Notable Quotable

If you take a moment to look back at Donald Trump’s rhetoric on Covid-19 since January you’ll likely come away with the impression that little attention was paid to public health and safety.  Instead, a higher value was placed-upon choreographing a message to make the president look good.  This most excellent propagandizing began with his first public comments:

January 22:  We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.

January 24:  It will all work out well.

January 29:  Just received a briefing on the Coronavirus in China from all of our GREAT agencies, who are also working closely with China. We will continue to monitor the ongoing developments. We have the best experts anywhere in the world, and they are on top of it 24/7!

January 30:  We think we have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment — five. And those people are all recuperating successfully. But we’re working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it’s going to have a very good ending for it. So that I can assure you.

February 2:  We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.

After distributing defective testing kits the administration made the decision to not use reliable kits available from the World Health Organization.  The administration also blocked local governments from outsourcing testing to private labs.  Cluster ensues. 

February 10: Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.

No progress on widespread testing.

February 19:  I think the numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along.

Widespread testing?  Nope.

February 24:  The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. . . . Stock Market starting to look very good to me.

February 26:  The number of people infected is going very substantially down, not up.  The 15 (cases) within a couple of days, is going to be down to zero.

Still no widespread testing.

February 27: It’s going to disappear one day, it’s like a miracle.

February 28: We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical.

From mid-January until Feb. 28, fewer than 4,000 tests from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were used out of more 160,000 produced.  The cluster grows in scale.

March 2: Trump on progress towards a vaccine - I’ve heard very quick numbers, that of months.

Immunologist Anthony Fauci - the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Speaker of the Truth - has repeatedly said that a vaccine will not be available for a year or year and a half.

Still no universal testing protocol.

March 6: Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They’re there.  And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect.  Right?  This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.

Trump is lying. But what else is new.   The previous day, Vice President Mike Pence said - We don’t have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward. 

March 6 continues to be a busy day for comments while an expansion of testing takes a back seat to keeping-up appearances.

March 6:  I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.

March 6: Trump on whether or not to bring coronavirus patients on a cruise ship to shore - I like the numbers being where they are.” “I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault.

March 6: I didn’t know people died from the flu.

March 6: Larry Kudlow - We stopped it, it was a very early shut down, I would still argue to you that this thing is contained.

The Trump administration fiddles and fumbles testing - all the while the disease spreads.

March 8: We have a perfectly coordinated and fine-tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus.

The administration remains unable to distribute enough testing kits

March 9:  So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths.

March 9: This blindsided the world.

Trump continues to fritter-away valuable time that could be spent deploying tests available from the World Health Organization. 

March 10:  It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.

March 11: If we get rid of the coronavirus problem quickly, we won’t need stimulus.

March 11:  In response to a question from CNN’s Jim Acosta asking why his statements don’t match what health experts are saying - That’s CNN. Fake news.

By March 11, there were over 1,000 confirmed cases in the United States.  Still no widespread testing.

March 12:  We have ’em very heavily tested.  If an American’s coming back, or anybody’s coming back, we’re testing.  We have a tremendous testing setup where people coming in have to be tested.  And if they are positive, and if they’re able to get through—because, frankly, if they’re not, we’re not putting them on planes, if it shows positive…

Trump is lying again – his administration’s testing protocol continues to be a massive cluster.

March 13: I don’t take responsibility at all.

March 14: We’re using the full power of the federal government to defeat the virus, and that’s what we’ve been doing.

Still no plan for ramping-up testing.

March 15: This is a very contagious virus. It’s incredible. But it’s something that we have tremendous control over.

The tune is changing but the lack of testing persists.

March 16:  If you’re talking about the virus, no, that’s not under control for any place in the world. ... I was talking about what we’re doing is under control, but I’m not 

talking about the virus.

March 17:  I’ve felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.

March 19:  Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion. Nobody has ever seen anything like this.

Trump continues to lie about this.  An exercise scenario called Crimson Contagion held in 2019 revealed just how underfunded, unprepared and uncoordinated the federal government would be for a life-or-death battle with a virus for which no treatment existed.  Trump chose to do nothing about it.

It is fascinating to observe the evolution of the messaging from our commander in-chief. Donald Trump is such a habitual liar that he is incapable of being honest – especially when honesty would serve his own interests.  

The Trump Administration does seem to have gotten their shit together.  Singing from the same memo they now agree that they do not know how many Americans have been tested for coronavirus.     

I would like to thank the Fake News - CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, WSJ, et.al. - for curating this.  When you have to wade thru this much bullshit it does indeed take a village.   

You can’t possibly make this stuff-up….