Donald Trump told an adoring Sean Hannity last night that, based on “a feeling,” New York state doesn’t need the 30,000 ventilators for coronavirus patients Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo has been pleading for.
In addition to his pro-death desire for people to go back to work without concern for whether the pandemic has passed or not, Trump spent most of his nearly 40-minute chat with Bedtime BFF Hannity either praising himself or painting himself as the biggest coronavirus victim. He expressed hardly any concern for the actual patients.
World’s Biggest Lapdog Hannity started off the classless acrimony:
HANNITY: I was kind of angry at Andrew Cuomo. I had a great -- I had him on radio for 40 minutes, great conversation. I grew up in -- I was born and raised in New York. And then it's I need 30,000 ventilators. And I'm like OK, it really -- it was annoying me.
Like his idol Trump, Hannity has not a single credential in public health, medicine, epidemiology, etc. He dropped out of all three colleges he attended. Also like his idol, Hannity didn’t bother to present any evidence for his proclamation beyond an angered gut that Cuomo was wrong.
Trump reiterated the baseless claim, but first he suggested that the only reason New York is struggling because of mismanagement and not, say, because it’s a big, crowded city with a lot of public transit. But even if mismanagement were the key, it’s despicable to be attacking America and Americans in the middle of such suffering:
TRUMP: You'll -- well, yes, you'll take the Farm Belt. You'll take certain states that aren't badly impacted, you know, where they have almost none or they have just a little bit. You take a look at -- you know, some of these great states in like Iowa, you take a look at Idaho and you take a look at Nebraska, where they have a great medical facility, by the way, even for this.
And you take a look at some states, a big portion -- I mean, they all have a little bit, but many of them have just a little bit. And they have it under control, their incredible governors, their incredible senators. And they're watching it and they are very well-run. And they have it under control. They immediately put the people in quarantine.
So -- you know, so you do that. New York is a bigger deal. But it's going to go also. But I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they're going to be. I don't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You know, you're going to major hospitals sometimes, they'll have two ventilators.
And now, all of a sudden, they're saying, can we order 30,000 ventilators? So, look, it's a very bad situation. We haven't seen anything like it.
Trump made no apparent effort to investigate why there might be such a huge increase in need. Nor, predictably, did Hannity ask.
Instead, Trump segued right into his own self-serving desire for people to go back to work regardless of the threat to public health, not a need to make sure everybody who needs testing or treatment gets it. These were his next words:
TRUMP: But the end result is we've got to get back to work. And I think we can start by opening up certain parts of the country, you know, the Farm Belt, certain parts of the Midwest, other -- other places
But I think that -- as an example, you go to Texas, there are places in Texas, great Governor, Greg Abbott, there are places where, you know, it's a tremendously big state, that aren't impacted by this. So, I think we can open up sections, quadrants and then just keep them going until the whole country is opened up. But we have to open up. The people want to get back to work.
Later, Trump hinted at his real reason for dismissing Cuomo's call for ventilators: Cuomo wasn't admiring enough: "I don't like it, though, when some governors, I mean, I mentioned two of them but some of these governors, you know, they -- they take, take, take and then they complain."
Hannity, of course, offered no challenge to this pro-death agenda.
UPDATE: As I was writing this, Trump shifted his posture on ventilators and began attacking a new set of Americans, General Motors and Ventec, for not producing enough ventilators fast enough. Which doesn’t make his comments of last night any less odious.
You can watch these disgraceful Americans below, from the March 26, 2020 Hannity. Trump discusses his “feeling” about the need for ventilators starting at about 24:54.
It literally floors me to realise that so many people (not only in the USA) are happy with the idea that the “gut feeling” of an ignoramous can trump (aka: be just as valid as) the knowledge of scientists.
Trump did take a swipe at Cuomo. He’s bitching he sent Cuomo ventilators but some (I think ~1/2) ended up in a stockpile. Apparently Dear Leader can’t comprehend the obvious that Cuomo’s needs are based on projections. Cuomo wants then now so they’ll be available to meet the projected need. He’ll distribute them as needed.
Meanwhile, Trump is on a rant he tells Pence not to call governors in Washington and Michigan because they’re not nice to Trump and his fee fees are hurt.
Dear Leader today bragging he’s lined up production of 100,000 ventilators in the next 100 days at his presser. Just because.
Since his infamous (on Twitter anyway) love-fest with Hannity now we’re hearing from the governor of Michigan they can’t get ventilators because suppliers are telling the state Trump doesn’t want them to have any because he’s mad Gov. Whitmer wasn’t nice enough to him.
Meanwhile Trump enjoys an overall 52% approval rating on his handling of COVID-19 because America prefers the Fox News version.