for Trump's response then there should be an equal amount of blame for Cuomo.
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No. They are in no way equivalent, because of one simple fact: Cuomo, or any other governor, does not have free access to the intelligence reports that the president has access to. They rely on the president doing his job properly in order to get the information they need to plan their responses.

Trump not only ignored those early reports that indicated how bad this would be, he actively promoted the opposite: that it was trivial, that it was being blown out of proportion, that it would all just go away. He actively denied the governors the information they needed to predict and plan for this mess.

If the US had had a competent President in place back in January, one of that person's first responses to the early reports would have been to warn the states to prepare for this pandemic, and coordinate those preparations on a national level. Trump did the exact opposite.
 
Darat said:
Trump is the epitome of "if you only have a hammer...." the only way Trump can deal with anything "negative" is to attack, his silly names and so on, but this time he has no one he can blame.... Yet.
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The solution is obvious.

Back around Jan 23, POTUS said, “It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
We need to find that guy’s name and make fun of it.

That, right there. That’s Winning: Trump-style.
 
Kings Full said:
My personal belief is that there is plenty of blame to go around among politicians of all stripes.
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Trump is the president. As such, he has authority (and responsibilities) that go far above other politicians.

But by all means, please point out how Democratic politicians 'failed' in this health crisis.

Here's the thing though, Trump has always made everything about him. When he says he 'just felt' something he's almost certainly getting that 'feeling' from advisors.
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Where exactly are you getting your evidence that he's getting the 'feeling' from his advisers? (And not from the voices in is head.)

And how much responsibility does Trump deserve for selecting the advisers that are giving him that 'feeling' to begin with?
There hasn't been one single documented case of anyone needing a ventilator and one not being available. That may, and probably will, change.
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The problem is the U.S. is only at the start of the epidemic. The number of cases is expanding rapidily.

But 30 to 40K? Even I think that's a high number.
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Its what people with backgrounds in health services and epidemiology are suggesting is necessary. Personally, I'd trust experts in the field over an anonymous poster who, without providing evidence, "thinks that's a high number".
I do wish Trump would phrase things differently, but he doesn't and he never has and he's not going to change now.
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Which is not a reason to absolve him, but to condemn him.
Why is there no criticism of Cuomo?
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Because he hasn't really done much wrong.

A state gov (or for that matter a mayor) has limited resources. They do not have access to regular briefings from the intelligence community, they do not have the ability to unilaterally involve FEMA. They can't order the CDC to act.

If you can point out what he did wrong, then by all means... point out his mistakes.

Trump had significantly more resources... intelligence sources, a larger federal budget, more authority to limit international travel. Control over the CDC and international travel. And Trump has screwed things up on a pretty consistent basis.
It seems clear from your post, if we're going to accept your numbers, that he and the state of NY were totally blindsided by this pandemic.
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Uhh... no.

The fact that New York is particularly hard-hit by the virus is not necessarily due to mistakes made by Cuomo.

New York City has a large, dense population, and is a major travel hub (being a significant tourist destination, as well as a center for commerce.) Even if the government does everything right, those factors are going to mean it will be more affected by a pandemic than some tiny village in the back woods of rural america.
It was his job to get the necessary equipment. The federal government can and should assist. Assist, not do it all.
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State governments do not have the authority to invoke the Defense Production act. And they have limited ability to negotiate with foreign governments should there be a requirement to import needed equipment from foreign countries.

The U.S. government also maintains the Strategic National Stockpile (Which is supposed to keep extra ventilators on hand). I think its reasonable for politicians at the state level to expect federal infrastructure to be available when called on.
 
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Trumps initial response to the coming crisis was to ignore it; his latest response is to wish it away, open the US " for business" and to "pack the churches", even thought the data. the experts and empirical observation clearly indicate this is the wrong thing to do.

When pitched a softball question obviously intended to offer him a chance to act presidential and calm the nation, he chose to act like a whiny teenager and berate the reporter. You can bet if this question was lobbed to him by a Fox corrospondent, he would have had a much different reaction.

He is a **** leader, incompetent to guide the US through this crisis.

ETA: I wish this weren't so; I wish he were a hero, but he isn't.
 
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