The biggest subject on Donald Trump’s mind during his hour-long phone call with Fox & Friends this morning about the coronavirus pandemic was himself. The three cohosts eagerly did their part to help hide how he has attacked governors and to help validate his self-aggrandizing lies about his performance.
The first question for Trump seemed decent enough. Cohost Ainsley Earhardt asked, “Do we have enough equipment” to handle the peak in the pandemic that Trump foresees will happen in about two weeks.
Clearly Trump didn’t care. He dismissively responded, “Well, we should” and immediately segued into a long, deceitful boast about himself and with grievances about others.
TRUMP: Well, we should. We’re delivering so much equipment, nobody’s ever seen anything like it, It’s a war. We're fighting a war, and the federal government has really stepped up and most governors are very happy. I get on calls, and I get on a lot of the governor calls where we'll have all 50 governors plus where we have some territories also, but we have 50 governors.
And I'll tell you what, if you could listen to those calls, you'd never hear a complaint. And sometimes the news will say we've got information, and they have no information at all, but you know, they try and build wars between people. But no, we have a great relationship with the governors because of what we're doing.
We started off with an empty shelf. There was not a lot -- just like when we had no ammunition. When the general walked in and they said, sir, we have no ammunition in my first week. We didn't have very much in terms of medical product either, and we built something really good. Now we have on store as we need them, we have 10,000 ventilators.
We have massive plane loads of things coming in. You know, we have 51 planes. You saw that, UPS and FedEx yesterday. We have 51 planes coming up loaded with material from all over, and no. We're doing really well. I mean, it was -- it's tough stuff. This is a tough deal, but it's incredible. Today we're opening up a hospital, 2,900 beds in New York City, and we -- in addition to that we're doing four medical centers in New York City.
We're doing New Jersey, we're doing Louisiana, we're doing Florida. We have -- all over the country we're doing things. It's incredible what's happened with the Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA.
FACT CHECK: Trump sure does have a “great relationship” with governors - not! He has publicly attacked the governors of Michigan, Washington, Illinois and New York. You can see Trump trashing governors on March 27 in the second video below and instructing Mike Pence not to call them if they’re not appreciative enough.
Not one of the three sycophantic cohosts challenged a word, including Super Duper Christian and “tough journalist” wannabe Earhardt.
Cohost Steve Doocy responded to Trump’s wall of BS by lobbing a softball:
DOOCY: Mr. President, today was going to be the fifteenth day of fifteen days to slow the spread, and today was the day you were going to make the determination on how to open up America again because I know you want to get America back to business, but what have you see over the last 48 hours that had you reassess that strategy and say, you know what, I think we need to take a month off?
At the end of the segment, Earhardt slobbered to Dear Leader, “How can we pray for you?”
Maybe she should pray for America.
You can watch it below, from the March 30, 2020 Fox & Friends. The question about equipment begins at about :18.
1. He dismantled and defunded the existing Pandemic Response Team, both within America and around the world – most specifically in China.
2. He lulled millions of Americans (albeit the most stupid millions) into the misconception that COVID-19 was barely worse than the flu and that the fuss was being created by his political foes.
3. He spent six to seven weeks after the coming plague was clear for all to see denying it was a threat, claiming he had it ‘under control’ and failing to urgently build up essential supplies and equipment.
4. Now it turns out that he sent many tons of the same supplies America now desperately needs to China in early February (for political reasons, not out of compassion), without making any effort to replenish the stockpile.
His many other crimes will pale in comparison to this lethal travesty. By the time November rolls around and the carnage is beyond anyone’s worst nightmare, all but the hardest of hardcore support for Trump and his Republican minions will have gone down the plughole. I for one will be ready for Nuremberg-type trials.
