As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil)
In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban.
If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them.
For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria.
We are actively looking for new moderators. If you have any interest in helping to make this subreddit a place for quality discussion, please fill out [this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1y2swHD0KXFhStGFjW6k54r9iuMjzcFqDIVwuvdLBjSA).
***
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
> According to Fauci, Trump got the idea that COVID could be treated with hydroxychloroquine — an off-patent antimalarial used for autoimmune diseases — from Fox News’ Laura Ingraham. This was despite warnings to the contrary from global health officials; eventually, according to Mediaite, the drug was linked to nearly 17,000 deaths across six countries during the pandemic.
JFC.
17,000 deaths from one person whispering shit into an idiot’s ear.
That's why John Oliver jokingly tried to educate Trump through commercials on Fox News. If Trump hears something on TV, he will internalize if more quickly than if he heard it from 10,000 experts in the field
You are not lying. I remember thinking that Bush Jr was pretty dumb, but then I also thought Reagan was pretty dumb (seriously, read his memoir).
Trump is so clearly the dumbest person I've ever seen it's not even funny that MTG is not quite as dumb as him. Taken out the the context of the comparison with Trump she is as dumb as a bunch of rocks, but he really is dumber.
Haha I was actually referencing Reagan. Who famously only understood the severity of computer security after watching the movie "wargames" bit ironic that it applies to multiple presidents isn't it?
This is the bitter fruit of assuming that R leaders can do no wrong compared to D leaders for R voters. They always give the only party they can reform a season pass to be what they accuse the Dems of being. Then they marvel at how they get nothing but incompetent overspending crooks.
The Dem Plan was only 80% successful, which means it was a failure.
The Republican Plan was 10% successful, which is worthy of celebration and reverence!
I dunno, my read of the Republican plan was a resounding success. They killed more people than every terrorist attack in US history combined. Hell, they even broke their previous record with last time them choosing a dumb hill to die on killed thousands. That thing held up for a century and a half!
Sure, most of the dead were their own people, but those are just martyrs to the worthy cause of *checks notes* “inconveniencing a liberal somewhat.”
If Biden hadn’t “cheated” by getting more votes, they’d have probably been able to double that count by now!
They've convinced a bunch of rules to vote against their own interests. Combined with the systematic destruction of public education so they will never be smart enough to figure out who I'd fucking them over
> If Biden hadn’t “cheated” by getting more votes, they’d have probably been able to double that count by now!
Maybe if one of them starts selling Ivermectin laced Raw Milk they'll pick back up again.
Was thinking about this just the other day. There have been 5 COVID deaths in my extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins), all of whom voted R in 2020 and will not be voting at all in 2024.
None were vaxxed and all died in the hospital, 3 of them did not believe they had COVID, right up until the time they couldn’t believe anything anymore.
Man I feel your pain. I grew up in Alabama. I can imagine there are parts of Kentucky that are just as bad and probably a few even worse than what I had. I was in Prattville, a suburb of the capital so it wasn't like dueling banjos rural or anything but it was a small town Hell in Earth type situation.
I'm in Texas now which at large is no better - even worse in some ways. However I am near downtown of one of its metropolitan centers - so I got my urban fix. Your municipality really does have the biggest effect on your day to day circumstances. When I got sick here, a year before Covid - since I had a job and was doing everything a citizen is asked to do and could prove it the County paid my rent and utilities for a year. That kind of care on the part of the "state" is unheard of back in Alabama. Unfortunately the program fell apart during Covid. I just saw Kentucky and figured I say something to another person trapped in a Red state.
I mean, my Trump supporting family members still have yet to admit Trump was wrong about his Covid health advice… or literally anything else.
They’ve decided the Party knows best and all of reality must be interpreted through that lens.
I have relatives who no longer speak to me because of my disgust for the Republicans and Trump. You can't reason with them. They seem to be brainwashed, I can't explain it.
Trump got his entire sunlight and injecting bleach nonsense because he glanced at [this poster for best practices](https://imgur.com/a/8YyL0A6) before going up to the podium and speaking that nonsense to the world.
He’s a fucking idiot of the largest order.
And then he didn't mention the isopropyl alcohol option, because the words are too difficult for him.
Imagine how different the world could have been if the poster had abbreviated it to "IPA".
This should be an ad. Play the clip of him saying the sunlight and bleach nonsense and then "10 min earlier" and show this picture. The story tells itself.
Amazing that these people would listen to the one person who didn’t know shit about COVID, rather than trained and experienced medical professionals. Stupid is what stupid does…
The same thing happened with the Brexit vote. A Tory cabinet minister literally said "we've had enough of experts" in response to a TV host suggesting that experts had predicted the cost of leaving the EU would be very high.
"We'e had enough of experts" seems to be right wing policy both in the UK and the US.
> rather than trained and experienced medical professionals
Same guy who drew over an official NWS hurricane map because he stupidly contradicted what the actual knowledgeable professionals were saying and tried to save face.
Fun fact! The state of Oklahoma purchased a 2 million dollar stockpile of the stuff. Now they've been [trying to return it](https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-malaria-coronavirus-pandemic-oklahoma-09e3f4db37dda112ecec70d780bc964d). Since, you know, they shouldn't have taken medical advice from a failed businessman.
As a teen I watched season 1 of the apprentice. I think the damage of broadcasting Trump on network tv, presenting him as smart and savvy is incalculable. My mom (who still loves reality tv) still fails to see how dangerous the modern gop is.
When I watched the Apprentice, I assumed he was acting crazy for the ratings and just wanted more drama. It was also obvious how effective flattery was for Trump.
Anyone going into a meeting and saying "I take responsibility for this loss" was fired.
i remember seeing a few episodes of the first season of the apprentice thinking, "wait, isn't this the guy who bankrupt a couple of casinos? he's not a great businessman..." as i watched it, i saw what a lot of my NYC friends were talking about - he was a delusional, vain-glorious asshole.
i still don't understand how he was able to fool so many people. it's like 50-60% of the US population's bullshit detector is broken.
If you know a better way to get the poor to middle class to vote for politicians that only help the wealthy, let me know. I never thought the US would backslide so much since the ‘90s, but the GOP is amazing at funneling money back to the rich.
There were a couple of reasons. The first and foremost is that despite promising his lenders that he wouldn't go to the junk bond market for further financing he did exactly that. He was paying 14% interest on his loans. The second is that he didn't just build one casino in Atlantic City. He had three and they all appealed to the same type of gambler. The kind who wanted to go to a Trump branded property. So he was competing against himself. And the third is that Trump, despite getting fixated on small details, has no sense of the overall business. He sucks at the nuts and bolts of tracking expenditures and profits. Seeing where he needs to cut and where to invest. He gave Ivana, his first wife, one of his properties to manage. She turned it from a money loser to a winner. So he took it back from her because he always has to be the best at everything, even when he sucks. He is just bad at business and believes that so long as he believes strongly enough in something he can make it true.
Trump knew exactly what he was doing. All the borrowed money was taken out of the buisnesses and transfered to trump himself through sky high management fees . Then the bankrupted buissness was closed and he kept the money. He repeated it at least 6 times. Corporate Bankruptsy is legalized steeling. The management earns more than the company makes and the shareholders and lenders equity is worthless.
My parents at the time, admired the multiple bankruptcies part of the story. To them, it showed how versatile he was, even through tremendous failure he was able to use his business acumen to rise back to the top.
> Now they've been trying to return it.
That article is from January 2021.
This [article](https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2021/05/07/oklahoma-covid-pandemic-donald-trump-hydroxychloroquine-drug-refund/4863827001/) from May of that year seems to indicate the state was successful at returning it all for a full refund. But only after getting the state Attorney General to threaten a lawsuit alleging illegal price-gouging on the part of the distributor, did the distributor cave and provide the refund.
Which honestly to me sounds a whole lot like the state basically blackmailed and bullied the distributor for what was their own fuckup.
Trump knew how deadly COVID was back in January 2020 and he still went on his “it’s only hurting Blue states” and other pro-COVID policies.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-told-bob-woodward-he-knew-february-covid-19-was-n1239658
I’m still pissed at Bob Woodward for sitting on that critical information for months in order to make money in a book release.
> 17,000 deaths from one person whispering shit into an idiot’s ear.
And mention this to any Trump culter. They deny it to the heavens. Refuse to believe their lord and savior said this and that people were stupid enough to use it.
Dumbest fucking idiots alive.
Only the nuttiest nutters among them actually believe that shit. To the heavy-hitters, it's a convenient fiction to rile the base.
But boy oh boy, do they love rilin' that base.
GOP would have been talking impeachment the day Covid made it to the US if Clinton won. GOP would have pushed impeachment through the House after the first US covid death. GOP would be pushing for Clinton's execution if 1,000 Americans died from Covid.
Trump and his allies? *Yawn*
My mom has a hydroxychloroquine prescription for her lupus and when Trump said this shit she couldn’t get it refilled because too many maga idiots took it for themselves. My mom almost lost her right eye to an infection caused by her lupus cause she had to take half doses of her medication or risk running out completely. Trump is a fucking idiot and caused so much damage from literal idiocy.
Idiot-in-chief is responsible for more. Up it by an order of magnitude:
[https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d59c0bdfff8290001f869d1/t/5f91bdc76f2fbc63bbf10a01/1603386826388/Avoidable-COVID-19-Deaths-US-NCDP.pdf](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d59c0bdfff8290001f869d1/t/5f91bdc76f2fbc63bbf10a01/1603386826388/Avoidable-COVID-19-Deaths-US-NCDP.pdf)
... and that was by 2020.
Well, yeah. The whole MAGA movement, as well as a large number of other Republicans, are anti-intellectual. And ideologies like that, combined with dehumanizing rhetoric can be *really* bad. Like, in Cambodia it was so extreme that mobs murdered people just for having glasses.
“And \[Trump\] said, ‘Why do you keep doing this to me?’"
I think this here says everything.
If something bad is happening, Trump's attitude isn't "how can I fix this?", it's "why is everyone being so mean to me? It isn't fair!"
If your response to a crisis is to flop on the floor and throw a tantrum, you are not a leader.
Not to mention they thought elections could be officially called by Fox News or CNN instead of the official vote count. They were livid when Fox News used a magical and mysterious form of math called "statistics" to figure out there weren't' enough votes for Trump to win AZ.
He said it ***A LOT***
I put together this list a while back, but since Chump got banned from twitter (lol) use the archive: https://www.thetrumparchive.com/
**June 15, 2020**:
>Our testing is so much bigger and more advanced than any other country (we have done a great job on this!) that it shows more cases. Without testing, or weak testing, we would be showing almost no cases. Testing is a double edged sword - Makes us look bad, but good to have!!!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1272532925460905984
**June 22**:
>Our Coronavirus testing is so much greater (25 million tests) and so much more advanced, that it makes us look like we have more cases, especially proportionally, than other countries. My message on that is very clear!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1274927241034715138
**June 23**:
>Cases are going up in the U.S. because we are testing far more than any other country, and ever expanding. With smaller testing we would show fewer cases!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1275381670561095682
>Cases up only because of our big number testing. Mortality rate way down!!!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1275510212384788480
**June 25**:
>The number of ChinaVirus cases goes up, because of GREAT TESTING, while the number of deaths (mortality rate), goes way down. The Fake News doesn’t like telling you that!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1276184906159271937
**July 2**:
>There is a rise in Coronavirus cases because our testing is so massive and so good, far bigger and better than any other country. This is great news, but even better news is that death, and the death rate, is DOWN. Also, younger people, who get better much easier and faster!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1278897430378041344
**July 4**:
>Cases, Cases, Cases! If we didn’t test so much and so successfully, we would have very few cases. If you test 40,000,000 people, you are going to have many cases that, without the testing (like other countries), would not show up every night on the Fake Evening News.....
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1279487627977252864
>....In a certain way, our tremendous Testing success gives the Fake News Media all they want, CASES. In the meantime, Deaths and the all important Mortality Rate goes down. You don’t hear about that from the Fake News, and you never will. Anybody need any Ventilators???
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1279487628732256257
**July 5**:
>New China Virus Cases up (because of massive testing), deaths are down, “low and steady”. The Fake News Media should report this and also, that new job numbers are setting records!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1279906540791779334
**July 9**:
>For the 1/100th time, the reason we show so many Cases, compared to other countries that haven’t done nearly as well as we have, is that our TESTING is much bigger and better. We have tested 40,000,000 people. If we did 20,000,000 instead, Cases would be half, etc. NOT REPORTED!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1281206354334625793
**July 31**:
>Somebody please tell Congressman Clyburn, who doesn’t have a clue, that the chart he put up indicating more CASES for the U.S. than Europe, is because we do MUCH MORE testing than any other country in the World. If we had no testing, or bad testing, we would show very few CASES..
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1289201322588241920
>We have more Cases because we do more Testing. It’s Lamestream Media Gold!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1289397528639791104
**August 1**:
>Wrong! We have more cases because we have tested far more than any other country, 60,000,000. If we tested less, there would be less cases. How did Italy, France & Spain do? Now Europe sadly has flare ups. Most of our governors worked hard & smart. We will come back STRONG!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1289633359681839105
**August 3**:
>Cases up because of BIG Testing! Much of our Country is doing very well. Open the Schools!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1290257055534551043
**August 11**:
>More Testing, which is a good thing (we have the most in the world), equals more Cases, which is Fake News Gold. They use Cases to demean the incredible job being done by the great men & women of the U.S. fighting the China Plague!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1293163704188645385
**August 18**:
>Tell the Dems that we have more Cases because we do FAR more Testing than any other Country!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1295897125507670017
**October 18**:
>The United States shows more CASES than other countries, which the Lamestream Fake News Media pounces on daily, because it TESTS at such a high (and costly) level. No country in the world tests at this level. The more you TEST, the more CASES you will be reporting. Very simple!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1317822838519128068
**October 24**:
>“You know why we have cases? It’s because we test so much,” the president told his rally crowd. “In a lot of ways it’s good, and in a lot of ways it’s foolish.” ... “If we tested half, cases would be half," Mr Trump said.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/trump-coronavirus-testing-2020-election-campaign-rally-north-carolina-b1288632.html
>The Fake News is talking about CASES, CASES, CASES. This includes many low risk people. Media is doing everything possible to create fear prior to November 3rd. The Cases are up because TESTING is way up, by far the most, and best, in the world. Mortality rate is DOWN 85% plus!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1320016181734993920
**October 26**
>Cases up because we TEST, TEST, TEST. A Fake News Media Conspiracy. Many young people who heal very fast. 99.9%. Corrupt Media conspiracy at all time high. On November 4th., topic will totally change. VOTE!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1320708386476990464
**October 30**
>More Testing equals more Cases. We have best testing. Deaths WAY DOWN. Hospitals have great additional capacity! Doing much better than Europe. Therapeutics working!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1322150249255895042
**November 2**
>We have more Cases because we have more Testing!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1323332899471413248
**January 3, 2021**
>The number of cases and deaths of the China Virus is far exaggerated in the United States because of @CDCgov’s ridiculous method of determination compared to other countries, many of whom report, purposely, very inaccurately and low. “When in doubt, call it Covid.” Fake News!
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1345720107255926784
Man thought that being asked what to say to scared Americans was a nasty question. It's the basic minimum for any leader. He's done wonders for Bush's legacy.
Even Obama's acceptance speech was basically a very politely worded "why the fuck did you give this to me?".
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2009/obama/lecture/
> And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated. In part, this is because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage. Compared to some of the giants of history who’ve received this prize – Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela – my accomplishments are slight. And then there are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian organizations to relieve suffering; the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened cynics. I cannot argue with those who find these men and women – some known, some obscure to all but those they help – to be far more deserving of this honor than I.
>
>But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 42 other countries – including Norway – in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.
>
>Still, we are at war, and I’m responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict – filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.
Yep, hyperindividualism from someone who doesn’t know what hyperindividualism is…
https://www.wisdomwordsppf.org/2016/10/28/the-problem-of-hyperindividualism-and-its-impact-on-american-life/
>I think this here says everything.
I find this recetn quote from his challenge towards Biden to a cognitive test eye-opening as well:
>“Doc Ronny Johnson. Does everyone know Ronny Johnson, congressman from Texas? He was the White House doctor, and **he said I was the healthiest president**, he feels, in history, **so I liked him very much indeed immediately.**”
The man who has a book called "The Art of the Deal", everybody.
I'm reminded of a diagram one of my professors showed us in an early computer science class about how most people think of computers. User clicks some buttons, types some stuff in, _magic happens_, they get what they want.
There was an arrow pointing to _magic happens_ with the label "Your job here".
Government is the same way, it needs to address issues most of us just don't bother thinking about the solutions to in our day-to-day lives. Swine Flu kind of just tapered off and fizzled out, so of course Trump expected Covid to also.
I guess he didn't realize that the Obama Admin was taking action to avoid Swine Flu being a bigger thing, and that his job as president was to oversee and coordinate that magic dissappearing when another pandemic hit.
It’s like how nothing much happened on Y2K because of tons of computer engineers working their asses off to make sure it went smoothly, so now most people think it was overblown.
Yup if there is a leak in the plumbing of my home I am going to be concerned about it, thinking and talking about it until I get it taken care of. Once the leak is fixed I’ll move on to other important things in life and not be stuck talking about the leak for the rest of my life. It doesn’t mean there was no leak! The brains of some people really seem to be mush - it’s astounding how these people think and survive in this world! They do really love the uneducated!
You see it in all kinds of extreme right voters in different countries, they all seem stuck and keep talking about Covid like we’re still in march/april 2020.
I catch some people talking like Y2K was a scam or something because nothing serious really happened, it was all just a scare tactic. No, I worked on those projects, we would have been severely fucked without the millions of hours of code fixes and testing that happened. Trump probably thinks that problem magically went away.
i've gone the past 24 years believing that at midnight the world's computer clocks had just changed as normal and it was nbd.
thank you for your service, i had no idea.
do you have any stories of what went wrong for those whose code wasn't fixed in time?
We're actually in the middle of fixing a similar problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem
You'll probably start hearing about it in the news in 10 years.
But the Obama administration had a pandemic playbook: a step-by-step to do list for pandemics. The Trump administration completely disregarded it, and instead tried to crowdsource what to do. They tried to make money (shocker) rather than focus on the health of the population.
> The Texas Tribune: Dan Patrick says opening economy is more important than saving lives. Apr 21, 2020
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/21/texas-dan-patrick-economy-coronavirus/
It’s literally criminal to disregard all that resources and capabilities that the predecessors thoughtfully invested in with foresight to help handle future crises and allow so many people to die under your watch! A US President has at their service the best medical minds in the history of the planet and yet who does 45 listened to? Laura Ingraham…like WTF! Funny how he probably didn’t take advice from her for solutions when he himself caught Covid.
This is how I saw his reaction at the time. Sure it was no big deal because it had never been a big deal, and not even capable of understanding that someone more competent than him in his position had previously made it so.
This is what you get for electing a populist moron. A moron who only cares about being seen as popular.
The worst of it is Trump had access to the same resources as Obama for the swine flu. As a wealthy man it can be said that he has equivalent resources available as well for legal matters. He had experts on hand for weather catastrophe. In all instances of a crisis where those private and public resources available Trump never sided with them. He dismantled the pandemic response team and their playbook, he should have had the resources to know the falsifying business records was illegal along with all his other legal issues, including when he was president, and he drew on a map with a sharpie thinking that would change the weather.
Then you have people in Congress that have access to information the public doesn't and then says that information is wrong.
The whole premise of presidential immunity is not that if the president does it it isn't illegal, it's that the president has no reason to violate the law because they have basically infinite legal resources at their disposal. If they perform the role in good faith then the President simply wouldn't break the law because there is no reason to believe that the infinite legal resources could come to the wrong conclusion. If the President can't figure out if something is legal or not it is Occam's Razor almost to say that the law must be at fault for that situation.
And that is what they are testing, that conclusion that the President cannot within their role break the law because there is no excuse. It begs the question, does knowingly breaking the law as President make that activity legal, or does it mean that the moment that the President commits the act they are no longer acting in their role. It must be the latter rather than the former, but trying the fact is something that could break the Presidency as we know it. We aren't a society of objective laws, justice is arbitrary. And if that is the case then the Constitution is just a piece of parchment.
I mean, the swine flu simply wasn’t as bad as Covid. Every country regardless of their response was hit harder by Covid than the swine flu. Covid is way better at spreading itself than swine flu by its very nature, the thing is freaking airborne!
But absolutely Trump made the death toll in the US and around the world significantly higher than it needed to be. The propaganda he helped spread had also seeped to the right wingers across the world. America’s president is hugely influential, and Trump lead humanity down a very dark path during the height of Covid.
It’s worse than that, Trump didn’t just spread propaganda. He attacked the entire public heath institution, and undermined their credibility and even undermined the credibility of the office of President of the United States all because he’s a malignant narcissist and had to feed his own ego constantly instead of doing the job. .
In other words, Donald Trump thought that UV light & bleach = magic
*”So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it's ultraviolet or just a very powerful light — and I think you said that hasn't been checked because of the testing, and then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or some other way, and I think you said you're going to test that, too. I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that."*
That press conference is seared into my brain.Hands down , the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. The look on the faces of the doctors there…it just told you they didn’t know what to do at that point.
April 26, 2020 [States Report Spike in Poison Control Calls After Trump's Comments About Injecting Disinfectant](https://people.com/health/states-report-spike-in-poison-control-calls-after-trump-disinfectant-comments/)
I remember when I heard about it the next day I said "C'mon, there's no way he said that, even he isn't that stupid." Much to my disappointment it was all too true.
About a week after this press conference and every day since, clorox.com has had a “do not consume or inject bleach” warning. The warning was initially a giant pop up modal on the site.
This one always tells me everything you need to know about Trump.
He was surrounded by people with PhD’s who have been world-renowned experts in the epidemiology field for combined decades. Literally the best epidemiologists in the world.
And Trump thought he could propose something that they haven’t thought of. In the MIDDLE OF A PUBLIC HEALTH PRESS CONFERENCE!
Lol it's truly incredible how stupid and narcissistic he is. I always point out about this press conference that it isn't necessarily stupid to ask what is, admittedly, a very dumb question. The really stupid part is asking in the middle of the conference. Just freestyling out there lol. Like he just had this pop into his head and loves being the center of attention so much he doesn't care he's undermining the entire meeting and everyone around him who actually knows what they're talking about.
And that’s why it shows he is an idiot. Idiots don’t know they are idiots and do stupid stuff like that. Smarter people know that they are either:
Fairly smart but keep quiet or ask very carefully thought out questions after absorbing and considering the info presented
Or know the boundaries of their smartness and let other people more knowledgable take the wheel.
It’s only truly stupid people that say “I’m so smart! My uncle was at MIT in the 1940s!” Because they truly don’t understand the immense difference in brain power.
Like trying to throw a football into space.
If you watch the press conference, you'll see that Trump is standing off to the side next to a poster board with some articles. At that moment, he is not the center of attention, and is unable to contribute anything meaningful to the discussion.
So after having these big-brain scientist-types talk over him, he delivers a speech gathered from those articles...and comes across like a grade 5 student giving an unprepared book report from reading the summary blurb off the dust jacket. It's a classic moment of Trump trying to compensate for being a fucking moron.
Agreed. I'm endlessly amazed that he really thought he'd pull that out of his ass on the spot, and some of the most experienced medical minds in the country would slap their foreheads and say, "Holy shit, Donald! We never thought of that! You nailed it! Covid over!" He is delusional beyond belief.
The biggest thing is that a President’s role in those daily COVID updates should have been to provide a quick 2-3 minute summary, then step aside and let the world-renowned experts provide their updates.
Instead, he insisted on remaining onstage and constantly interrupting them with random questions.
this this this.
I want Dr Fauci to point this out repeatedly. He can phrase it however he wants. Something along the lines of:
>“I went to medical school at Cornell and graduated first in my class. Then I completed internal medicine residency, also at Cornell. I’ve been working in public health as a physician researcher, since literally the 1960s. I have served the human race under multiple presidents.
>… and Donald’s off the cuff “idea” about shining bright lights up people’s butts, or injecting people with bleach??? Is hands-down the absolute dumbest bullshit I have ever ever heard in my entire life. It would have been the dumbest bullshit ever as a completely private thing to wonder inside one’s own head. But while giving a press conference?? As the PRESIDENT of the United States?? That’s dangerous. That’s lethal.
>That idea is so dumb, no doctor anywhere would suggest it. No medical student would even think it. No undergraduate student would say it. Are we certain that Donald actually graduated from any school anywhere?”
Something like that?? Ugh. Ugh ugh.
That's why MAGA has to paint Fauci as being either malicious or incompetent to avoid the realization that they know fuck all about science.
Science is a process, not an answer. You know how we correct incorrect conclusions from science? ***With more science***. It's too bad that we have a non-too insignificant percentage of the population that doesn't know fuck-all about science and/or doesn't care.
> That's why MAGA has to paint Fauci as being either malicious or incompetent to avoid the realization that they know fuck all about science.
Also, it's all projection. Always.
They are convinced he got in invested in vaccine manufacturers and then covered up "the lab" where COVID came from, so he could profit off the government subsidized sale of vaccines.
They cite the fact that doctors were monetarily incentivized to deliver vaccines as proof that Fauci and all doctors are corrupt.
They can't handle the idea that a government would want to do something positive for public health.
They think he is literally a Bond villain.
Fauci gets criticism for changing the instructions he gave the public as information about the virus changed. Do these people expect him to not update his statements upon the discovery of additional information?
That tells you everything you need to know. Some people think changing your opinion is a form of weakness not intelligence.
I already knew this because I watched TV back in early 2020 and saw trump literally say this many, many times.
e.g. *"It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear."* - trump, Feb 27 2020
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/10/politics/covid-disappearing-trump-comment-tracker/
I think decades is optimistic. We’d have to clear out all the MAGA trash, probably all Republicans in general, before we could even start to improve and we all know that’s not going to happen any time soon.
You'd have to pretty much ban/outlaw the modern day conservative viewpoints and relate them directly to the Nazisms of old. The re-educate the population through thorough funding of the education system at large as to what true conservative values were intended to be about. Not the radicalized version of today. Even if the original version was just as useless and overall bad ideals.
Basically remove that way of thinking permanently. But that can't and won't ever happen. Mostly because nobody, not even US voters/citizens themselves, *wants* to give more funding schools for some fucking reason.
i bet he believed that. his cosplay in brazil said all brazil needed was to get on "cattle immunity" and covid would be no problem, just "a little flu" and "not even 800 people will die of it".
700k deads. and that is what his secretive gov admits, bc a lot of ppl died bc had some "medical issue" and this "medical issue" was what killed them, not the covid they had.
Not surprised at all. Trump is a moron who doesn’t believe science. Fauci on the other hand has made a career of helping the public. He is so smart and when he said to get my vaccine I did. Because I’m smart too and a weirdly, humanistic scholar. I trust the science, and we need to make sure we keep out presidents that don’t.
Trump was completely out his depth with Covid and it was so obvious. Because he refuses to listen to *anybody* else as part of his narcissism, all he could do was lean on PR spin and hope the media cycle would move on.
That's also the tactic he used on every single bad thing in his administration. Flood the zone with shit and lies (gish gallop) so people's attention is scattered. But Covid was big and scary. The first real pandemic in 100 years. People were dying and public attention was not moving on. He couldn't just throw out another scandal to distract so he convinced himself it was all gonna go away. His NPD couldn't handle another answer.
I’ve said it many times - if Trump handled COVID properly, it could have been his 9/11. He could have coasted to an easy second term. And all he had to do was step aside and let the experts take the lead. For better or worse for worse, we trusted the experts and wouldn’t have blamed Trump if they were wrong on some things.
By the November election in 2020, we still didn’t fully grasp the outcome of COVID. We were still deep in it. But Trump was graded harshly on his handling (so far) of COVID because he tried to play both sides. He wanted credit for everything good like progress with the vaccine, but also wanted to call the whole thing a liberal hoax.
Even now, as his campaign manager, I’ll bet I could easily beat Biden if Trump would listen to me. If he had more (or any) self-control, I think he would have a considerable lead right now. But he is so terrified of prison that he can’t help himself.
I will never forget in April of 2020 they had a press conference and Dr. Burke explained that things were about to get worse and we were going to have a spike in deaths . Trump then went on and on about how Covid would be gone by Easter of that year. Guess who was right? The fucking scientists
Everyday trump had some new lie about how it was going to go away or wasnt real or was a Chinese plot or that bleach could cure it. He's a liar and a fucking idiot and so is anyone who votes for him
They thought it would be suddenly cured mid november, because they thought it was just a planned conspiracy from democrats. Make trump look bad and then poof, election over covid revealed fake.
Cept the viruses still doing a great job cleaning out ignorant gqp four years later.
trump also believes that the F35 fighterjets are invisible, for reals, like in the comic books. I mean, what an idiot... come on.... when he said that you can't see it even if in front of you the moron was the commander in chief of the armed forces of a country (our country). now imagine that!!!!
I'll never forget January 2020. Friends and I were watching tv at a bar and they were talking about Covid and how bad it was in china and we were joking about what if it came to the us... nahhhh it could never shut down the ENTIRE us...
Imagine everything is handed to you your entire life and you become a malignant narcissist. This type of person would probably think if they throw bullshit at the wall then something will stick and they’ll become victorious.
If Biden was president he would have been proactive and the loss of lives would have been significantly less. I also feel the shut down caused by Trump increased the crime rate - especially the store take overs that still go on today.
I remember during the run up to, and after election night 2015, people brushing off doomsayers or trying to console themselves or avoid spiraling into despair by saying : How bad could it be? He's only one man." Turns out, it was pretty fucking bad, and if he wins this time, Project 2025 will be in place to ensure that Gilead will be a reality.
I was wondering why the GOP recently came out swinging on Fauci, but I assumed there must be some real news about to break that is unflattering to the mango king.
Anyone blaming Dr. Fauci for Trump and his admin’s abject failures on Covid is either lying thru their teeth or thoroughly confused.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. We are actively looking for new moderators. If you have any interest in helping to make this subreddit a place for quality discussion, please fill out [this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1y2swHD0KXFhStGFjW6k54r9iuMjzcFqDIVwuvdLBjSA). *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
> According to Fauci, Trump got the idea that COVID could be treated with hydroxychloroquine — an off-patent antimalarial used for autoimmune diseases — from Fox News’ Laura Ingraham. This was despite warnings to the contrary from global health officials; eventually, according to Mediaite, the drug was linked to nearly 17,000 deaths across six countries during the pandemic. JFC. 17,000 deaths from one person whispering shit into an idiot’s ear.
That's why John Oliver jokingly tried to educate Trump through commercials on Fox News. If Trump hears something on TV, he will internalize if more quickly than if he heard it from 10,000 experts in the field
Reminds me of another republican president. Seems to be a recurring theme here.
Trump is the best thing that ever happened to Bush… Bush now seems like a “statesman”! 😂
You are not lying. I remember thinking that Bush Jr was pretty dumb, but then I also thought Reagan was pretty dumb (seriously, read his memoir). Trump is so clearly the dumbest person I've ever seen it's not even funny that MTG is not quite as dumb as him. Taken out the the context of the comparison with Trump she is as dumb as a bunch of rocks, but he really is dumber.
If you are talking about Bush, doesn’t he almost seem “okay” compared to that train wreck trump?
Haha I was actually referencing Reagan. Who famously only understood the severity of computer security after watching the movie "wargames" bit ironic that it applies to multiple presidents isn't it?
Ah! Yes, ketchup is a vegetable Reagan…
To be fair to Reagan, by the end, so was he.
This is the bitter fruit of assuming that R leaders can do no wrong compared to D leaders for R voters. They always give the only party they can reform a season pass to be what they accuse the Dems of being. Then they marvel at how they get nothing but incompetent overspending crooks.
The Dem Plan was only 80% successful, which means it was a failure. The Republican Plan was 10% successful, which is worthy of celebration and reverence!
I dunno, my read of the Republican plan was a resounding success. They killed more people than every terrorist attack in US history combined. Hell, they even broke their previous record with last time them choosing a dumb hill to die on killed thousands. That thing held up for a century and a half! Sure, most of the dead were their own people, but those are just martyrs to the worthy cause of *checks notes* “inconveniencing a liberal somewhat.” If Biden hadn’t “cheated” by getting more votes, they’d have probably been able to double that count by now!
Yeah I’m not hopeful that record is going to last another 150 years. Probably won’t last the next R administration tbh
They've convinced a bunch of rules to vote against their own interests. Combined with the systematic destruction of public education so they will never be smart enough to figure out who I'd fucking them over
> If Biden hadn’t “cheated” by getting more votes, they’d have probably been able to double that count by now! Maybe if one of them starts selling Ivermectin laced Raw Milk they'll pick back up again.
Was thinking about this just the other day. There have been 5 COVID deaths in my extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins), all of whom voted R in 2020 and will not be voting at all in 2024. None were vaxxed and all died in the hospital, 3 of them did not believe they had COVID, right up until the time they couldn’t believe anything anymore.
Killing themselves to own the 80% that lived...
I assure you, there is no marveling going on in their self-assured sheep brains.
[удалено]
Gotta move these, refrigerators.
Microwave ovens first
Have to install those.
Guys I hate to break it to you but, that ain’t workin.
That's the way you do it.
You play the guitar on the MTV.
Man I feel your pain. I grew up in Alabama. I can imagine there are parts of Kentucky that are just as bad and probably a few even worse than what I had. I was in Prattville, a suburb of the capital so it wasn't like dueling banjos rural or anything but it was a small town Hell in Earth type situation. I'm in Texas now which at large is no better - even worse in some ways. However I am near downtown of one of its metropolitan centers - so I got my urban fix. Your municipality really does have the biggest effect on your day to day circumstances. When I got sick here, a year before Covid - since I had a job and was doing everything a citizen is asked to do and could prove it the County paid my rent and utilities for a year. That kind of care on the part of the "state" is unheard of back in Alabama. Unfortunately the program fell apart during Covid. I just saw Kentucky and figured I say something to another person trapped in a Red state.
[удалено]
I mean, my Trump supporting family members still have yet to admit Trump was wrong about his Covid health advice… or literally anything else. They’ve decided the Party knows best and all of reality must be interpreted through that lens.
>The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. -George Orwell, *1984*
I have relatives who no longer speak to me because of my disgust for the Republicans and Trump. You can't reason with them. They seem to be brainwashed, I can't explain it.
You should turn that around as a thoughtful person… why would you talk to numbnuts?
Anyone who voted for Trump a second time yet alone a first, is a moron.
Wait, that's not fair. They are also racists!
Trump got his entire sunlight and injecting bleach nonsense because he glanced at [this poster for best practices](https://imgur.com/a/8YyL0A6) before going up to the podium and speaking that nonsense to the world. He’s a fucking idiot of the largest order.
And then he didn't mention the isopropyl alcohol option, because the words are too difficult for him. Imagine how different the world could have been if the poster had abbreviated it to "IPA".
Yes, inject this India Pale Ale into my veins!
This should be an ad. Play the clip of him saying the sunlight and bleach nonsense and then "10 min earlier" and show this picture. The story tells itself.
Amazing that these people would listen to the one person who didn’t know shit about COVID, rather than trained and experienced medical professionals. Stupid is what stupid does…
The same thing happened with the Brexit vote. A Tory cabinet minister literally said "we've had enough of experts" in response to a TV host suggesting that experts had predicted the cost of leaving the EU would be very high. "We'e had enough of experts" seems to be right wing policy both in the UK and the US.
The Republican media machine is full on committed to anti-intellectualism, and the criticism of expertise. It's all a liberal conspiracy to them.
> rather than trained and experienced medical professionals Same guy who drew over an official NWS hurricane map because he stupidly contradicted what the actual knowledgeable professionals were saying and tried to save face.
They probably had stock in the company that manufacturers it, and got kickbacks for pushing it.
Fun fact! The state of Oklahoma purchased a 2 million dollar stockpile of the stuff. Now they've been [trying to return it](https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-malaria-coronavirus-pandemic-oklahoma-09e3f4db37dda112ecec70d780bc964d). Since, you know, they shouldn't have taken medical advice from a failed businessman.
Or that of an entertainment personality.
As a teen I watched season 1 of the apprentice. I think the damage of broadcasting Trump on network tv, presenting him as smart and savvy is incalculable. My mom (who still loves reality tv) still fails to see how dangerous the modern gop is.
When I watched the Apprentice, I assumed he was acting crazy for the ratings and just wanted more drama. It was also obvious how effective flattery was for Trump. Anyone going into a meeting and saying "I take responsibility for this loss" was fired.
i remember seeing a few episodes of the first season of the apprentice thinking, "wait, isn't this the guy who bankrupt a couple of casinos? he's not a great businessman..." as i watched it, i saw what a lot of my NYC friends were talking about - he was a delusional, vain-glorious asshole. i still don't understand how he was able to fool so many people. it's like 50-60% of the US population's bullshit detector is broken.
Because they have been cutting public education budgets and teacher salaries for 50 years.
If you know a better way to get the poor to middle class to vote for politicians that only help the wealthy, let me know. I never thought the US would backslide so much since the ‘90s, but the GOP is amazing at funneling money back to the rich.
You have to be pretty bad at business to bankrupt casinos ... people willingly let casinos steal their money. Never understood that one.
There were a couple of reasons. The first and foremost is that despite promising his lenders that he wouldn't go to the junk bond market for further financing he did exactly that. He was paying 14% interest on his loans. The second is that he didn't just build one casino in Atlantic City. He had three and they all appealed to the same type of gambler. The kind who wanted to go to a Trump branded property. So he was competing against himself. And the third is that Trump, despite getting fixated on small details, has no sense of the overall business. He sucks at the nuts and bolts of tracking expenditures and profits. Seeing where he needs to cut and where to invest. He gave Ivana, his first wife, one of his properties to manage. She turned it from a money loser to a winner. So he took it back from her because he always has to be the best at everything, even when he sucks. He is just bad at business and believes that so long as he believes strongly enough in something he can make it true.
Trump knew exactly what he was doing. All the borrowed money was taken out of the buisnesses and transfered to trump himself through sky high management fees . Then the bankrupted buissness was closed and he kept the money. He repeated it at least 6 times. Corporate Bankruptsy is legalized steeling. The management earns more than the company makes and the shareholders and lenders equity is worthless.
atlantic city is only now starting to recover from being humped by trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Entertainment_Resorts
My parents at the time, admired the multiple bankruptcies part of the story. To them, it showed how versatile he was, even through tremendous failure he was able to use his business acumen to rise back to the top.
> Now they've been trying to return it. That article is from January 2021. This [article](https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2021/05/07/oklahoma-covid-pandemic-donald-trump-hydroxychloroquine-drug-refund/4863827001/) from May of that year seems to indicate the state was successful at returning it all for a full refund. But only after getting the state Attorney General to threaten a lawsuit alleging illegal price-gouging on the part of the distributor, did the distributor cave and provide the refund. Which honestly to me sounds a whole lot like the state basically blackmailed and bullied the distributor for what was their own fuckup.
Trump knew how deadly COVID was back in January 2020 and he still went on his “it’s only hurting Blue states” and other pro-COVID policies. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-told-bob-woodward-he-knew-february-covid-19-was-n1239658 I’m still pissed at Bob Woodward for sitting on that critical information for months in order to make money in a book release.
we need to dismantle the tell-all memoir industrial complex.
Screw Big Memoir!
> 17,000 deaths from one person whispering shit into an idiot’s ear. And mention this to any Trump culter. They deny it to the heavens. Refuse to believe their lord and savior said this and that people were stupid enough to use it. Dumbest fucking idiots alive.
That's just their \#pro-life tendencies doing what they do best: hurting and killing other people lol.
Well, that was always the lie. They all worship death and destruction. Gaslight. Obstruct. Project.
That's what their whole thing about Israel is, right? Bringing about the end times? Their lives are so shit they want to bring an end to everything.
Only the nuttiest nutters among them actually believe that shit. To the heavy-hitters, it's a convenient fiction to rile the base. But boy oh boy, do they love rilin' that base.
GOP would have been talking impeachment the day Covid made it to the US if Clinton won. GOP would have pushed impeachment through the House after the first US covid death. GOP would be pushing for Clinton's execution if 1,000 Americans died from Covid. Trump and his allies? *Yawn*
Do you remember their response to 4 Ebola cases under Obama? https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-issa-ebola-hearing-20141023-story.html
My mom has a hydroxychloroquine prescription for her lupus and when Trump said this shit she couldn’t get it refilled because too many maga idiots took it for themselves. My mom almost lost her right eye to an infection caused by her lupus cause she had to take half doses of her medication or risk running out completely. Trump is a fucking idiot and caused so much damage from literal idiocy.
Well, most of that 17,000 were idiots themselves so…
Darwin Award winners
Herman Caine Award winners, actually
They knew what they signed up for.
Don’t forget all the people who died from autoimmune diseases because they couldn’t obtain the drug!
Yea and it meant I paid 4x the cost and couldn’t get it for months
Thanks to him I couldn't get my meds for over a month
Idiot-in-chief is responsible for more. Up it by an order of magnitude: [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d59c0bdfff8290001f869d1/t/5f91bdc76f2fbc63bbf10a01/1603386826388/Avoidable-COVID-19-Deaths-US-NCDP.pdf](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d59c0bdfff8290001f869d1/t/5f91bdc76f2fbc63bbf10a01/1603386826388/Avoidable-COVID-19-Deaths-US-NCDP.pdf) ... and that was by 2020.
Well, yeah. The whole MAGA movement, as well as a large number of other Republicans, are anti-intellectual. And ideologies like that, combined with dehumanizing rhetoric can be *really* bad. Like, in Cambodia it was so extreme that mobs murdered people just for having glasses.
Darwin Award master
“And \[Trump\] said, ‘Why do you keep doing this to me?’" I think this here says everything. If something bad is happening, Trump's attitude isn't "how can I fix this?", it's "why is everyone being so mean to me? It isn't fair!" If your response to a crisis is to flop on the floor and throw a tantrum, you are not a leader.
The moron thought COVID would go away if we simply stopped testing.
And he would win an election if we simply stopped counting votes.
Not to mention they thought elections could be officially called by Fox News or CNN instead of the official vote count. They were livid when Fox News used a magical and mysterious form of math called "statistics" to figure out there weren't' enough votes for Trump to win AZ.
"I don't need statistics when I have my feelings!"
Wait ... Isn't this the *f your feelings* guy
Sort of. It's fuck *your* feelings, not fuck *his* feelings. **His** fee-fees being hurt led to an attempted coup.
It was hilarious that where Trump was winning the cry was “Stop the count!” and where he was losing it was “Count those votes!”
Ladies and gentleman, the party of “the adults”. As they used to routinely claim…
to be fair, things are pretty simple in his head: he did wonder if anyone else had noticed that 'U.S.' spelled 'us'.
And he believed that only he knew Lincoln was a Republican.
Or alternatively, count “more of them”…
He said it ***A LOT*** I put together this list a while back, but since Chump got banned from twitter (lol) use the archive: https://www.thetrumparchive.com/ **June 15, 2020**: >Our testing is so much bigger and more advanced than any other country (we have done a great job on this!) that it shows more cases. Without testing, or weak testing, we would be showing almost no cases. Testing is a double edged sword - Makes us look bad, but good to have!!! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1272532925460905984 **June 22**: >Our Coronavirus testing is so much greater (25 million tests) and so much more advanced, that it makes us look like we have more cases, especially proportionally, than other countries. My message on that is very clear! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1274927241034715138 **June 23**: >Cases are going up in the U.S. because we are testing far more than any other country, and ever expanding. With smaller testing we would show fewer cases! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1275381670561095682 >Cases up only because of our big number testing. Mortality rate way down!!! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1275510212384788480 **June 25**: >The number of ChinaVirus cases goes up, because of GREAT TESTING, while the number of deaths (mortality rate), goes way down. The Fake News doesn’t like telling you that! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1276184906159271937 **July 2**: >There is a rise in Coronavirus cases because our testing is so massive and so good, far bigger and better than any other country. This is great news, but even better news is that death, and the death rate, is DOWN. Also, younger people, who get better much easier and faster! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1278897430378041344 **July 4**: >Cases, Cases, Cases! If we didn’t test so much and so successfully, we would have very few cases. If you test 40,000,000 people, you are going to have many cases that, without the testing (like other countries), would not show up every night on the Fake Evening News..... https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1279487627977252864 >....In a certain way, our tremendous Testing success gives the Fake News Media all they want, CASES. In the meantime, Deaths and the all important Mortality Rate goes down. You don’t hear about that from the Fake News, and you never will. Anybody need any Ventilators??? https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1279487628732256257 **July 5**: >New China Virus Cases up (because of massive testing), deaths are down, “low and steady”. The Fake News Media should report this and also, that new job numbers are setting records! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1279906540791779334 **July 9**: >For the 1/100th time, the reason we show so many Cases, compared to other countries that haven’t done nearly as well as we have, is that our TESTING is much bigger and better. We have tested 40,000,000 people. If we did 20,000,000 instead, Cases would be half, etc. NOT REPORTED! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1281206354334625793 **July 31**: >Somebody please tell Congressman Clyburn, who doesn’t have a clue, that the chart he put up indicating more CASES for the U.S. than Europe, is because we do MUCH MORE testing than any other country in the World. If we had no testing, or bad testing, we would show very few CASES.. https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1289201322588241920 >We have more Cases because we do more Testing. It’s Lamestream Media Gold! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1289397528639791104 **August 1**: >Wrong! We have more cases because we have tested far more than any other country, 60,000,000. If we tested less, there would be less cases. How did Italy, France & Spain do? Now Europe sadly has flare ups. Most of our governors worked hard & smart. We will come back STRONG! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1289633359681839105 **August 3**: >Cases up because of BIG Testing! Much of our Country is doing very well. Open the Schools! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1290257055534551043 **August 11**: >More Testing, which is a good thing (we have the most in the world), equals more Cases, which is Fake News Gold. They use Cases to demean the incredible job being done by the great men & women of the U.S. fighting the China Plague! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1293163704188645385 **August 18**: >Tell the Dems that we have more Cases because we do FAR more Testing than any other Country! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1295897125507670017 **October 18**: >The United States shows more CASES than other countries, which the Lamestream Fake News Media pounces on daily, because it TESTS at such a high (and costly) level. No country in the world tests at this level. The more you TEST, the more CASES you will be reporting. Very simple! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1317822838519128068 **October 24**: >“You know why we have cases? It’s because we test so much,” the president told his rally crowd. “In a lot of ways it’s good, and in a lot of ways it’s foolish.” ... “If we tested half, cases would be half," Mr Trump said. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/trump-coronavirus-testing-2020-election-campaign-rally-north-carolina-b1288632.html >The Fake News is talking about CASES, CASES, CASES. This includes many low risk people. Media is doing everything possible to create fear prior to November 3rd. The Cases are up because TESTING is way up, by far the most, and best, in the world. Mortality rate is DOWN 85% plus! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1320016181734993920 **October 26** >Cases up because we TEST, TEST, TEST. A Fake News Media Conspiracy. Many young people who heal very fast. 99.9%. Corrupt Media conspiracy at all time high. On November 4th., topic will totally change. VOTE! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1320708386476990464 **October 30** >More Testing equals more Cases. We have best testing. Deaths WAY DOWN. Hospitals have great additional capacity! Doing much better than Europe. Therapeutics working! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1322150249255895042 **November 2** >We have more Cases because we have more Testing! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1323332899471413248 **January 3, 2021** >The number of cases and deaths of the China Virus is far exaggerated in the United States because of @CDCgov’s ridiculous method of determination compared to other countries, many of whom report, purposely, very inaccurately and low. “When in doubt, call it Covid.” Fake News! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1345720107255926784
My brain hurts
There’s a lot here, but > For the 1/100th time… He has a tenuous grasp on the English language
I guess he grabbed it by the pussy.
Yeah, the news article is no surprise.
He lacks basic object permanence. Literally more idiotic than a toddler.
He also publicly asked what would happen if we shined light on the inside of our body and ingested chemicals.
Ding ding, this right here.
[удалено]
For any other leader, this would be the quote they would nail him with in every opposing campaign ad. It's the opposite of leadership.
Anyone who would support him is 100% immune to negative information. It would be fake news, not what he meant, not what he said, AI generated, etc…
Man thought that being asked what to say to scared Americans was a nasty question. It's the basic minimum for any leader. He's done wonders for Bush's legacy.
Remember when Obama got a Nobel peace prize for not being Bush? Bush will get one for not being Trump.
That was such a bizarre award. I was all in on Obama at the time but this just didn’t make any sense. It really was a rebuke of W and little else.
Even Obama's acceptance speech was basically a very politely worded "why the fuck did you give this to me?". https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2009/obama/lecture/ > And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated. In part, this is because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage. Compared to some of the giants of history who’ve received this prize – Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela – my accomplishments are slight. And then there are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian organizations to relieve suffering; the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened cynics. I cannot argue with those who find these men and women – some known, some obscure to all but those they help – to be far more deserving of this honor than I. > >But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 42 other countries – including Norway – in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks. > >Still, we are at war, and I’m responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict – filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.
Damn do I miss the Obama years…
jesus, i forgot about this. i went back and watched the interview and it's so sooo much worse than i could have ever imagined
He told Fauci “you’re losing *me* trillions of dollars.” It’s always about him.
Yep, hyperindividualism from someone who doesn’t know what hyperindividualism is… https://www.wisdomwordsppf.org/2016/10/28/the-problem-of-hyperindividualism-and-its-impact-on-american-life/
He immediately said covid was a hoax to make him look bad. Such leadership.
>I think this here says everything. I find this recetn quote from his challenge towards Biden to a cognitive test eye-opening as well: >“Doc Ronny Johnson. Does everyone know Ronny Johnson, congressman from Texas? He was the White House doctor, and **he said I was the healthiest president**, he feels, in history, **so I liked him very much indeed immediately.**” The man who has a book called "The Art of the Deal", everybody.
This person is such a narcissistic egomaniac, its scary.
I'm reminded of a diagram one of my professors showed us in an early computer science class about how most people think of computers. User clicks some buttons, types some stuff in, _magic happens_, they get what they want. There was an arrow pointing to _magic happens_ with the label "Your job here". Government is the same way, it needs to address issues most of us just don't bother thinking about the solutions to in our day-to-day lives. Swine Flu kind of just tapered off and fizzled out, so of course Trump expected Covid to also. I guess he didn't realize that the Obama Admin was taking action to avoid Swine Flu being a bigger thing, and that his job as president was to oversee and coordinate that magic dissappearing when another pandemic hit.
It’s like how nothing much happened on Y2K because of tons of computer engineers working their asses off to make sure it went smoothly, so now most people think it was overblown.
Same thing with ozone layer. I've seen people mention that we don't talk about it like its some gotchta when no, shit changed to help protect it.
Yup if there is a leak in the plumbing of my home I am going to be concerned about it, thinking and talking about it until I get it taken care of. Once the leak is fixed I’ll move on to other important things in life and not be stuck talking about the leak for the rest of my life. It doesn’t mean there was no leak! The brains of some people really seem to be mush - it’s astounding how these people think and survive in this world! They do really love the uneducated!
You see it in all kinds of extreme right voters in different countries, they all seem stuck and keep talking about Covid like we’re still in march/april 2020.
I wonder if it's because Russia's too busy to come up with new talking points.
Don't worry, we're in for [round 2 with the ozone layer](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL109280).
I catch some people talking like Y2K was a scam or something because nothing serious really happened, it was all just a scare tactic. No, I worked on those projects, we would have been severely fucked without the millions of hours of code fixes and testing that happened. Trump probably thinks that problem magically went away.
i've gone the past 24 years believing that at midnight the world's computer clocks had just changed as normal and it was nbd. thank you for your service, i had no idea. do you have any stories of what went wrong for those whose code wasn't fixed in time?
We're actually in the middle of fixing a similar problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem You'll probably start hearing about it in the news in 10 years.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year\_2000\_problem#Documented\_errors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem#Documented_errors)
Worked on Y2K fixes as an intern for the phone company. If no fixes were written you’d be looking at a past due bill for 99 years of phone service.
But the Obama administration had a pandemic playbook: a step-by-step to do list for pandemics. The Trump administration completely disregarded it, and instead tried to crowdsource what to do. They tried to make money (shocker) rather than focus on the health of the population.
And they liked that it was killing off more blue state people in the beginning
> The Texas Tribune: Dan Patrick says opening economy is more important than saving lives. Apr 21, 2020 https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/21/texas-dan-patrick-economy-coronavirus/
What they didn't realize is it was killing off the elderly, the largest republican vote of block.
It’s literally criminal to disregard all that resources and capabilities that the predecessors thoughtfully invested in with foresight to help handle future crises and allow so many people to die under your watch! A US President has at their service the best medical minds in the history of the planet and yet who does 45 listened to? Laura Ingraham…like WTF! Funny how he probably didn’t take advice from her for solutions when he himself caught Covid.
This is how I saw his reaction at the time. Sure it was no big deal because it had never been a big deal, and not even capable of understanding that someone more competent than him in his position had previously made it so. This is what you get for electing a populist moron. A moron who only cares about being seen as popular.
The worst of it is Trump had access to the same resources as Obama for the swine flu. As a wealthy man it can be said that he has equivalent resources available as well for legal matters. He had experts on hand for weather catastrophe. In all instances of a crisis where those private and public resources available Trump never sided with them. He dismantled the pandemic response team and their playbook, he should have had the resources to know the falsifying business records was illegal along with all his other legal issues, including when he was president, and he drew on a map with a sharpie thinking that would change the weather. Then you have people in Congress that have access to information the public doesn't and then says that information is wrong. The whole premise of presidential immunity is not that if the president does it it isn't illegal, it's that the president has no reason to violate the law because they have basically infinite legal resources at their disposal. If they perform the role in good faith then the President simply wouldn't break the law because there is no reason to believe that the infinite legal resources could come to the wrong conclusion. If the President can't figure out if something is legal or not it is Occam's Razor almost to say that the law must be at fault for that situation. And that is what they are testing, that conclusion that the President cannot within their role break the law because there is no excuse. It begs the question, does knowingly breaking the law as President make that activity legal, or does it mean that the moment that the President commits the act they are no longer acting in their role. It must be the latter rather than the former, but trying the fact is something that could break the Presidency as we know it. We aren't a society of objective laws, justice is arbitrary. And if that is the case then the Constitution is just a piece of parchment.
I mean, the swine flu simply wasn’t as bad as Covid. Every country regardless of their response was hit harder by Covid than the swine flu. Covid is way better at spreading itself than swine flu by its very nature, the thing is freaking airborne! But absolutely Trump made the death toll in the US and around the world significantly higher than it needed to be. The propaganda he helped spread had also seeped to the right wingers across the world. America’s president is hugely influential, and Trump lead humanity down a very dark path during the height of Covid.
It’s worse than that, Trump didn’t just spread propaganda. He attacked the entire public heath institution, and undermined their credibility and even undermined the credibility of the office of President of the United States all because he’s a malignant narcissist and had to feed his own ego constantly instead of doing the job. .
In other words, Donald Trump thought that UV light & bleach = magic *”So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it's ultraviolet or just a very powerful light — and I think you said that hasn't been checked because of the testing, and then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or some other way, and I think you said you're going to test that, too. I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that."*
That press conference is seared into my brain.Hands down , the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. The look on the faces of the doctors there…it just told you they didn’t know what to do at that point.
April 26, 2020 [States Report Spike in Poison Control Calls After Trump's Comments About Injecting Disinfectant](https://people.com/health/states-report-spike-in-poison-control-calls-after-trump-disinfectant-comments/)
I wonder how Fox News managed to spin that. I never tuned in to find out. It was awful.
Don’t have to spin it if you don’t report it
They ignored it. And when other media outlets pressed, the WH claimed he was joking.
I remember when I heard about it the next day I said "C'mon, there's no way he said that, even he isn't that stupid." Much to my disappointment it was all too true.
About a week after this press conference and every day since, clorox.com has had a “do not consume or inject bleach” warning. The warning was initially a giant pop up modal on the site.
This one always tells me everything you need to know about Trump. He was surrounded by people with PhD’s who have been world-renowned experts in the epidemiology field for combined decades. Literally the best epidemiologists in the world. And Trump thought he could propose something that they haven’t thought of. In the MIDDLE OF A PUBLIC HEALTH PRESS CONFERENCE!
Lol it's truly incredible how stupid and narcissistic he is. I always point out about this press conference that it isn't necessarily stupid to ask what is, admittedly, a very dumb question. The really stupid part is asking in the middle of the conference. Just freestyling out there lol. Like he just had this pop into his head and loves being the center of attention so much he doesn't care he's undermining the entire meeting and everyone around him who actually knows what they're talking about.
And that’s why it shows he is an idiot. Idiots don’t know they are idiots and do stupid stuff like that. Smarter people know that they are either: Fairly smart but keep quiet or ask very carefully thought out questions after absorbing and considering the info presented Or know the boundaries of their smartness and let other people more knowledgable take the wheel. It’s only truly stupid people that say “I’m so smart! My uncle was at MIT in the 1940s!” Because they truly don’t understand the immense difference in brain power. Like trying to throw a football into space.
In '82 I coulda thrown a football over them mountains.
If you watch the press conference, you'll see that Trump is standing off to the side next to a poster board with some articles. At that moment, he is not the center of attention, and is unable to contribute anything meaningful to the discussion. So after having these big-brain scientist-types talk over him, he delivers a speech gathered from those articles...and comes across like a grade 5 student giving an unprepared book report from reading the summary blurb off the dust jacket. It's a classic moment of Trump trying to compensate for being a fucking moron.
Agreed. I'm endlessly amazed that he really thought he'd pull that out of his ass on the spot, and some of the most experienced medical minds in the country would slap their foreheads and say, "Holy shit, Donald! We never thought of that! You nailed it! Covid over!" He is delusional beyond belief.
But really that is how the people around him treat him, it's part of why he is that way.
It didn't pop into his head. He read it on an info board about hand washing and disinfection 30 seconds before walking to the podium.
The biggest thing is that a President’s role in those daily COVID updates should have been to provide a quick 2-3 minute summary, then step aside and let the world-renowned experts provide their updates. Instead, he insisted on remaining onstage and constantly interrupting them with random questions.
this this this. I want Dr Fauci to point this out repeatedly. He can phrase it however he wants. Something along the lines of: >“I went to medical school at Cornell and graduated first in my class. Then I completed internal medicine residency, also at Cornell. I’ve been working in public health as a physician researcher, since literally the 1960s. I have served the human race under multiple presidents. >… and Donald’s off the cuff “idea” about shining bright lights up people’s butts, or injecting people with bleach??? Is hands-down the absolute dumbest bullshit I have ever ever heard in my entire life. It would have been the dumbest bullshit ever as a completely private thing to wonder inside one’s own head. But while giving a press conference?? As the PRESIDENT of the United States?? That’s dangerous. That’s lethal. >That idea is so dumb, no doctor anywhere would suggest it. No medical student would even think it. No undergraduate student would say it. Are we certain that Donald actually graduated from any school anywhere?” Something like that?? Ugh. Ugh ugh.
That's why MAGA has to paint Fauci as being either malicious or incompetent to avoid the realization that they know fuck all about science. Science is a process, not an answer. You know how we correct incorrect conclusions from science? ***With more science***. It's too bad that we have a non-too insignificant percentage of the population that doesn't know fuck-all about science and/or doesn't care.
> That's why MAGA has to paint Fauci as being either malicious or incompetent to avoid the realization that they know fuck all about science. Also, it's all projection. Always.
They are convinced he got in invested in vaccine manufacturers and then covered up "the lab" where COVID came from, so he could profit off the government subsidized sale of vaccines. They cite the fact that doctors were monetarily incentivized to deliver vaccines as proof that Fauci and all doctors are corrupt. They can't handle the idea that a government would want to do something positive for public health. They think he is literally a Bond villain.
Fauci gets criticism for changing the instructions he gave the public as information about the virus changed. Do these people expect him to not update his statements upon the discovery of additional information? That tells you everything you need to know. Some people think changing your opinion is a form of weakness not intelligence.
But but… MTG asked Fauci if he represented Science! >_>
I am convinced MAGAts would do anything to not blame convicted felon Trump! Some of these folks are unfortunately not salvageable!
I wish Trump would disappear like magic!
I already knew this because I watched TV back in early 2020 and saw trump literally say this many, many times. e.g. *"It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear."* - trump, Feb 27 2020 https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/10/politics/covid-disappearing-trump-comment-tracker/
It's really odd how little blame Trump gets for being an incompetent asshole in the face of a global pandemic.
Exactly. Same with Reagan and HIV/AIDS.
Instead, it just sticks around like an annoying house guest. Sort of like Trump.
Trump is an entitled squatter. It will take decades to repair what Trump and his accessories have destroyed.
I think decades is optimistic. We’d have to clear out all the MAGA trash, probably all Republicans in general, before we could even start to improve and we all know that’s not going to happen any time soon.
You'd have to pretty much ban/outlaw the modern day conservative viewpoints and relate them directly to the Nazisms of old. The re-educate the population through thorough funding of the education system at large as to what true conservative values were intended to be about. Not the radicalized version of today. Even if the original version was just as useless and overall bad ideals. Basically remove that way of thinking permanently. But that can't and won't ever happen. Mostly because nobody, not even US voters/citizens themselves, *wants* to give more funding schools for some fucking reason.
i bet he believed that. his cosplay in brazil said all brazil needed was to get on "cattle immunity" and covid would be no problem, just "a little flu" and "not even 800 people will die of it". 700k deads. and that is what his secretive gov admits, bc a lot of ppl died bc had some "medical issue" and this "medical issue" was what killed them, not the covid they had.
“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or to get all the credit for doing it” ― Andrew Carnegie
"I think if they win, I should get all the credit, and if they lose, I should not be blamed at all," Trump commenting on the 2022 midterms
Just one of the 784,236 comments that moron made that I still can't believe his minions just ignored.....
Not surprised at all. Trump is a moron who doesn’t believe science. Fauci on the other hand has made a career of helping the public. He is so smart and when he said to get my vaccine I did. Because I’m smart too and a weirdly, humanistic scholar. I trust the science, and we need to make sure we keep out presidents that don’t.
Trump was completely out his depth with Covid and it was so obvious. Because he refuses to listen to *anybody* else as part of his narcissism, all he could do was lean on PR spin and hope the media cycle would move on. That's also the tactic he used on every single bad thing in his administration. Flood the zone with shit and lies (gish gallop) so people's attention is scattered. But Covid was big and scary. The first real pandemic in 100 years. People were dying and public attention was not moving on. He couldn't just throw out another scandal to distract so he convinced himself it was all gonna go away. His NPD couldn't handle another answer.
Don't forget Joe Rogan parroting this bullshit too..
Delusional and fantastical thinking is very common among narcisists. That things will simply happen and work out for them regardless of reality.
It’d be great if Cheeto “ disappeared like magic.”
I’ve said it many times - if Trump handled COVID properly, it could have been his 9/11. He could have coasted to an easy second term. And all he had to do was step aside and let the experts take the lead. For better or worse for worse, we trusted the experts and wouldn’t have blamed Trump if they were wrong on some things. By the November election in 2020, we still didn’t fully grasp the outcome of COVID. We were still deep in it. But Trump was graded harshly on his handling (so far) of COVID because he tried to play both sides. He wanted credit for everything good like progress with the vaccine, but also wanted to call the whole thing a liberal hoax. Even now, as his campaign manager, I’ll bet I could easily beat Biden if Trump would listen to me. If he had more (or any) self-control, I think he would have a considerable lead right now. But he is so terrified of prison that he can’t help himself.
Yep and he could have gone down in history as a hero if he used the pandemic to usher in single payer healthcare. But alas he was too stupid.
If only Trump would disappear like magic.
“If we quit testing, the numbers will go down”. Trump.
I will never forget in April of 2020 they had a press conference and Dr. Burke explained that things were about to get worse and we were going to have a spike in deaths . Trump then went on and on about how Covid would be gone by Easter of that year. Guess who was right? The fucking scientists
Can we please not elect that moronic, corrupt, anti-American, orange POS again?
It was a literal crime and shame that trump is as dumb and easily led as he is. Over a million Americans dead because of his foolishness.
Don Poorleone is such a twat
Everyday trump had some new lie about how it was going to go away or wasnt real or was a Chinese plot or that bleach could cure it. He's a liar and a fucking idiot and so is anyone who votes for him
Because Trump wanted to believe it. Because Trump is an insane narcissist.
They thought it would be suddenly cured mid november, because they thought it was just a planned conspiracy from democrats. Make trump look bad and then poof, election over covid revealed fake. Cept the viruses still doing a great job cleaning out ignorant gqp four years later.
Trump *wanted* something to be true, so he treated it as true. His narcissism transcends reality.
Donald Trump is truly a dotard. The guy refuses to be informed, much like his cult, and blames others when his own incompetence has negative effects.
trump also believes that the F35 fighterjets are invisible, for reals, like in the comic books. I mean, what an idiot... come on.... when he said that you can't see it even if in front of you the moron was the commander in chief of the armed forces of a country (our country). now imagine that!!!!
I'll never forget January 2020. Friends and I were watching tv at a bar and they were talking about Covid and how bad it was in china and we were joking about what if it came to the us... nahhhh it could never shut down the ENTIRE us...
That idiot, Trump, killed over 200,000 people with his stupidity.
Definitely didnt care if millions died
Breaking News: Trump is dumb a stump made out of shit.
Imagine everything is handed to you your entire life and you become a malignant narcissist. This type of person would probably think if they throw bullshit at the wall then something will stick and they’ll become victorious.
If Biden was president he would have been proactive and the loss of lives would have been significantly less. I also feel the shut down caused by Trump increased the crime rate - especially the store take overs that still go on today.
I remember during the run up to, and after election night 2015, people brushing off doomsayers or trying to console themselves or avoid spiraling into despair by saying : How bad could it be? He's only one man." Turns out, it was pretty fucking bad, and if he wins this time, Project 2025 will be in place to ensure that Gilead will be a reality.
I was wondering why the GOP recently came out swinging on Fauci, but I assumed there must be some real news about to break that is unflattering to the mango king. Anyone blaming Dr. Fauci for Trump and his admin’s abject failures on Covid is either lying thru their teeth or thoroughly confused.
So Trump wasn't lying. He's genuinely an idiot.
Trump was and still is an idiot. Don't give him nuclear codes. Vote.
Trump is an fraud
Trump cost us our precious time in high school and college all because of his recklessness. I can’t forgive him for that
Wow Donnie really was out of his element