Read on Twitter
An ongoing, months-long "Mission Accomplished" banner:
From May 10 2018 —> https://twitter.com/AtomicAnalyst/status/994696175575068672
"The work done over the past five years ... demonstrates that the government had considerable knowledge about the risks of a pandemic and accurately predicted the very types of problems Mr. Trump is now scrambling belatedly to address." https://twitter.com/EricLiptonNYT/status/1240659865984552960
"'Nobody ever thought of numbers like this,' Mr. Trump said on Wednesday, at a news conference.
"In fact, they had." https://twitter.com/EricLiptonNYT/status/1240659865984552960
"In fact, they had." https://twitter.com/EricLiptonNYT/status/1240659865984552960
"The administration's refusal to work with Congress from the beginning of this crisis made America less safe." https://twitter.com/samstein/status/1241020915376365568
"U.S. intelligence agencies were issuing ominous, classified warnings in January and February about the global danger posed by the coronavirus while President Trump and lawmakers played down the threat and failed to take action...." https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html
"'Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were — they just couldn’t get him to do anything about it,' this official said. 'The system was blinking red.'" https://twitter.com/kalhan/status/1241164834533597184
Feb 5 2020 —> https://twitter.com/chrismurphyct/status/1225073987639705600?s=21 https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1225073987639705600
January 2020 —> https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1222863896882679808
"Some of the president’s advisers have privately said that they share the longstanding opposition of conservatives to government intervention and oppose using the law...." https://twitter.com/kalhan/status/1241185707323830272?s=19
Trump to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un: I am eager to render assistance to your pandemic response
Trump to his own people: "we’re not a shipping clerk," you're on your own unless you're in a swing state that might help me stay in power http://washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-korea-says-trump-wrote-kim-jong-un-a-letter-offering-to-help-out-with-coronavirus/2020/03/22/a3facf9a-6c35-11ea-a156-0048b62cdb51_story.html
Trump to his own people: "we’re not a shipping clerk," you're on your own unless you're in a swing state that might help me stay in power
http://washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-korea-says-trump-wrote-kim-jong-un-a-letter-offering-to-help-out-with-coronavirus/2020/03/22/a3facf9a-6c35-11ea-a156-0048b62cdb51_story.html
Trump on Friday, lying: "We invoked it.... [W]e’re using the act." 
https://twitter.com/amandakhurley/status/1241734433604059141
![Trump on Friday, lying: "We invoked it.... [W]e’re using the act." https://twitter.com/amandakhurley/status/1241734433604059141](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETumF3HUMAAgbAO.png "Trump on Friday, lying: \"We invoked it.... [W]e’re using the act.\" https://twitter.com/amandakhurley/status/1241734433604059141")
![Trump on Friday, lying: "We invoked it.... [W]e’re using the act." https://twitter.com/amandakhurley/status/1241734433604059141](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETumG_4U0AM3isG.png "Trump on Friday, lying: \"We invoked it.... [W]e’re using the act.\" https://twitter.com/amandakhurley/status/1241734433604059141")
https://twitter.com/amandakhurley/status/1241734433604059141
"'It was heartbreaking to watch,' said Bao-Ping Zhu, a Chinese American who served in that role ... between 2007 and 2011. 'If someone had been there, public health officials and governments across the world could have moved much faster.'" https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1241832028376457216
The political "optics" for Dear Leader must be protected, even if it requires large-scale death and the crashing of the health care system https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1242125798355632131
"[T]he wealthiest nation in the world is leaving its caregivers unprotected in this crisis because [the Trump presidency] did not plan for it and wasted precious weeks before responding." https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/government-scrambling-to-advise-hospitals-that-run-out-of-basic-supplies/2020/03/21/d9c36702-6b88-11ea-abef-020f086a3fab_story.html
While Fox News downplayed the coronavirus epidemic as a "hoax," its boss Rupert Murdoch canceled his 89th birthday party out of concern for his health: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/business/media/fox-news-coronavirus-rupert-murdoch.html
He doesn't take responsibility at all —> https://twitter.com/kalhan/status/1242277585356234752?s=19
"Trump’s private business has shut down 6 of its top 7 revenue-producing clubs & hotels b/c of restrictions meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus"—and now he's "considering easing restrictions...sooner than federal public health experts recommend" https://twitter.com/kalhan/status/1242466668804059140
"[U]nder the Trump administration, 'it just sat as a document that people worked on that was thrown onto a shelf,' said one former U.S. official, who served in both the Obama and Trump administrations." https://twitter.com/LauraWalkerKC/status/1242978782174216192
"We have it totally under control.... One day, it's like a miracle, it will disappear."
Feb 26: "Q: So far, your administration is only testing less than 500 people. And health officials are questioning whether that’s enough...
"TRUMP: Well, we’re testing everybody that we need to test. And we’re finding very little problem." https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1243314620737236992
"TRUMP: Well, we’re testing everybody that we need to test. And we’re finding very little problem." https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1243314620737236992
(March 11) "Trump is reluctant to declare an expansive emergency to combat the escalating coronavirus outbreak... 'The president isn’t persuaded because [it] contradicts his message that this is the flu,' said a Republican who speaks to Trump." https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/11/trump-emergency-declaration-coronavirus-message-125902
"Your government knew in the summer when it did a drill that if this happened, this would be a problem and there was a lack of preparation." https://twitter.com/kalhan/status/1243523032989093890
The missing six weeks: how Trump failed the biggest test of his life [and not just Trump: all of his Republican Party enablers too] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/28/trump-coronavirus-politics-us-health-disaster
. @ChrisMurphyCT: Trump presidency officials, including @SecAzar, turned down emergency coronavirus funding on February 5th—said "they would be able to handle it" and "that they had everything that they needed on hand, which was false" https://news.yahoo.com/senator-says-white-house-turned-down-emergency-coronavirus-funding-in-early-february-003319950.html
https://news.yahoo.com/senator-says-white-house-turned-down-emergency-coronavirus-funding-in-early-february-003319950.html
Meanwhile, Trump to America's governors: "They have to treat us well" if they want to get ventilators and essential protective equipment for health care workers, like masks and gloves. "Try getting it yourselves." https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1225836989393534976
Infection and death rates are growing exponentially because of Dear Leader's inaction, but in case you were worried that might be weighing on him, fear not—he's super pumped by the ratings his virtual rallies are getting (which the networks are too lost to stop broadcasting live)
Mar 7 2020 —> "I’d rather have the people stay [on the cruise ship] ... because I like the numbers being where they are. I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault." https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/07/which-is-trump-more-worried-about-coronavirus-numbers-or-coronavirus-patients/
. @BostonGlobe editorial: "As the American public braces itself for the worst of this crisis, it’s worth remembering that the reach of the virus here is not attributable to an act of God or a foreign invasion, but a colossal failure of leadership." https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/30/opinion/president-unfit-pandemic/
"What makes Mr. Trump particularly dangerous is that he is not acting alone. He is backed by the Republican Party, which translates his natural apathy to suffering into malicious policies." https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior/status/1242940648526880768?s=19
Trump in March, repeatedly: "It’s an unforeseen problem." "Came out of nowhere."
Pentagon in Jan 2017: "The most likely and significant threat is a novel respiratory disease... Coronavirus infections [are] common around the world." https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/covid-military-shortage-pandemic/
Pentagon in Jan 2017: "The most likely and significant threat is a novel respiratory disease... Coronavirus infections [are] common around the world." https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/covid-military-shortage-pandemic/
"[D]ilettantism raised to the level of sociopathy"—Jared Kushner Is Going to Get Us All Killed: https://nyti.ms/2x1tlVc
"[O]fficials said Mr. Kushner had mainly added another layer of confusion to that response, while taking credit for changes already in progress and failing to deliver on promised improvements." https://nyti.ms/3bNl5ak
https://nyti.ms/3bNl5ak
"One moment Mr. Trump is talking about reopening the country by Easter, the next he is warning of more than 100,000 deaths. In the afternoon, he threatens to quarantine tens of millions of people in the Northeast, then in the evening he backs down." https://nyti.ms/3bNl5ak
https://nyti.ms/3bNl5ak
And the next moment he's talking about "build[ing] up my poll numbers"—while people are dying because of his malign ineptitude https://twitter.com/kalhan/status/1245910216954146818?s=19
https://twitter.com/kalhan/status/1245910216954146818?s=19
"[T]he United States will likely go down as the country that was supposedly best prepared to fight a pandemic but ended up catastrophically overmatched by the novel coronavirus, sustaining heavier casualties than any other nation." https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/
"The failure has echoes of the period leading up to 9/11: Warnings were sounded, including at the highest levels of government, but the president was deaf to them until the enemy had already struck." https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/
In January, while Trump was actively downplaying the risks of a pandemic, his economic adviser was warning that those risks were severe (but urging dubious immigration-centered policies in response) https://nyti.ms/3aPtSZ5
