Source; CNN - The PO!NT With Chris Cillizza - Analysis by Chris Cillizza, Editor-at-large; updated at 11:03 am EDT, Tuesday, 11 August 2020
****With my, BND's own, personal, snarky comments posted after Chris's, between the asterisks****
The 34 Wildest Lines From Donald Trump's Wildly Inaccurate Coronavirus Press Conference
Late Monday afternoon, President Donald Trump took to the podium in the White House briefing room to give one of his semi-regular updates on the fight against coronavirus. And even by the remarkably low standard for truth that he has set in office, it was a doozy.
"They're all at least pretty bad, but that was one of the worst Trump press conferences in a while from a truth standpoint," tweeted CNN fact checker Daniel Dale. "Fast and furious lying."
I went through the transcript of Trump's remarks - and his Q&A with reporters - and picked out the lines you really need to see. They're below.
1. "I thought I would start talking about some mail-in voting that was just revealed, just the news, half a million incorrect absentee ballot applications were sent out all across the state of Virginia, including to many dead people."
Yes, due to a printing error, a group sent more than 500,000 absentee ballot applications with an incorrect return address on them. The group acknowledged the error and the director of elections in Fairfax County (Virginia) told a local TV station that there was no evidence "this organization was acting maliciously." As for Trump's claims the ballots were sent to "many dead people," well, I don't see any reporting on that. Also, isn't the press conference supposed to be focused on the US's fight against coronavirus? And away we go!
2. "Our system is not equipped for it. The Post Office is not equipped for it."
"The Postal Service has ample capacity to adjust our nationwide processing and delivery network to meet projcted Election and Political Mail volume including any additional volume that may result as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic." - statement from the US Postal Service
**** The USPS handles billions of Christmas cards each year, but can't handle voting.... Yep.****
3. "And your numbers will be - in 90 days or less, your numbers will be very good, I think, much better on the coronavirus or the China virus."
It's not at all clear where Trump's prediction that the coronavirus pandemic will get better in the next 90 days is coming from. In fact, most experts - of which Trump is not one - say that the pandemic could worsen as flu season approaches.
4. "From what I understand, the answer is yes."
Trump was briefly whisked away from the press conference before returning to the podium. The President was asked by a reporter whether the person shot by the Secret Service as he approached a checkpoint on Monday was armed. He said said yes. The Secret Service acknowledged later on Monday that the man was not armed.
**** Did you see the video clip of this? The Secret Service agent approaches and says, "Mr Prsident." The president turns to him slowly and says , "Excuse me?" and the agent responds. Trump looks at the cameras and says, "Oh, OK," then walks very slowly off, like he's been heavily sedated... ****
5. "The world has been, you look back over the centuries, the world has been a dangerous place, very dangerous place, and it will continue I guess for a period of time."
So true!
**** It will be dangerous until Trump is safely behind bars, along with his minions. ****
6. "I don't know if anybody got to walk outside, but there were a lot of terrific-looking people ready to go, if something was necessary - people at the highest level of law enforcement, there's nobody like these people."
"Terrific-looking people..."
**** Yep, the first thing the Secret Service checks agents for, is how photogenic they are... ****
7. "I think we'll have a vaccine before the end of the year, very substantially and we may have a therapeutic resolvement very quickly, very, very quickly and frankly that's the one I'd rather have faster, because you in, you give a transfusion or a shot to people that are very ill and they'd be able to come out of the hospital, the next day or a few days later."
Paging Dr. Trump, Dr. Donald Trump please pick up the white phone.
**** Perhaps he should have volunteered to take Putin's vaccine that's already out, without trials... ****
8. "If we had much smaller testing, we would have fewer, but we feel that having testing is a very important thing."
OK, for the billionth time: Testing does not create cases. It identifies them.
**** Maybe once he's in prison, we can use him for a test subject for all types of medical trials? ****
9. "The new wall is being built, which people don't talk about. They used to talk about nothing but the wall. Now that it is being built, they're not talking about it so much."
"Trump campaigns on border wall progress. There's not much of it." - from The Los Angeles Times, 23 June 2020
*** Since Trump was sworn in, a little over 3 miles of his precious border wall has been newly built. He has "reconstructed" and "re-enforced" about 297 miles of previously exiting wall. ****
10. "It should have never been allowed to happen. It should have never been allowed to escape China."
Two things are true here. First China was not at all transparent in the scope and seriousness of Covid-19. Second, the virus is very contagious and it's not at all clear that even if China had been transparent, the virus would have stayed only in that country.
11. "We must stop politicizing the virus and instead be united in our condemnation of how this virus came to America, how this virus came to the world."
Reader, he really did say this.
12. "But the payroll tax is a big deal for people. It's a tremendous saving for people. And we are going to do it."
"I'm not a fan of that, I've been very clear about that." - South Dakota Senator John Thune, the Number 2 ranking Republican, on the payroll tax cut
**** Payroll taxes support the Social Security program, from which the Republicans have already stolen billions of dollars without any replacement or repayment. ****
13. "I don't think a man of deep religion would be agreeing to the Bernie Sanders plan."
Trump previously suggested that Joe Biden, a Catholic, was "against religion." His evidence for such a major claim appears to be based on a joint agreement of principles released by Sanders and Biden. The 110-page document mention the word "religious" three total times by my count; It advocates banning religious bias in law enforcement, urges passage of legislation that would do that, and advocates a review of the administration's immigration policies for possible evidence of religious bias. And that's it.
**** Gimme a break - the man doesn't know one religion from another, can't quote a single verse from the Bible or Torah or Koran, and only sees the inside or outside of a church or place of worship for a publicity photograph. ****
14. "And I think it's one of the reasons why, if you look at polls, which I'm not a big believer in polls, I wouldn't - if I was, I guess I wouldn't be standing here right now."
Shot...
**** But he certainly follows them.... ****
15. "And by the way, our poll numbers are going up very rapidly, as you know, and Joe's are going down very rapidly."
Chaser.
16. "But no, if you look at the manifesto, I call it the manifesto, a lot of people are calling it the manifesto, my opinion, it's further left than where Bernie was before."
"I call it the manifesto, a lot of people are calling it the manifesto"
**** Look - he learned a new word! ****
17. "But the individual mandate will always be with us - the individual mandate termination will always be, they can't start it up."
Wait, so we will have the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act? Or we will always have the termination of the individual mandate? I. Don't. Know.
18. "And I saw that Senator Schumer said today on a show, I don't remember which show but he said today on a show we should meet and we should do something but you know, where has he been for how many weeks have you been negotiating?"
Donald Trump watches a lot more cable television than you do. Like, a lot more.
**** Trump spends his time getting his make-up on, doing his hair, golfing, speaking nonsense in front of cameras, and all the rest of the time he's binge watching cable news and ratings of cable news. ****
19. "It would have been so much easier than doing it the way we did it, but we did something that's very important and frankly it's been well received, very well received."
This is Trump on the quartet of Executive Orders he signed over the weekend. "The pen-and-phone theory of executive lawmaking is unconstitutional slop," said Nebraska Republican Senator Ben Sasse about the moves.
**** Bullshit. He signed one Executive Order and three Memoranda. All of them were illegal, as he has NO authority to touch taxes - that is the duty of Congress, not a president. ****
20. "Well, I think it's, I've been to Gettysburg numerous times. It's a national park. It's a national historic site. It's incredible. You know it's the history. It's incredible, actually, to me."
"It's the history."
**** Bet you he doesn't know who led which side of the battle there, how long it lasted, or any other fact about Gettysburg. - And exactly how many times, and when, was he there? As a student at his private military school? ****
21. "The White House would be very much easier for the Secret Service. You see what just went on here. They're all here. Just like you have your seats, they have their seats at the White House. So there wouldn't be any expense or any extraordinary expense and the White House would be a lovely place to do it also."
Trump is considering delivering his acceptance speech of the 2020 Republican presidential nomination at either Gettysburg - or the White House, which is sort of dicey, legally speaking.
**** He should deliver his speech from inside Air Force One, while it's sitting on the tarmac at Andrews Air Force base. Other than the drive there and back - or the flight in Marine One, it wouldn't cost tax payers much.... I'm surprised he hasn't announced it at his hotel in DC, actually... ****
22. "And you know who else is not happy with us winning? Russia. The phony people that tell you the story, the fake news stories about Russia."
The intelligence community, special counsel Robert Mueller and the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee all agree on this: Russia engaged in a broad and deep campaign to meddle in the 2016 election.
**** According to multiple studies, Russia, China and Iran are running hidden heavy interference campaigns in this 2020 election... ALl you have to do is check intelligence sources to see it. ****
23. "So if we win the election, we'll have deals with a lot of countries very fast."
What evidence did Trump provide for this bold claim? Oh, none.
**** Again, I love his use of the royal "we" - NOT! ****
24. "So you will have a crash like you've never seen before. And I've been very good at predicting these things."
OK, so if Biden wins, the stock market will crash. Because, uh, Trump is an expert prognosticator? Or something? On a related note: "We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It's going to be just fine."
25. "So I don't know. You know hat I'm telling you? I'll tell you who's meddling in our elections. The Democrats are meddling."
Trump was asked directly whether Russia was seeking to meddle in this election. This was how the President responded. Not exactly reassuring. (Also US intelligence has made very clear Russia is seeking to interfere in the 2020 contest.)
26. "Take a look now at this one in Virginia, where they mailed out 500,000 applications and they're going to people that aren't supposed to be getting an application."
Just to reiterate: The issue in Virginia was that more than 500,000 absentee ballot applications had an incorrect return address on them. Not that people who got them who shouldn't have.
27. "No, I wouldn't have done that. I think it's - I think it's been amazing what we've been able to do."
Trump was asked, if 160,000 Americans had died on President Obama's watch, whether he would have called for the 44th president to resign. So, um, this is Trump's tweet from 2014: "If this doctor, who so recklessly flew into New York from West Africa, has Ebola, then Obama should apologize to the American people & resign!"
**** This man has always been, and always will be, a lying bag of racist, disgusting shit wrapped in a human skin... ****
28. "The closest thing is in 1917, they say right, in the Great - the Great Pandemic certainly was a terrible thing where they lost anywhere from 50 to 100 million people. Probably ended the Second World War, all the soldiers were sick."
World War II ended on 8 May 1945.
**** What a complete and total dope. He really learned his stuff at his military school and in college, and out in the real world, didn't he? ****
29. "And you know at the beginning there was a big shortage of ventilators. Nobody had stockpiles or anything comparable to what you had to have."
NOPE!
**** Again, he had the ventilators and there was a pandemic plan left for him by the previous administration. He let the ventilators up-keep expire and he tossed the pandemic plan in the trash can. We, the people of America, are paying for his own personal elitism. ****
30. "So no, I think we're a very large country. We are one person."
So, uh, well, what?
**** What the hell is that supposed to mean? ****
31. "But they've done a - really an extraordinary job. They'll never be given the credit and I'm not talking about me."
[Narrator voice:] He's talking about him.
32. "[Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's] great. He's - and I hear he's doing well. He's recovered from having Covid. Having Covid-19, as they say."
"As they say."
**** Yep... Brazil is right behind the US with COVID-19 Cases and deaths... and now the "first lady" of Brazil has tested positive for the virus.... Great job, doing very well!!! ****
33. "Well, look, the Obama campaign spied on our campaign."
NOPE!
34. "I think it's the political crime of the century and they've been caught. So let's see what happens to them all."
Yeah... this feels like a good place to end.
**** No words... The man is an ego-maniacal narcissistic boil on the mass of American humanity. He needs to be excised and sterilized from society. ****
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