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[EDITOR: The buried lede here may be "'He wants Justice to open investigations of the media for market manipulation,' a source close to the White House told me."]
“He’s Definitely Melting Down Over This”: Trump, Germaphobe in Chief, Struggles to Control the Covid-19 Story
Publicly, he sees it as yet another (“Fake News”) media war; privately, he worries about virus-carrying journalists on Air Force One. But cancel his rallies? “I’m not going to do it,” he says.
9 March 2020
By Gabriel Sherman
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/trump-germaphobe-in-chief-struggles-to-control-the-covid-19-story
Ever since the coronavirus exploded outside of China at the end of January, Donald Trump has treated the public health crisis as a media war that he could win with the right messaging. But with cases now documented in 34 states and markets plunging, Republicans close to Trump fear his rosy assessments are fundamentally detached from reality in ways that will make the epidemic worse. “He is trying to control the narrative and he can’t,” a former West Wing official told me.
The problem is that the crisis fits into his preexisting and deeply held worldview—that the media is always searching for a story to bring him down. Covid-19 is merely the latest instance, and he’s reacting in familiar ways. “So much FAKE NEWS!” Trump tweeted this morning. “He wants Justice to open investigations of the media for market manipulation,” a source close to the White House told me. Trump is also frustrated with his West Wing for not getting a handle on the news cycle. “He’s very frustrated he doesn’t have a good team around him,” a former White House official said. On Friday he forced out acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and replaced him with former House Freedom Caucus chair Mark Meadows. Trump thought the virus was “getting beyond Mick,” a person briefed on the internal discussions said. Trump has also complained that economic adviser Larry Kudlow is not doing enough to calm jittery markets. Last week Kudlow refused Trump’s request that Kudlow hold an on-camera press briefing, sources said. “Larry didn’t want to have to take questions about coronavirus,” a person close to Kudlow told me. “Larry’s not a doctor. How can he answer questions about something he doesn’t know?”
-----
Charlotte Clymer
twitter.com/cmclymer
2019/3/9
Republican Party is clearly coordinating messaging to call this the "Chinese Coronavirus" in an effort to leverage xenophobic and racist nonsense and absolve Trump of his catastrophic handling of this crisis.
This is why we need to unite. This is what we face w/ 4 more years.
Quoted Tweet:
Kevin McCarthy
twitter.com/GOPLeader
2019/3/9
Everything you need to know about the Chinese coronavirus can be found on one, regularly-updated website: http://coronavirus.gov
-----
Mistrust, rumor and conspiracy theories hinder U.S. virus fight
March 9, 2020
By Esme E. Deprez
and Margaret Newkirk
Bloomberg
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/mistrust-rumor-and-conspiracy-theories-hinder-u-s-virus-fight/
No one has been diagnosed with the new coronavirus in Alabama, but unfounded social-media rumors run so wild that the state public health department assigned a staffer to stamp them out.
In Texas, Houston and Harris County officials have been fighting misinformation since January, after false claims that the virus was circulating in the Asiatown neighborhood. Time and money is also being frittered away in New York, where the attorney general demanded that televangelist Jim Bakker stop promoting pricey pills as a cure. Bakker’s company was one of seven that received letters Monday from a federal task force, warning them against claiming that their teas, oils and tinctures will cure the virus.
Across the U.S., government officials fighting the disease are wrangling with a population made dubious by years of internet misinformation and a politics based on the debasing of facts. The World Health Organization has said that a global “infodemic” makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance.
...
The disconnect starts at the top, with President Donald Trump’s repeated undermining of health officials’ assessment of coronavirus risks. With no evidence, Trump last week disputed the death rate from the WHO and downplayed the virus’ dangers on national television.
A Republican congressional candidate recently tweeted a coronavirus conspiracy involving Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates, George Soros and Pope Francis. Radio host Rush Limbaugh told millions of listeners last month that the virus was nothing more than the common cold, politically weaponized to hurt Trump’s reelection chances. Trump aides Kellyanne Conway and Larry Kudlow have said the virus is largely contained.
-----
[EDITOR: Trish Regan on FOX calls calls Coronavirus another impeachment attempt? Only it's even more bizarre than that.]
Andrew Lawrence
twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence
9 March 2020
https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1237174846355841024
You gotta watch this, I mean........you just gotta watch
-----
Trump struggles to explain why he disbanded his global health team
According to Trump, "you can never really think is going to happen," but the NSC's team existed precisely because officials recognized the possible threat.
March 9, 2020, 8:20 AM PDT
By Steve Benen
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-struggles-explain-why-he-disbanded-his-global-health-team-n1153221
One of Donald Trump's most important missteps in dealing with the coronavirus outbreak happened before anyone had even heard of COVID-19. In fact, the president's first error came back in 2018.
It was two years ago when Trump ordered the shutdown of the White House National Security Council's entire global health security unit. NBC News had a good report on this recently, noting that the president's decision "to downsize the White House national security staff -- and eliminate jobs addressing global pandemics -- is likely to hamper the U.S. government's response to the coronavirus."
-----
[EDITOR'S NOTE: This has been the standard line for decades amongst the fundamentalists, particularly when talking amongst themselves. It's been internal propaganda for literally longer than I can remember.]
GOP congressional candidate pardoned by Trump tweets homophobic meme suggesting LGBT people are violent pedophiles
March 9, 2020
By David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/gop-congressional-candidate-pardoned-by-trump-tweets-homophobic-meme-suggesting-lgbt-people-are-violent-pedophiles/
After President Donald Trump pardoned former reality show star and convicted felon Angela Stanton-King she announced her run for Congress, challenging civil rights leader and Democratic U.S. Rep. John Lewis for his Georgia seat.
Stanton-King announced her candidacy on Friday, running on a so-called “ProLIFE” platform.
That same day she posted a violent anti-LGBTQ meme depicting a rainbow-colored graphic of an arm with a hand pointing a gun, finger on the trigger, not just at someone’s head but shoved into the back of it, assassination or “execution-style.” The apparent intended victim also happens to be wearing a Christian cross.
-----
What you need to know about coronavirus testing in the U.S.
Testing has been limited but could ramp up soon
By Tina Hesman Saey
March 6, 2020 at 6:24 pm
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-testing-diagnostic-covid19-united-states
U.S. government officials say a million promised tests for diagnosing coronavirus infections will soon be in the mail. But that still leaves many state and local laboratories without the ability to test for the virus, crucial for curbing its spread around the country.
Some states have developed their own tests. Clinical testing companies are now joining the ranks. LabCorp announced March 5 that physicians or other authorized health care providers could already order its test. Quest Diagnostics announced the same day that the company will also offer commercial tests as soon as March 9, pending U.S. Food and Drug Administration reviews. Participation of those two commercial laboratories could greatly expand testing capacity in the United States.
But for now, “we still find ourselves as a country with pretty limited capacity to test,” says Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.
Here’s what you need to know about coronavirus testing in the country.
-----
Despite earlier promises, Trump says 'we'll be cutting' entitlements
In 2016, Trump promised to champion social-insurance programs known as "entitlements." In 2020, he's adopted the opposite message.
March 6, 2020, 6:20 AM PST
By Steve Benen
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/despite-earlier-promises-trump-says-we-ll-be-cutting-entitlements-n1151436
"I'm not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I'm not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid," Donald Trump declared in 2015. "Every other Republican's going to cut, and even if they wouldn't, they don't know what to do because they don't know where the money is. I do. I do."
As regular readers may recall, this became a staple of his entire national candidacy: no matter what, Americans could count on him to champion these social-insurance programs. Ahead of the 2016 race, Trump wanted everyone to know that entitlement cuts, as far as he's concerned, are off the table.
The Republican has apparently changed his mind, as we were reminded last night during a presidential town-hall forum in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
"When Fox News host Martha MacCallum suggested that if 'you don't cut something in entitlements, you will never really deal with the debt,' Trump jumped in right away. 'Oh, we'll be cutting,' he said to an audience in Scranton. 'We're also going to have growth like you've never seen before.'"
-----
Twitter flags video retweeted by President Trump as ‘manipulated media’
It’s the first time the social network has enforced a new policy to fight doctored videos and photos
By Cat Zakrzewski
March 9, 2020 at 7:26 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/08/twitter-flags-video-retweeted-by-president-trump-manipulated-media/
Twitter applied its new “manipulated media” label for the first time on Sunday to a deceptively edited video of former vice president Joe Biden. The video was shared by White House social media director Dan Scavino and retweeted by President Trump.
The video was the first test of a new policy the social media company implemented March 5 to label tweets that contain manipulated or synthetic media, ranging from edited videos to more sophisticated examples known as “deepfakes” that can fabricate events that never happened.
In this case, the altered video of Biden — who has surged to the front of the Democratic presidential race to face Trump in November — is based on a speech he gave Saturday in Kansas City, Mo. It was then shared on Twitter by Scavino, only edited to make it appear as if Biden inadvertently endorsed Trump for reelection.
-----
U.S. has persuasive intel Taliban do not intend to abide by terms of peace deal, officials say
"They have no intention of abiding by their agreement," one official said. Trump said Friday, "Countries have to take care of themselves."
By Courtney Kube, Ken Dilanian and Dan De Luce
7 March 2020
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/officials-u-s-has-persuasive-intel-taliban-does-not-intend-n1150051
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government has collected persuasive intelligence that the Taliban do not intend to honor the promises they have made in the recently signed deal with the United States, three American officials tell NBC News, undercutting what has been days of hopeful talk by President Donald Trump and his top aides.
"They have no intention of abiding by their agreement," said one official briefed on the intelligence, which two others described as explicit evidence shedding light on the Taliban's intentions.
Trump himself acknowledged that reality in extraordinary comments Friday, saying the Taliban could "possibly" overrun the Afghan government after U.S. troops withdraw.
"Countries have to take care of themselves," Trump told reporters at the White House. "You can only hold someone's hand for so long." Asked if the Taliban could eventually seize power, Trump said it's "not supposed to happen that way, but it possibly will."
...
A former U.S. official directly familiar with planning acknowledged that the administration understands the risks of a "Vietnam War" style ending to the war in Afghanistan, in which the Taliban renege on the deal and overrun the country. But no one is saying that publicly.
-----
US begins troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, official says
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
9 May 2020
https://apnews.com/2e8a815a031e8da37075feec466694c2
Afghan people chant after a few rockets are fired during inauguration ceremony for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, March 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
WASHINGTON (AP) — American troops have begun leaving Afghanistan for the initial troop withdrawal required in the U.S.-Taliban peace agreement, the U.S. military confirmed Monday, amid political chaos in Kabul that threatens the deal.
Army Col. Sonny Leggett, spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement that the U.S. is moving ahead with plans to cut the number of forces in the country from about 13,000 to 8,600 over the next four and a half months.
“He’s Definitely Melting Down Over This”: Trump, Germaphobe in Chief, Struggles to Control the Covid-19 Story
Publicly, he sees it as yet another (“Fake News”) media war; privately, he worries about virus-carrying journalists on Air Force One. But cancel his rallies? “I’m not going to do it,” he says.
9 March 2020
By Gabriel Sherman
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/trump-germaphobe-in-chief-struggles-to-control-the-covid-19-story
Ever since the coronavirus exploded outside of China at the end of January, Donald Trump has treated the public health crisis as a media war that he could win with the right messaging. But with cases now documented in 34 states and markets plunging, Republicans close to Trump fear his rosy assessments are fundamentally detached from reality in ways that will make the epidemic worse. “He is trying to control the narrative and he can’t,” a former West Wing official told me.
The problem is that the crisis fits into his preexisting and deeply held worldview—that the media is always searching for a story to bring him down. Covid-19 is merely the latest instance, and he’s reacting in familiar ways. “So much FAKE NEWS!” Trump tweeted this morning. “He wants Justice to open investigations of the media for market manipulation,” a source close to the White House told me. Trump is also frustrated with his West Wing for not getting a handle on the news cycle. “He’s very frustrated he doesn’t have a good team around him,” a former White House official said. On Friday he forced out acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and replaced him with former House Freedom Caucus chair Mark Meadows. Trump thought the virus was “getting beyond Mick,” a person briefed on the internal discussions said. Trump has also complained that economic adviser Larry Kudlow is not doing enough to calm jittery markets. Last week Kudlow refused Trump’s request that Kudlow hold an on-camera press briefing, sources said. “Larry didn’t want to have to take questions about coronavirus,” a person close to Kudlow told me. “Larry’s not a doctor. How can he answer questions about something he doesn’t know?”
-----
Charlotte Clymer
twitter.com/cmclymer
2019/3/9
Republican Party is clearly coordinating messaging to call this the "Chinese Coronavirus" in an effort to leverage xenophobic and racist nonsense and absolve Trump of his catastrophic handling of this crisis.
This is why we need to unite. This is what we face w/ 4 more years.
Quoted Tweet:
Kevin McCarthy
twitter.com/GOPLeader
2019/3/9
Everything you need to know about the Chinese coronavirus can be found on one, regularly-updated website: http://coronavirus.gov
-----
Mistrust, rumor and conspiracy theories hinder U.S. virus fight
March 9, 2020
By Esme E. Deprez
and Margaret Newkirk
Bloomberg
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/mistrust-rumor-and-conspiracy-theories-hinder-u-s-virus-fight/
No one has been diagnosed with the new coronavirus in Alabama, but unfounded social-media rumors run so wild that the state public health department assigned a staffer to stamp them out.
In Texas, Houston and Harris County officials have been fighting misinformation since January, after false claims that the virus was circulating in the Asiatown neighborhood. Time and money is also being frittered away in New York, where the attorney general demanded that televangelist Jim Bakker stop promoting pricey pills as a cure. Bakker’s company was one of seven that received letters Monday from a federal task force, warning them against claiming that their teas, oils and tinctures will cure the virus.
Across the U.S., government officials fighting the disease are wrangling with a population made dubious by years of internet misinformation and a politics based on the debasing of facts. The World Health Organization has said that a global “infodemic” makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance.
...
The disconnect starts at the top, with President Donald Trump’s repeated undermining of health officials’ assessment of coronavirus risks. With no evidence, Trump last week disputed the death rate from the WHO and downplayed the virus’ dangers on national television.
A Republican congressional candidate recently tweeted a coronavirus conspiracy involving Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates, George Soros and Pope Francis. Radio host Rush Limbaugh told millions of listeners last month that the virus was nothing more than the common cold, politically weaponized to hurt Trump’s reelection chances. Trump aides Kellyanne Conway and Larry Kudlow have said the virus is largely contained.
-----
[EDITOR: Trish Regan on FOX calls calls Coronavirus another impeachment attempt? Only it's even more bizarre than that.]
Andrew Lawrence
twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence
9 March 2020
https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1237174846355841024
You gotta watch this, I mean........you just gotta watch
-----
Trump struggles to explain why he disbanded his global health team
According to Trump, "you can never really think is going to happen," but the NSC's team existed precisely because officials recognized the possible threat.
March 9, 2020, 8:20 AM PDT
By Steve Benen
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-struggles-explain-why-he-disbanded-his-global-health-team-n1153221
One of Donald Trump's most important missteps in dealing with the coronavirus outbreak happened before anyone had even heard of COVID-19. In fact, the president's first error came back in 2018.
It was two years ago when Trump ordered the shutdown of the White House National Security Council's entire global health security unit. NBC News had a good report on this recently, noting that the president's decision "to downsize the White House national security staff -- and eliminate jobs addressing global pandemics -- is likely to hamper the U.S. government's response to the coronavirus."
-----
[EDITOR'S NOTE: This has been the standard line for decades amongst the fundamentalists, particularly when talking amongst themselves. It's been internal propaganda for literally longer than I can remember.]
GOP congressional candidate pardoned by Trump tweets homophobic meme suggesting LGBT people are violent pedophiles
March 9, 2020
By David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/gop-congressional-candidate-pardoned-by-trump-tweets-homophobic-meme-suggesting-lgbt-people-are-violent-pedophiles/
After President Donald Trump pardoned former reality show star and convicted felon Angela Stanton-King she announced her run for Congress, challenging civil rights leader and Democratic U.S. Rep. John Lewis for his Georgia seat.
Stanton-King announced her candidacy on Friday, running on a so-called “ProLIFE” platform.
That same day she posted a violent anti-LGBTQ meme depicting a rainbow-colored graphic of an arm with a hand pointing a gun, finger on the trigger, not just at someone’s head but shoved into the back of it, assassination or “execution-style.” The apparent intended victim also happens to be wearing a Christian cross.
-----
What you need to know about coronavirus testing in the U.S.
Testing has been limited but could ramp up soon
By Tina Hesman Saey
March 6, 2020 at 6:24 pm
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-testing-diagnostic-covid19-united-states
U.S. government officials say a million promised tests for diagnosing coronavirus infections will soon be in the mail. But that still leaves many state and local laboratories without the ability to test for the virus, crucial for curbing its spread around the country.
Some states have developed their own tests. Clinical testing companies are now joining the ranks. LabCorp announced March 5 that physicians or other authorized health care providers could already order its test. Quest Diagnostics announced the same day that the company will also offer commercial tests as soon as March 9, pending U.S. Food and Drug Administration reviews. Participation of those two commercial laboratories could greatly expand testing capacity in the United States.
But for now, “we still find ourselves as a country with pretty limited capacity to test,” says Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.
Here’s what you need to know about coronavirus testing in the country.
-----
Despite earlier promises, Trump says 'we'll be cutting' entitlements
In 2016, Trump promised to champion social-insurance programs known as "entitlements." In 2020, he's adopted the opposite message.
March 6, 2020, 6:20 AM PST
By Steve Benen
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/despite-earlier-promises-trump-says-we-ll-be-cutting-entitlements-n1151436
"I'm not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I'm not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid," Donald Trump declared in 2015. "Every other Republican's going to cut, and even if they wouldn't, they don't know what to do because they don't know where the money is. I do. I do."
As regular readers may recall, this became a staple of his entire national candidacy: no matter what, Americans could count on him to champion these social-insurance programs. Ahead of the 2016 race, Trump wanted everyone to know that entitlement cuts, as far as he's concerned, are off the table.
The Republican has apparently changed his mind, as we were reminded last night during a presidential town-hall forum in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
"When Fox News host Martha MacCallum suggested that if 'you don't cut something in entitlements, you will never really deal with the debt,' Trump jumped in right away. 'Oh, we'll be cutting,' he said to an audience in Scranton. 'We're also going to have growth like you've never seen before.'"
-----
Twitter flags video retweeted by President Trump as ‘manipulated media’
It’s the first time the social network has enforced a new policy to fight doctored videos and photos
By Cat Zakrzewski
March 9, 2020 at 7:26 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/08/twitter-flags-video-retweeted-by-president-trump-manipulated-media/
Twitter applied its new “manipulated media” label for the first time on Sunday to a deceptively edited video of former vice president Joe Biden. The video was shared by White House social media director Dan Scavino and retweeted by President Trump.
The video was the first test of a new policy the social media company implemented March 5 to label tweets that contain manipulated or synthetic media, ranging from edited videos to more sophisticated examples known as “deepfakes” that can fabricate events that never happened.
In this case, the altered video of Biden — who has surged to the front of the Democratic presidential race to face Trump in November — is based on a speech he gave Saturday in Kansas City, Mo. It was then shared on Twitter by Scavino, only edited to make it appear as if Biden inadvertently endorsed Trump for reelection.
-----
U.S. has persuasive intel Taliban do not intend to abide by terms of peace deal, officials say
"They have no intention of abiding by their agreement," one official said. Trump said Friday, "Countries have to take care of themselves."
By Courtney Kube, Ken Dilanian and Dan De Luce
7 March 2020
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/officials-u-s-has-persuasive-intel-taliban-does-not-intend-n1150051
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government has collected persuasive intelligence that the Taliban do not intend to honor the promises they have made in the recently signed deal with the United States, three American officials tell NBC News, undercutting what has been days of hopeful talk by President Donald Trump and his top aides.
"They have no intention of abiding by their agreement," said one official briefed on the intelligence, which two others described as explicit evidence shedding light on the Taliban's intentions.
Trump himself acknowledged that reality in extraordinary comments Friday, saying the Taliban could "possibly" overrun the Afghan government after U.S. troops withdraw.
"Countries have to take care of themselves," Trump told reporters at the White House. "You can only hold someone's hand for so long." Asked if the Taliban could eventually seize power, Trump said it's "not supposed to happen that way, but it possibly will."
...
A former U.S. official directly familiar with planning acknowledged that the administration understands the risks of a "Vietnam War" style ending to the war in Afghanistan, in which the Taliban renege on the deal and overrun the country. But no one is saying that publicly.
-----
US begins troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, official says
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
9 May 2020
https://apnews.com/2e8a815a031e8da37075feec466694c2
Afghan people chant after a few rockets are fired during inauguration ceremony for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, March 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
WASHINGTON (AP) — American troops have begun leaving Afghanistan for the initial troop withdrawal required in the U.S.-Taliban peace agreement, the U.S. military confirmed Monday, amid political chaos in Kabul that threatens the deal.
Army Col. Sonny Leggett, spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement that the U.S. is moving ahead with plans to cut the number of forces in the country from about 13,000 to 8,600 over the next four and a half months.
