It’s Lonely At the Top
“Expertise has offended Trump … His circle of loyalists is so lacking in policy expertise that the writing of his speech on the coronavirus from the Oval Office last week was left mainly to his nativist immigration counsellor Stephen Miller and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.” David Remnick in The New Yorker: Trump, Truth, and the Mishandling of the Coronavirus Crisis.
+ David Leonhardt in the NYT: A Complete List of Trump’s Attempts to Play Down Coronavirus.
+ “Trump claimed vindication based on a Google clarification that its efforts to develop the website are on track. This in no way contradicts what press accounts reported — that Trump vastly oversold how far along it was. This remains entirely true.
But also note Trump’s declaration that, in a larger sense, the media is not being truthful at a time of crisis. Trump is using his megaphone to tell the American people not to trust an institution they must rely on for information amid an ongoing public health emergency, all because that institution held him accountable for his own failures on this front.” Greg Sargent in WaPo: Trump’s rage at the media takes a dangerous new turn. (The point of this misdirection is also to get the public to fixate on a website when what we really need are tests…)
+ Reuters: “Berlin is trying to stop Washington from persuading a German company seeking a coronavirus vaccine to move its research to the United States, prompting German politicians to insist no country should have a monopoly on any future vaccine.”
+ Politico: Trump finds his MAGA movement fracturing over coronavirus. (Now when you criticize Trump, even the Russian bots are like, “yeah, you gotta point.”)
+ “Trump’s test for the coronavirus was negative. Yet, from Brasília to Paris, Tehran to Ulaanbaatar, government officials on six continents—cabinet ministers, lawmakers, military leaders, senior policymakers, and health officials—have been infected with numbing speed by the virus. Dozens have gone into quarantine. ‘It’s reasonable to expect disruptions in public services and government that we haven’t even envisioned yet.'” The New Yorker’s Robin Wright: How Much Is the Coronavirus Infecting World Leaders and Disrupting Governments?
