Calling A-Rod?

Life in the Hotspot: For two reasons I wasn’t all that that concerned when Trump teased that he was likely to restrict all travel out of New York City and the surrounding areas.  First, it appeared obvious to me that he was spit balling, if you’ll excuse a woefully inappropriate for the time phrase, and second because where was I going anyway. Still the idea that the leader of the country would say that without thinking through the consequences, consulting experts or giving the relevant state governors a heads up say a lot about him, none of it good.  As to experts, according to a few of the real ones, the concept was discussed in the White House but after they and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin pushed back hard Trump relented instead going with a travel advisory which is kind of where we were before he scared the crap out of the half of the region that was paying attention.  In all likelihood, Trump’s initial idea came from Florida Governor DeSantis who is freaked out about all those virus transmitting Northeast snow birds who’ve fled to his state.  That’s a fair concern but maybe it’s equally fair to assume that DeSantis is flailing, trying to deflect the criticism of his decision to leave Florida’s spring break filled beaches open a bit too long?  Getting back to experts, though we don’t know what he said, one of those that Trump contacted was Alex Rodriguez, because who doesn’t consult a former baseball player when faced with a pandemic. In addition to chatting with steroid half of the A-Rod/J-Low team, Trump is also maintaining his obsession on ratings.  There’s not much new about that, but still yesterday’s pre-virus press conference tweet where he said “Because the “Ratings” of my News Conferences etc. are so high, ‘Bachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers’ according to the @nytimes, the Lamestream Media is going CRAZY. Trump is reaching too many people, we must stop him said one lunatic. See you at 5:00 PM!” was over the top nutzoid even for him.  And it isn’t just ratings, he also spent part of the run up to his evening press conference tweeting about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.  Apparently the two have relocated to the Los Angeles area and Trump wanted them and everyone else to know that he has no plans to fund their security.  For the record, they never asked him to and have already made other arrangements and I know that with the coronavirus pandemic raging, you were really worried about that.

No Bunnies:  During yesterday’s daily conference, Trump said what most of us already knew, there’ll be no Easter parade this year, he did that while announcing that the country will remain in social distancing/lockdown mode at least until the end of April.  For portions of the press conference, the parts where he stuck to his prepared remarks, Trump sounded almost presidential but then he went off on a few of his riffs, slimed a few genuine reporters, picked on a few fawning ones and attacked a handful of governors.  In one of those riffs, he asserted that hospital staff in virus hotspots like NYC are stealing hundreds of thousands of surgical masks, querying how the number of masks requested could shoot up from 10,000 to 300,000 overnight.  He actually asked “are they are going out the back door?” Is he really so stupid that he doesn’t get that mask needs are up hugely from normalized years due to the virus, or does he think that there’s a part of his base who’ll find comfort in thinking that those blue state, ethnic New Yorkers are just undeserving mask thieves.  Who knows what goes on in that pea brain?  While bragging about all those ventilators coming on line soon, though sadly not soon enough, he also followed up on an accusation that he had floated earlier, that NY’s Governor Cuomo is sitting on a stash of “hidden” ventilators.  Again, Trump appears not to understand that Cuomo, like some of those other planning ahead governors, are anticipated a coming patient surge and that those ventilator stores are crucial. He also doesn’t appear to appreciate that his lack of action has resulted in bidding wars between the various state governments and the federal government over scarce medical resources, or maybe he does and he likes it that way.  On the governor front, he slapped back at PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor for asking “threatening” questions about his claims that certain governors were asking for equipment that they didn’t need.  He denied he’d said the snarky things he’d previously said about “that woman” Michigan Governor  Gretchen Whitmer and that “failed presidential candidate“ Washington Governor Jay Inslee even though he had.  As to being nasty to Alcindor, its worth noting that she’s a black woman and as such falls into a group that Trump frequently targets with disdain. When Trump refused to answer Alcindor’s customary follow up question, another member of the mainstream media, CNN’s Jeremy Diamond, very classily passed the mic back to her when he was called on, that and his subsequent question about Trump’s earlier statement that he expects more appreciation from governors, especially if they want him to take their calls, resulted in Trump attacking CNN.  As for those governors, sadly they are in a bind, so both Inslee and Whitmer did their best to avoid answering questions about Trump’s disdain for them yesterday, both said that they were getting federal help and were talking with VP Pence but shied away from slamming Trump though you know that they really wanted to. 

Et Cetera:  In early February back when Trump and his minions at Fox were downplaying the virus and it’s likely trajectory, the US government sent 17.8 tons of "masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital materials" to China, probably a gift that had more to do with easing trade negotiations than genuine Trump generosity. For the record, the virus had already hit our shores at that point and there were plenty in government blowing warning whistles, in fact Health Secretary Azar had already been told by the CDC that the virus was a huge concern, but at that point Trump was still insisting that the virus wouldn’t be a bigly problem.   A lot is now being done to ramp up production of equipment and to source needed supplies, Trump finally invoked the Defense Production Act to get more ventilators out on Friday, and some of the masks we need are coming from Asia but wouldn’t a little more forethought have been useful?   In other non-virus news because there always is some, the Justice Department is now looking into some of those stock dumping trades made by Senators Richard Burr and Kelly Loeffler who got the inside skinny on the oncoming virus tsunami.  It appears that Senator Feinstein may be in the clear, her portfolio in a blind trust and the stock sold out of her portfolio was from a pharmaceutical company focused on cancer treatment, not something virus related.  Bernie Sanders is still in the race but if he’s hoping to win New York, those hopes are now on the back burner as Governor Cuomo has pushed off NY’s primary until June.  That however is not stopping Bernie’s surrogates from continuing to question Joe Biden’s abilities because that’s how they roll.

Stay safe!