With someone other than an egomaniacal buffoon in charge, the United States might be well-equipped to respond appropriately to the growing threat of the Coronavirus, which has claimed some 2,700 lives around the world and counting — but for now, President Donald Trump remains at the helm. Talking to reporters on Capitol Hill this Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) slammed the Trump administration’s funding request for dealing with the virus as “anemic” and “too late.” Her denunciation came just a day after a top official at the Center for Disease Control warned Americans that the question was not if but when the virus spread further in the U.S.
Pelosi commented:
‘This is shameful. He puts forth a proposal now that is meager, anemic in terms of addressing this. Ebola, we did $5 billion. And now they’re trying to take the Ebola money and spend it here. What he’s doing is late, too late, anemic. Hopefully we came make up for the loss of time but we have to have professionals in place, resources that are adequate and not use scare tactics about people coming back to our country.’
Watch:
Pelosi calls Trump’s Covid-19 response meager, anemic, too late. pic.twitter.com/2CQne2hP6l
— Michael McAuliff (@mmcauliff) February 26, 2020
The Trump administration’s initial emergency funding request asked for $2.5 billion to confront the virus. During Senate hearings this week about the request, Republicans like Appropriations Committee Chair Richard Shelby (Ala.) and John Kennedy (La.) harshly criticized Trump administration officials for their apparent failure to comprehend basic realities of the situation. Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf couldn’t even answer how many masks and/or respirators might be needed for the virus management process — and that doesn’t exactly bode well for a competent response.
Meanwhile, Trump is so lost in the fog of his ego that he seems convinced that basic news coverage of the virus and its effects constitutes some kind of conspiracy to make him look bad.
Just this Wednesday, he tweeted:
‘Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible. Likewise their incompetent Do Nothing Democrat comrades are all talk, no action. USA in great shape!’
The guy who can’t even be bothered to spell the disease correctly isn’t exactly a trustworthy authority on the situation. At this rate, he’d likely even suggest that coverage of thunderstorms was designed to make his administration look bad. Maybe he thinks that hurricanes are a Democratic conspiracy!
Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible. Likewise their incompetent Do Nothing Democrat comrades are all talk, no action. USA in great shape! @CDCgov…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 26, 2020
For now, he also says that he’s hosting a news conference about the issue on Wednesday evening at the White House. The virus is continuing to spread — the first case in Latin America was reported just this week, which follows the originally Chinese virus getting reported in Italy, South Korea, and more. There have been some 57 cases reported in the U.S., mostly affecting individuals who’d recently traveled outside of the country.
It’s stupendous that we’re supposed to trust Trump to maintain even the slightest level of competent support when prior to the presidency, his “experience” mainly consists of putting his name in big gold letters on buildings.
