US Cases: 1,301,095
US Deaths: 73,291
Worldwide Cases: 4,024,737
Worldwide Deaths: 279,313
The bad news keeps coming in such great volume, it's overwhelming. For the first time in 3.5 years, Obama broke his silence to condemn Trump and his administration for several shortcomings. Obama mentioned the divisiveness of the Trump administration, saying:
What we're fighting against is these long-term trends in which being selfish, being tribal, being divided, and seeing others as an enemy — that that has become a stronger impulse in American life . . .
It's part of the reason why the response to this global crisis has been so anemic, and spotty, and it would have been bad, even with the best of governments . . .Obama also called Trump's response to the pandemic an "absolute chaotic disaster".
On a separate topic, Obama also criticized the Justice Department's decision to drop its prosecution of Mike Flynn, stating that this is how "democracies become autocracies" and that it puts the rule of law at risk.
In her response, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany demonstration the Trump administration's to laughable misinformation, stating that "President Trump’s coronavirus response has been unprecedented and saved American lives."
To be fair, she's half-right. Trump's response has been unprecendented. And at least one whistleblower, the former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, Rick Barda, shares his inside perspective on just how badly Trump has mismanaged things:
"We see too many doctors and nurses now dying," Bright continued, beginning to tear up. "And I was thinking that we could have done more to get those masks and those supplies to them sooner. And if we had, would they still be alive today? It's a horrible thought to think about the time that passed where we could've done something and we didn't."
On Friday, the Office of Special Counsel made the "threshold determination" the HHS agency violated Bright under the Whistleblower Protection Act for removing him as director of BARDA. Bright has insisted he was ousted because of his refusal to promote the wide use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, two anti-malaria drugs Trump referred to as "game changer" vaccines.
Going back as far as late January, Bright sent emails warning colleagues in the federal government about the dire impending situations a coronavirus outbreak would have on the country. He claims the opinions of scientists were roundly rejected and dismissed by the Trump administration for weeks.I'm not even done talking about Trump's malfeasance yet, because there are too many examples of it. Like this story in the Washington Post, which is primarily about a manufacturer of N95 masks who approached the government in January about ramping up for the pandemic, only to be turned away. But it contains this staggering nugget:
“We are the last major domestic mask company,” he wrote on Jan. 23. “My phones are ringing now, so I don’t ‘need’ government business. I’m just letting you know that I can help you preserve our infrastructure if things ever get really bad. I’m a patriot first, businessman second.”
In the end, the government did not take Bowen up on his offer. Even today, production lines that could be making more than 7 million masks a month sit dormant.Prison is too good for Trump.
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