This week the death count in the United States was the highest it has been, reaching nearly 2,000.
Data shows that Coronavirus is affecting African Americans disproportionately.
By the end of the week, Jobless claims were over 16 million. And here is a good piece on how the federal bureaucracy is struggling to follow up on its commitments made in the stimulus bills.
On Monday leaked transcripts and recordings of the Navy Secretary on board the Roosevelt: “Acting Navy secretary Thomas Modly told sailors Monday that the ousted captain of an aircraft carrier afflicted by the coronavirus either was “too naive or too stupid to command a ship,” or that he leaked a letter raising concerns about the service’s handling of the crisis to the media, Navy officials acknowledged.” Modly resigned on Tuesday.
Trump fired the IG responsible got overseeing the $2 trillion stimulus.
On Tuesday Wisconsin had a major election day where most had to vote because the courts did not allow an extension of absentee or mail in voting.
This week a number of publications published histories of the Trump Administration’s early response to the coronavirus.
Here is the Washington Post: “In reality, many of the failures to stem the coronavirus outbreak in the United States were either a result of, or exacerbated by, his leadership.”
The New York Times history is here: “These final days of February, perhaps more than any other moment during his tenure in the White House, illustrated Mr. Trump’s inability or unwillingness to absorb warnings coming at him. He instead reverted to his traditional political playbook in the midst of a public health calamity, squandering vital time as the coronavirus spread silently across the country.”
Frum wrote a long piece detailing all the ways Trump is responsible for the current crisis: “The utter unpreparedness of the United States for a pandemic is Trump’s fault. The loss of stockpiled respirators to breakage because the federal government let maintenance contracts lapse in 2018 is Trump’s fault. The failure to store sufficient protective medical gear in the national arsenal is Trump’s fault. That states are bidding against other states for equipment, paying many multiples of the pre-crisis price for ventilators, is Trump’s fault. Air travelers summoned home and forced to stand for hours in dense airport crowds alongside infected people? That was Trump’s fault too. Ten weeks of insisting that the coronavirus is a harmless flu that would miraculously go away on its own? Trump’s fault again. The refusal of red-state governors to act promptly, the failure to close Florida and Gulf Coast beaches until late March? That fault is more widely shared, but again, responsibility rests with Trump: He could have stopped it, and he did not.”
Meanwhile, Trump continues giving 1-2 hour daily press briefings. Even some Republicans think the daily briefings are not good for Trump: “White House allies and Republican lawmakers increasingly believe the briefings are hurting the president more than helping him. Many view the sessions as a kind of original sin from which all of his missteps flow, once he gets through his prepared script and turns to his preferred style of extemporaneous bluster and invective…. [and] that the White House was handing Mr. Biden ammunition each night by sending the president out to the cameras.”
Tom Nichols on Trump’s press conferences: “In his daily coronavirus briefings, Trump lumbers to the podium and pulls us into his world: detached from reality, unable to feel any emotions but anger and paranoia. Each time we watch, Trump’s spiritual poverty increases our own, because for the duration of these performances, we are forced to live in the same agitated, immediate state that envelops him. … With cable news constantly covering the pandemic, he seems to be going through withdrawal. He needs an outlet for his political glossolalia, or his constantly replenishing reservoir of grievance and insecurity will burst its seams.”
This point is confirmed by reporting in the New York Times: “One described him as “subdued” and “baffled” by how the crisis had played out. An economy that he had wagered his re-election on was suddenly in shambles. He only regained his swagger, the associate said, from conducting his daily White House briefings, at which he often seeks to rewrite the history of the past several months.”
Personal Log: Our governor closed all state parks this week. My daughter and I relied on them for long walks, either in the wooded trails of the Eagle Rock nature reserve or around the reservoir. I drove down the road that cuts through the middle of the reserve and saw all the parking spots blocked with gates, yellow tape and orange barrels, signs saying This Facility is Closed. However, many cars found two places to park and were crammed together more than they would have been if all the trail heads were open.
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Trump’s Approval Rating: 44.4%
Total U.S. COVID-19 Cases / Deaths: 492,416 / 18,559