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President Donald Trump seems unclear on a few basic scientific and medical concepts. This isn't really news, of course, since Trump seems unclear on a whole host of things each and every day. But this week's comments on coronavirus testing were more than just a little bit astonishing.
In recent days, President Donald Trump has been (as he calls it) "cheerleading" the American economy, for three basic reasons. First, to Trump everything is a P.R. problem, at absolute worst. Second, it's all he really knows how to do when it comes to the economy (or anything else, for that matter). And third (and most important to Trump), he knows full well his re-election is going to hinge on whether the voters are going to be feeling any better about the future in November. In particular, Trump has essentially bet all his chips on the third quarter of 2020.
Nothing shows that irony is dead in Trump's White House more than Donald Trump making a tour of an Arizona factory this week while refusing to wear a mask -- since the site he visited was actually a mask factory. They even presented him with his very own mask as a souvenir of the visit, which Trump (of course) failed to put on. He later tried to claim that he was indeed wearing a mask "backstage," but that nobody saw him do so. This wasn't even remotely believable, though.
Donald Trump's re-election campaign has hit upon what they consider a winning attack line against Joe Biden: "China, China, China!" Truly, that's about as sophisticated as their effort has been, to date, and the new ad they just unveiled doesn't really move that needle much at all. Their political equation rests on the fact that many Americans don't have a favorable opinion of China in general, and in specific Team Trump is trying to explain away his own massive coronavirus response failings by saying everything was China's fault, for lying to the world in January. Which adds up to (according to the Trump campaign): Joe Biden has said some polite things about China, therefore he is obviously some sort of pinko agent of the Chinese Communist Party. As I said, not exactly sophisticated campaign rhetoric or anything. But the problem with trying to paint with such a large brush is that the paint can slop back all over you.
President Donald Trump would much prefer to live inside his own self-constructed bubble, where everything he does is the right thing to do and he gets nothing but praise for his stable genius and masterful leadership. But since it's an election year, he's not going to get that luxury. In particular, the reality of his ongoing incompetent and disastrous response to the coronavirus pandemic is now beginning to invade his own personal safe space. Because more and more people are pointing out the vast difference between Trump's "reality" and the actual facts on the ground, with increasing bluntness. After all, people are dying out there -- a lot of them. Nothing could be more serious.
All week long, the pressure increased for Joe Biden to "Say it ain't so, Joe!" So this morning, he did. Biden appeared (remotely) on Morning Joe and flatly denied the accusation made against him that he had sexually assaulted Tara Reade in 1993 while he was a sitting senator and she was on his staff: "No. It is not true. I'm saying unequivocally it never, never happened and it didn't."
I find myself somewhat at a loss, when faced with the emerging scandal over Tara Reade's allegations of a sexual assault made against her in the 1990s by Joe Biden, then a sitting United States senator. The reason I have a problem with addressing the scandal is that my own personal knee-jerk reaction simply does not apply.
We have shown what we consider to be a massive amount of restraint during Donald Trump's term as president, in that we've only used that headline once previously. The line comes from a Talking Heads song ("Making Flippy Floppy") which was referencing Ronald Reagan, at the time it was written. We did consider two other headlines today: "Our National Nightmare Continues: Trump Suggests Injecting Bleach. Or Sunshine," as well as: "Stable Genius Offers Lethal Suggestions: Injecting Bleach Or Sunshine," but upon reflection we decided that the Talking Heads line was more deserved this week than ever before. Because the president is now giving people advice which, if followed, will kill them. In other words: our president's crazy, did you hear what he said?
Testing... testing... One... two... three... Is this thing on?... Hello??
We can think of no better metaphor today than a booming amplified voice addressing a dark and empty space. For reasons that should be obvious, really.
President Donald Trump is an absolute genius -- at wasting time, that is. He just essentially wasted another entire week, which can be added on to all the previous weeks he wasted, since the dawn of the coronavirus. Which definitely includes the entire month of February, by the way.
For the first time since 2004, Democrats are united in the spring of a presidential election year. The primary season is essentially over, with only one candidate left standing. All the other candidates of note have now endorsed presumptive nominee Joe Biden. This is downright remarkable when you consider where we were just a few short months ago.