During his very bad week, Donald Trump was on the hunt for someone to blame for his own failings. After the abysmal showing at the Tulsa, OK rally with an auditorium two-thirds empty, the president set his sights on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Certainly, people stayed home, because they did not want to die.
Trump wants to befuddle his followers, so that they will not see their support for him as a possible death knell for their own and their families’ lives. This puts POTUS in a precarious position. Can he convince them that the coronavirus pandemic is not been as bad as they imagine?
The White House officials have been trying to scapegoat the CDC rather than this deadly virus. That was part of the reason that the president has been running around the nation’s hotspots maskless. There are two additional reasons for his dangerous actions. First, he has always believed that illness was the equivalent of weakness. Conversely, daring to wear no mask makes him look more manly. Second, he believes that his choice was between the admission of the coronavirus pandemic and losing in the upcoming election or no coronavirus and a big win in November.
Trump said that he told his people to slow down the testing so that there will be fewer cases of the virus. That was a bit like do not take a pregnancy test so you will not be pregnant. Yet, that has been POTUS’ warped thinking all along. He wants to wish it away. Even as he went to the Marine One helicopter on his way to Yuma, AZ, on Tuesday, told MSNBC reporters:
‘More cases makes it sound bad.’
The White House has launched a deep inquiry into the CDC to review what it claims were its failings, according to The POLITICO. The investigation will explore why the early test kits failed. He neglected to mention that the World Health Organization (WHO) offered the nation the very same test kits that it sent the rest of the world,, Trump turned the offer down.
Furthermore, the White House wanted to know the death rate state-by-state. Thus far, 2.3 million people in this country have tested positive for COVID-19, and over 122,000 Americans have died from the virus. One problem people have about this dreadful illness blanketing the country is it is hard to grasp what 122,000 deaths over several months look like.
Okay, imagine Donald Trump flying in low over Tucson, AZ and bombing half of the city. He kills all the people on the bombed-out side. This mission would have no more impact on the commander-in-chief than if he was playing a video game. The reason is this man has no conscience and no empathy. Otherwise, he would work to end the pandemic.
If Trump went on to Pasadena, CA, and bombed it, he would kill all of the people living there, according to databases.com. Let us say that he swung back over Topeka, KS and released his bombs, he would obliterate every man, woman, and child living there. Green Bay WI would be gone, and so would most of Ft. Louderville, FL. His bombs would destroy over half of Pittsburg, PA and nearly all of Springfield, MA.
A former administration official said:
‘WHO is an easy one. It is foreign body in Switzerland. CDC will be tough to create a bogeyman around for the average voter.’
Former Obama Homeland Security official Juliette Kayyem worked on the 2009 H1N1 pandemic response team. She said that agencies could review their response after the crisis had passed, but that need was not specific to the CDC alone:
‘When the history books are written about this crisis, is anyone actually going to believe that America’s abysmal performance and its high death rate was because of some bureaucratic impediment at the CDC? The core of America’s problem is a White House that clearly was not pressed into action in January. And every flaw — from CDC and testing to FEMA and the stockpiles to the supply chain and the states — every systemic problem is rooted in White House malfeasance.’
A former White House official noted that the Center for Disease and Control (CDC) Director Robert Redfield agreed with the pre-pandemic issue. The agency has activities all over the place:
‘The thing to do is take a hard look at the CDC and say, what are the five things that they really need to do, and do it to the exclusion of everything else. People have been talking about back to basics, core mission.’
An official in the administration blamed the CDC for a delayed state COVID-19 count:
‘In Pennsylvania, if you have coronavirus and you die from a gunshot wound, it gets classified as a coronavirus death. If the data drives the decision making, you want to make sure you have good data. When you have different ways of counting things, it can lead to distortion. The audit was suggested as means to confirm that or disprove that.’
The Mueller Report Adventures: In Bite-Sizes on this Facebook page. These quick, two-minute reads interpret the report in normal English for busy people. Mueller Bite-Sizes uncovers what is essentially a compelling spy mystery. Interestingly enough, Mueller Bite-Sizes can be read in any order.
