Trump

How you seen his latest briefing ???

he’s completely deranged - Now trying blame Obama for bad tests for a virus discovered 3 years after Obama left office I mean wow.

He’s had some crazy press conferences before, but nothing like this it was pure lies trying to rewrite history then declaring he has absolute power a phrase that’s probably never been uttered in the White House ever.

 
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Did he really say "absolute power"? That's petrifying.

Lying about the virus is just fine. He know his supporters are too stupid and too desperate to blame the black guy so they'll lap it up. The "absolute power" phrase though? I mean, good lord...
 
50% of the Americans who voted get what they deserve in their leadership . Its the other 50% I have a great deal of sympathy with.
 
Last night was a car crash, but one where the drunk driver walks away unharmed and the crowd of people he ploughed into have their lives changed forever.
He's gone from taking no responsibility and putting the onus on the governor's to now saying he has absolute power.
He's gone from saying his administration isn't an ordering clerk to having his administration outbid and even intercept PPE shipments.
It was over 45 minutes into the briefing before anything factual relating to the pandemic was even touched on, the previous 45 minutes was like a rally without the typical Trump crowd egging him on.
A lot of the reporting about the 430,000 people who came into the US after his China travel ban and then his European ban may be exaggerating the figures, but there was travel bringing the virus in and then spreading it.
His inability to accept any failures is going to cost many American lives.
 
I won't post the propaganda video he ran, but the NYT journalist Maggie Haberman was quoted in the video, or should I say misquoted.

This is what Trump used:

"as there were more cases and it was clear that it was spreading out of China — where it originated — the president took this move that he was widely criticized for by Democrats and even some Republicans at the time. Which was he halted a number of flights from China into the U.S.
The idea was to halt the spread of the disease, keep transmissions to a minimum. He was accused of xenophobia. He was accused of making a racist move. At the end of the day, it was probably effective, because it did actually take a pretty aggressive measure against the spread of the virus."

However, if you look at the transcript (irony alert Alanis) then you see the full context of the quote:

The problem is, it was one of the last things that he did for several weeks.
Michael Barbaro (Podcast host)
Hmm. So the right decision in retrospect, but not accompanied by similar actions that might have contained transmission.
Maggie Haberman (NYT journalist)
That’s exactly right. In the same way that George W. Bush was criticized for his “Mission Accomplished” banner about Iraq, the president treated that moment as if it was his mission accomplished moment. He did not do anything after that in terms of alerting the public, or telling people to be safe, or telling people to take precautions. And it basically squandered several weeks within the U.S.
Michael Barbaro
Right. Looking back at the timeline, we can now see that on the same day that the president stopped those flights from China, the coronavirus was already being reported by the W.H.O. in Japan and South Korea, and those countries are still sending their citizens to the United States on flights that have not been stopped. So the horse is out of the barn.
 
SmallTown said:
Did he really say "absolute power"? That's petrifying.

Lying about the virus is just fine. He know his supporters are too stupid and too desperate to blame the black guy so they'll lap it up. The "absolute power" phrase though? I mean, good lord...
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Was the absolute power comment a slip of the tongue? I know New York is on the mend now but could Trump force martial law on the entire country?
 
NYboro said:
No, he cannot. It is contrary to the constitution. Andrew Cuomo was on TV this morning - "The States appointed the President, not a King".
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How would martial law be implemented in the states? You hear it mentioned on films all the time but I've never really understood the real world application of it.
 
NYboro said:
Interesting question.... Is it time for States to start seceding from the Union?
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In the United States, martial law has been instituted on the national level only once, during the Civil War, and on a regional level only once, during World War II. Otherwise, it has been limited to the states. Uprisings, political protests, labor strikes, and riots have, at various times, caused several state governors to declare some measure of martial law.

Martial law on the national level may be declared by Congress or the president. Under Article I, Section 8, Clause 15, of the Constitution, Congress has the power "[t]o provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel Invasions."
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He sort of backed down in the end

Trump spluttered in reply: “You know what we’re going to do? We’re going to write up papers on this. It’s not going to be necessary. Because the governors need us one way or the other. Because ultimately it comes with the federal government. That being said we’re getting along very well with the governors, and I feel very certain that there won’t be a problem.”

Has any governor agreed that you have the authority? Collins asked.

“I haven’t asked anybody. You know why? Because I don’t have to,” Trump said.

Who told you that the president has a total authority? Collins asked.

“Enough. Please,” said Trump.
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RandySavage said:
Was the absolute power comment a slip of the tongue?
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I didn't hear him use the phrase "absolute power" but he did say he had "total authority" and it definitely wasn't a slip of the tongue, he repeated it about 5 or 6 times, several times in direct rebuttal of correspondents who tried to tell him he didn't have total authority.
 
Liamo said:
he did say he had "total authority"
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Well he sort of does as President. As always with Trump he's drilling down the question to its essence (not necessarily accurately) and making a statement that needs far more context.

Groups of Democrat Governors want to open up their states before the medical experts give the Ok. I assume this is politically motivated as the Democrats are desperate to stop Trump any way they can. But to open up the economy in a haphazard fashion could be disastrous. Trump suggested it was his decision to make - and as far as the state of emergency is concerned at least he's right. It was his declaration of a state of emergency country wide that allowed the government to provide massive assistance to the individual states and so only he can remove the declaration since he made it in the first place.

Whether the states choose to accept his decision is up to them - just as it is now. Some states chose not to implement the lock down as their total infection rate is low. So I assume they can remove the lock downs whenever they want whether or not the state of emergency is in play. But if they do they risk having to beg for federal assistance if things go wrong. Not a great look politically I'd say. And that was Trumps follow up point.

Trumps press conferences are pure theatre and take a couple of hours every night. You have Trump rattling on for generally about 30 minutes before inviting some more useful speakers to the stage (more informative than the UK typically). Then he opens it up for questions. There's a thin film of professionalism but the game is to try and get some sound bite for the nightly news, so they attack him with gotcha questions. And Trump bats them back. Taken overall I think he generally does ok. Unlike most politicians he knows when he has to be transparent and avoid waffle. But he is a paradox. He's obviously bitterly upset they write nasty things about him, but he's the coolest customer I've ever seen when dealing with questions. Clearly a man with some emotional response component missing. He does occasionally appear to completely misunderstand the question but he still gets his sound bite in so maybe it's deliberate.

Last nights event was the best yet. He played video showing that half the employers of journalists in the room had been telling people to ignore the virus late into February and accusing Trump of acting too hastily when there was no need! Now they're saying he didn't act soon enough. This is mad because it's way too easy for him to discount. Their chief response to the exposure of their hypocrisy was to suggest he'd used government employees to create a campaign video. A bit weak. The problem is that companies like Comcast and Bloomberg have massive investments in China, and so MSNBC, NBC, and Bloomberg can't say anything too negative about China or they could lose billions. Hence when Trump initiated the ban on Chinese travel, they came down on him like a ton of bricks.

The problem with attacking Trumps handling of the virus outbreak is that even with New York's numbers they don't look so bad at 68 deaths per million (Italy is 328). Take out New York and the US has done as good a job as Germany almost. New York is bizarre. Their death per million rate is 500 - one of the highest in the world. The fact 50 transit workers have died may provide a clue.
 
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