“Trump’s lies are killing us.” – Susan Rice, former National Security Director
(“The President and the Plague: Tracking the Toll of Trump’s Failure”)
“The president has blood on his hands … The pandemic reveals that the worst features of this presidency are not merely late-night comedy fodder; they come at the cost of lives, livelihoods, and our collective psyche.” The Editorial Board, The Boston Globe
Trump lies, Americans die. Trump is driven by a malignant narcissistic personality; his only concern is for himself. He is incapable of seeing others as people; they are objects to be manipulated, used and eventually discarded. He does not experience empathy or compassion (and unlike successful sociopaths, Trump can’t even fake empathy). Everything Trump does and says, is an attempt to elevate his fragile and impotent ego. Trump is a “president unfit for a pandemic”, he is unfit for office, he is a threat to our national security.
“‘Trump Lies, People Die’: Protesters Leave Body Bags Outside White House,” by Christopher Mathias, HuffPost; May 21, 2020
Donald Trump and his COVID-19 Lies … and … random word salads:
January 22, 2020: We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China…
January 30, 2020: We think we have it very well under control…
February 2, 2020: We pretty much shut it down, coming in from China…
February 10, 2020: You know, in April, supposedly it dies, with the hotter weather…
February 10, 2020: Now, the virus that we’re talking about having to do—you know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat—as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April. We’re in great shape though. We have 12 cases—11 cases, and many of them are in good shape now.
February 14, 2020: When it gets warm, historically, that has been able to kill the virus…
February 24, 2020: The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA…
Feb. 24, 2020: 
February 25, 2020: The people are getting better. They’re all getting better…
February 26, 2020: And the 15 [confirmed cases], within a couple of days, is going to be down to close to zero…
February 27, 2020: It’s going to disappear one day. It’s like a miracle. It will disappear…
February 28, 2020: The coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. This is their new hoax. We have 15 people in this massive country. And because of the fact that we went early — we went early. We could have had a lot more than that. We’re doing great. Our country is doing so great.
February 28, 2020: And you’ll be fine …
March 2, 2020: Now, they’re going to have vaccines, I think, relatively soon…
March 3, 2020: Not only the vaccines, but the therapies. Therapies is sort of another word for cure…
March 4, 2020: We’re talking about very small numbers in the United States…
March 6, 2020: Our numbers are lower than just about anybody…
March 6, 2020: Anybody that needs a test, gets a test. We—they’re there. They have the tests. And the tests are beautiful.
March 6, 2020: (Regarding passengers on the Grand Princess Cruise Ship) [My experts] would like to have the people come off. I’d rather have the people stay, but I’d go with them. I told them to make the final decision. I would rather – because I like the numbers being where they are. I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault.
March 6, 2020: (Regarding Trump disbanding the White House pandemic response team in 2018) I just think this is something that you can never really think is going to happen.
March 7, 2020: They’re trying to scare everybody … cancel the meetings, close the schools — you know, destroy the country … And that’s OK, as long as we can win the election.
March 10, 2020: It’s really working out, and a lot of good things are going to happen…
March 11, 2020: And we are responding with great speed and professionalism…
March 12, 2020: It’s going to go away…
March 13, 2020: Yeah, no, I don’t take responsibility at all…
March 15, 2020: We’re going to all be great. We’re going to be so good…
March 16, 2020: This came up. It — we came up so suddenly…
March 17, 2020: This is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. All you had to do was look at other countries…
March 17, 2020: I’ve always known this is a real—this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic … I’ve always viewed it as very serious.
March 26: [This kind of pandemic] was something nobody thought could happen … Nobody would have ever thought a thing like this could have happened.
April 13, 2020: I have the ultimate authority … When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total and that’s the way it’s got to be. … It’s total … [local government] can’t do anything without the approval of the president of the United States.
April 15, 2020: The level of IQ on some of those calls was about the highest you’ve ever seen on a phone call, that I can tell you. But we have a lot of great thought went into those calls and a lot of questions came out and also – statements – very strong statements…
… And so on. Every day, Trump says or does something that threatens our national security.
For more, see:
“American Idiot – A running list of the dumbest things Trump has said about the coronavirus,” by Richard Hine, March 8, 2020
“59 lies Trump told about coronavirus in just one month,” by Emily Singer, American Independent; April 17, 2020
“All of Trump’s Lies About the Coronavirus,” by Christian Paz, The Atlantic; April 9, 2020 – “An unfinished compendium of Trump’s overwhelming dishonesty during a national emergency”
“Timeline: Trump’s Coronavirus Response” NowThis News, May 7, 2020 (9:37)
Virus Outbreak – Associated Press
“Coronavirus and related publications”
Read ‘em and weep:
“Reviving the US CDC – Editorial,” by The Lancet, Vol. 395, No. 10236, May 16, 2020
This editorial is summarized in a number of articles, including:
“Lancet editorial blasts Trump administration’s coronavirus response,” by Derek Hawkins and John Wagner, Washington Post, May 15, 2020
“Replace Trump and Bolster the CDC, A Leading Medical Journal Urges,” by Bill Chappell, NPR, May 15, 2020
“With his inaction and sometimes cavalier attitude toward this COVID-19 crisis, Trump is facilitating the most insidious, enduring and most lethal form of genocide.”
“Trump’s coronavirus response is genocide: Yale psychiatrist,” by Bandy X. Lee, Raw Story; May 12, 2020
Excerpt: Based on my violence prevention work with international organizations, I had classified Donald Trump’s refusal to protect the American people against COVID-19 as “democide” and stated it was “democide of genocidal proportions.” But can we truly call it “genocide”?
Yes. According to the UN’s Genocide Convention, the perpetration of genocide requires an “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” Since the White House itself has acknowledged the disproportionate deadly effects of the virus on minority communities, the intent can no longer be denied.
Over my 15 years of teaching Yale Law School students to represent asylum seekers, we emphasized that if a government fails to protect a racial, religious, national, social, or political group against violence, it is considered governmental violence. The Trump administration may not have produced the novel coronavirus, but an overwhelming majority of COVID-19 illnesses and deaths are attributable to his failure to act or to use the resources at the government’s disposal.
“Economic recovery from the coronavirus will be much harder than we think,” by Garrett M. Graff, Washington Post; May 8, 2020
“Trump’s wealthy friends look to cash in during coronavirus crisis,” by Peter Stone, The Guardian; May 3, 2020
“During his briefings, Trump spent 10 minutes praising himself for every 1 minute he spent expressing condolences for the 50,000 Americans who died.”
“Out of 13 Hours of Trump Covid-19 Briefings, Just 4.5 Minutes of Empathy for Victims: Analysis,” by Jon Queally, Common Dreams News; April 26, 2020
“Sophisticated new research links Hannity’s coronavirus misinformation to ‘a greater number of Covid-19 cases and deaths.’”
“Coronavirus spread helped by Sean Hannity’s Fox show, a disturbing new study finds,” by Zack Beauchamp; Vox; April 23, 2020
“Misinformation During a Pandemic,” Leonardo Bursztyn, Aakaash Rao, Christopher Roth, and David Yanagizawa-Drott, University of Chicago, Becker Friedman Institute for Economics Working Paper No. 2020-44; April 2020 (90 pages)
“American Carnage: How Donald Trump Is Killing Us,” by Pierre Tristam, Common Dreams; April 22, 2020
“‘He watched Fox, and believed it was under control … He said, ‘Don’t you think this is fishy? Do you know anyone who has it? Do you know anyone who has died from it?’ Kristen replied, ‘Dad, I don’t know anyone now, but give me a week and I bet I will.’”
“A Beloved Bar Owner Was Skeptical About the Virus. Then He Took a Cruise,” by Ginia Bellafante, New York Times; April 18, 2020
“Trump tells a damnable and murderous lie,” by Dana Milbank, Washington Post; April 17, 2020
Excerpt: The next day he called the WHO a “tool of China” and floated the vile conspiracy theory that the WHO deliberately concealed the danger of the virus: “There’s something going on” at the WHO “that’s very bad,” and “I have a feeling they knew exactly what was going on.”
This is not merely a falsehood. This is a damnable and murderous lie.
As Trump surely knows, and as I have learned from people with knowledge of the situation who spoke to me on the condition of confidentiality, 15 officials from his administration were embedded with the WHO in Geneva, working full time, hand-in-glove with the organization on the virus from the very first day China disclosed the outbreak to the world, Dec. 31. At least six other U.S. officials at WHO headquarters dedicated most of their time to the virus, and two others worked remotely with the WHO on covid-19 full time. In the weeks that followed, they and other U.S. government scientists engaged in all major deliberations and decisions at the WHO on the novel coronavirus, had access to all information, and contributed significantly to the world body’s conclusions and recommendations.
Everything that the WHO knew, the Trump administration knew — in real time…
Trump has decided that reelection requires him to attack the World Health Organization at the height of a pandemic. Multitudes could die for his lie.
“Coronavirus Timeline: How President Trump Failed to Protect America,” by Tim Dickenson, Rolling Stone; April 15, 2020
“Trump ignores Constitution in assertion that his ‘authority is total’ amid coronavirus pandemic, legal experts say,” by Meagan Flynn and Allyson Chiu, Washington Post; April 14, 2020
“Federal government isn’t tracking nursing home virus-related deaths” – MSNBC, April 13, 2020
“Nursing home deaths soar past 3,600 in alarming surge,” by Bernard Condon and Randy Herschaft, Associated Press, April 13, 2020
Excerpt: Because the federal government has not been releasing a count of its own, the AP has kept its own running tally based on media reports and state health departments. The latest count of at least 3,621 deaths is up from about 450 deaths just 10 days ago.
But the true toll among the 1 million mostly frail and elderly people who live in such facilities is likely much higher, experts say, because most state counts don’t include those who died without ever being tested for COVID-19.
“A Navy Sailor Has Died from The Coronavirus. The Ship’s Captain Was Fired After Warning This Would Happen,” by Amber Jamieson, BuzzFeed News; April 13, 2020
[Coronavirus: USS Theodore Roosevelt Sailor Dies From COVID-19]
“The New York Times Red Dawn Scoop Lays Out the Truth of Trump’s COVID-19 Incompetence,” by Charles P. Pierce, Esquire; April 13, 2020
Excerpt: From now until November, the country is going to face the most massive disinformation campaign in the history of this country. It will be all-rat-fuckers-on-deck, foreign and domestic. The op already is underway. We can’t afford the kind of comfortable, anesthetic amnesia with which the country occasionally approaches its national elections.
A manifest incompetent and malignant vandal is standing for re-election, and we’ve all been handed the receipts.
“What Trump Knew & When He Knew It: NYT on How Trump Ignored COVID-19 Warnings Until It Was Too Late,” by Democracy Now! April 13, 2020
“What Trump Knew & When He Knew It: NYT on How Trump Ignored COVID-19 Warnings Until It Was Too Late” – Democracy Now! April 13, 2020 (23:10)
“The President and the Plague: Tracking the Toll of Trump’s Failure,” by Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone; April 12, 2020
Excerpt: NSC officials compiled the guide — officially called the Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents, but known to everyone as “the pandemic playbook” — in late 2016. The Trump administration was briefed on the playbook in 2017, and according to Cameron, it was widely distributed among departments and agencies, via email and in bound copies.
But there’s no evidence it was ever read. And within a little more than a year, all the pandemic expertise was gone. Trump pushed out Homeland Security Adviser Bossert, whose portfolio included global pandemics and who was widely respected for his understanding of the risks they pose. The pandemic office on the National Security Council was gone, terminated by then-National Security Adviser John Bolton as part of a broader reorganization and cost-cutting measures. (“Claims that streamlining NSC structures impaired our nation’s bio defense are false,” Bolton tweeted in March, after the pandemic was raging.) Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, an infectious-disease expert who had taken Beth Cameron’s job as the head of the pandemic office, was also pushed out. “Rather than heed the warnings, embrace the planning, and preserve the structures and budgets that had been bequeathed to him, the president ignored the risk of a pandemic,” Rice wrote in an editorial.
“Signs missed and steps slowed in Trump’s pandemic response,” by Jonathan Lemire, Zeke Miller, Jill Colvin and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, AP News; April 12, 2020
“Trump’s coronavirus briefings are too dangerous for news media to show them live,” by Chet Czarniak, USA Today; April 11, 2020
“He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus,” by Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger, Maggie Haberman, Michael D. Shear, Mark Mazzetti and Julian E. Barnes, New York Times; April 11, 2020
“The ‘Red Dawn’ Emails: 8 Key Exchanges on the Faltering Response to the Coronavirus,” by Eric Lipton, New York Times; April 11, 2020
“Trump’s Ridiculous Behavior at Covid-19 Briefings Baffles World,” by Robert Mackey, The Intercept; April 10, 2020
“More than 2,200 coronavirus deaths in nursing homes, but federal government isn’t tracking them,” by Suzy Khimm, Laura Strickler, Andrew Blankstein and Peter Georgiev, NBC News; April 10, 2020
U.S. Intelligence report warned of coronavirus crisis as early as November 2019. Analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event.
“Intelligence report warned of coronavirus crisis as early as November,” by Josh Margolin and James Gordon Meek, ABC News; April 8, 2020
Excerpt: As far back as late November, U.S. intelligence officials were warning that a contagion was sweeping through China’s Wuhan region, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population, according to four sources briefed on the secret reporting.
Concerns about what is now known to be the novel coronavirus pandemic were detailed in a November intelligence report by the military’s National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), according to two officials familiar with the document’s contents.
The report was the result of analysis of wire and computer intercepts, coupled with satellite images. It raised alarms because an out-of-control disease would pose a serious threat to U.S. forces in Asia — forces that depend on the NCMI’s work. And it paints a picture of an American government that could have ramped up mitigation and containment efforts far earlier to prepare for a crisis poised to come home.
“Analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event,” one of the sources said of the NCMI’s report. “It was then briefed multiple times to” the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and the White House. Wednesday night, the Pentagon issued a statement denying the “product/assessment” existed…
“When responding to a public health crisis or any other serious security threat, it is critical that our leaders react quickly and take steps to address the threat identified in the intelligence reporting,” said Cohen, the former acting undersecretary of DHS. “It’s not surprising to me that the intelligence community detected the outbreak; what is surprising and disappointing is that the White House ignored the clear warning signs, failed to follow established pandemic response protocols and were slow to put in place a government-wide effort to respond to this crisis.” [Emphasis added]
“As the pandemic kills, as the economic depression tightens its grip, Donald Trump has consistently put his own needs first.”
“This Is Trump’s Fault – The president is failing, and Americans are paying for his failures,” by David Frum; The Atlantic; April 7, 2020
Excerpt: Trump does not speak clearly. His patterns of speech betray a man with guilty secrets to hide, and a beclouded mind. Yet we can discern, through the mental fog, that Trump had absorbed some crucial facts. By February 28, somebody in his orbit seemed to already be projecting 35,000 to 40,000 deaths from the coronavirus. Trump remembered the number, but refused to believe it. His remarks are worth revisiting at length:
Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus, you know that, right? Coronavirus, they’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, “How’s President Trump doing?” They go, “Oh, not good, not good.” They have no clue. They don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa. They can’t even count. No, they can’t. They can’t count their votes.
One of my people came up to me and said, “Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia.” That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything. They tried it over and over. They’d been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning. They lost. It’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax.
But we did something that’s been pretty amazing. We have 15 people [sick] in this massive country, and because of the fact that we went early. We went early; we could have had a lot more than that. We’re doing great. Our country is doing so great. We are so unified. We are so unified. The Republican Party has never ever been unified like it is now. There has never been a movement in the history of our country like we have now. Never been a movement.
So a statistic that we want to talk about—Go ahead: Say USA. It’s okay; USA. So a number that nobody heard of, that I heard of recently and I was shocked to hear it: 35,000 people on average die each year from the flu. Did anyone know that? Thirty-five thousand, that’s a lot of people. It could go to 100,000; it could be 27,000. They say usually a minimum of 27, goes up to 100,000 people a year die.
And so far, we have lost nobody to coronavirus in the United States. Nobody. And it doesn’t mean we won’t and we are totally prepared. It doesn’t mean we won’t, but think of it. You hear 35 and 40,000 people and we’ve lost nobody and you wonder, the press is in hysteria mode.
On February 28, very few Americans had heard of an estimated death toll of 35,000 to 40,000, but Trump had heard it. And his answer to that estimate was: “So far, we have lost nobody.” He conceded, “It doesn’t mean we won’t.” But he returned to his happy talk. “We are totally prepared.” And as always, it was the media’s fault. “You hear 35 and 40,000 people and we’ve lost nobody and you wonder, the press is in hysteria mode.”
“CDC pressured to start keeping a formal tally of nursing homes with coronavirus cases,” by Laura Strickler, NBC News; April 6, 2020
“Is Donald Trump Criminally Responsible for Coronavirus Deaths?” by Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept; April 2, 2020
“Trump Lies About Cutting White House Pandemic Team to Dodge Fox News,” by Robert Mackey, The Intercept; April 1, 2020
“Seven of Donald Trump’s most misleading coronavirus claims,” by Oliver Milman, The Guardian; March 31, 2020
“A president unfit for a pandemic: Much of the suffering and death coming was preventable. The president has blood on his hands,” by The Editorial Board, The Boston Globe; March 30, 2020
Excerpt: While the spread of the novel coronavirus has been aggressive around the world, much of the profound impact it will have here in the United States was preventable. As the American public braces itself for the worst of this crisis, it’s worth remembering that the reach of the virus here is not attributable to an act of God or a foreign invasion, but a colossal failure of leadership.
The outbreak that began in China demanded a White House that could act swiftly and competently to protect public health, informed by science and guided by compassion and public service … it demanded a leader who would put the country’s well-being first, above near-term stock market returns and his own reelection prospects, and who would work with other nations to stem the tide of COVID-19 cases around the world.
What we have instead is a president epically outmatched by a global pandemic…
The months the administration wasted with prevarication about the threat and its subsequent missteps will amount to exponentially more COVID-19 cases than were necessary. In other words, the president has blood on his hands.
It’s not too much for Americans to ask of their leaders that they be competent and informed when responding to a crisis of historic proportions. Instead, they have a White House marred by corruption and incompetence, whose mixed messages roil the markets and rock their sense of security. Instead of compassion and clarity, the president, in his near-daily addresses to the nation, embodies callousness, self-concern, and a lack of compass. Dangling unverified cures and possible quarantines in front of the public like reality TV cliffhangers, he unsettles rather than reassures. The pandemic reveals that the worst features of this presidency are not merely late-night comedy fodder; they come at the cost of lives, livelihoods, and our collective psyche.
“The Dow’s gains under Trump have been wiped out by coronavirus,” by Fortune, March 18, 2020
“Trump Says Those on Grand Princess Cruise Ship Should Stay On Boat So U.S. Coronavirus Numbers Don’t Go Up,” by Jeffrey Martin, Newsweek; March 6, 2020
“Trump says he’d rather keep people on cruise ship to keep numbers down,” MSN; March 6, 2020
“Trump: Keep ’Em On the Ship. I Don’t Want Our Coronavirus Numbers To Go Up,” by Kevin Drum, Mother Jones; March 6, 2020
“Before Trump’s inauguration, a warning: ‘The worst influenza pandemic since 1918,’” by Nahal Toosi, Daniel Lippman and Dan Diamond, POLITICO; March 16, 2020
“Coronavirus Is Killing Iranians. So Are Trump’s Brutal Sanctions,” by Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept; March 17, 20202
“Coronavirus Outbreak: Hoaxes and Conspiracy Theories Spreading Wildly,” by EJ Dickson, Rolling Stone; March 18, 2020
“When the inevitable inquiry into the government’s response to COVID-19 happens, it will conclude that signs of a coming crisis were everywhere.”
“We Were Warned [America Knew a Pandemic Was Coming],” by Uri Friedman, The Atlantic; March 18, 2020
“Coronavirus Outbreak: A Cascade of Warnings, Heard but Unheeded,” by David E. Sanger, Eric Lipton, Eileen Sullivan and Michael Crowley, New York Times; (updated) March 22, 2020
“Trump team failed to follow NSC’s pandemic playbook,” by Dan Diamond and Nahal Toosi, POLITICO; March 25, 2020
The 69-page document, finished in 2016, provided a step by step list of priorities – which were then ignored by the administration.
“The Coronavirus Is the Worst Intelligence Failure in U.S. History, and It’s All Trump’s Fault,” by Micah Zenko, Foreign Policy; March 25, 2020
“Ending social distancing before we have the epidemic under control is absolutely sociopathic. It is cruel, it is wrong, and it’s disgusting.”
“Is the Trump Cult a Death Cult?” by Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept; March 25, 2020
“Of Course the Trump Administration Ignored a Step-by-Step Guide to Fighting a Coronavirus-Esque Pandemic,” by Bess Levin, Vanity Fair; March 26, 2020
“In Exchange for Aid, Trump Wants Praise from Governors He Can Use in Campaign Ads,” by Robert Mackey, The Intercept; March 28, 2020
“Beware of Trump Using the Coronavirus as a Cover for War with Iran,” by Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept; March 30, 20202
“EPA Is Jamming Through Rollbacks That Could Increase Coronavirus Deaths,” by Sharon Lerner, The Intercept; March 31, 20202
“Trump says the coronavirus is Democrats’ new ‘hoax,’” by Thomas Franck, CNBC; February 28, 2020
“Psychiatrist On Trump’s ‘Dangerous’ Response To Coronavirus Crisis” – The Last Word, MSNBC; February 28, 2020 (6:37)
“Pandemic Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents,” 2016 (69 pages)
Resist.
Trump Watch 