My @realdonaldtrump "No Apologies Tour" continues:
Coronalitics?
During a time when the nation desperately needs coherent guidance to address a nationwide threat, the coronavirus pandemic has been reduced to a political volleyball. It is neither a public health issue nor a

political issue, but a calamitous jumble of both. Coronalitics?
Throughout the day on Wednesday, the administration put out competing and inconsistent guidance. Trump and Dr. Fauci contradicted one another. Trump contradicted himself within minutes at the daily briefing. Trump

sucker-punched Governor Kemp, privately telling Kemp he supported the governor’s decision to reopen Georgia this week, then saying publicly that he “strongly disagreed” with Kemp’s decision.
The whiplash began on Tuesday when the Director of the CDC warned that the coronavirus

might return with greater force in the fall. After an apparent scolding from the administration, the CDC Director walked back those statements. Trump then claimed that WaPo had misquoted the Director, who responded by saying that WaPo had accurately reported his remarks.

Undeterred, Trump contradicted the CDC Director statement, saying the virus “may not return at all.” Dr. Fauci, in turn, contradicted Trump, saying that the virus would return in the fall.
Dizzying!
More worrisome was a letter by Dr. Rick Bright, the former director of the

Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). NYTimes, “Doctor Says He Was Removed After Questioning Drug Promoted by Trump.” Dr. Bright was removed as Director of BARDA after he resisted investments in drugs “that lack

scientific merit,” i.e., hydroxychloroquine. For standing his ground based on science, Trump transferred Dr. Bright to a different position where he could not interfere with Trump’s promotion of the drug. Dr. Bright said in his letter,
"Sidelining me in the middle of this

pandemic and placing politics and cronyism ahead of science puts lives at risk and stunts national efforts to safely and effectively address this urgent public health crisis. "
You will recall that yesterday, the Veterans Administration released the largest study to date about

hydroxychloroquine. That study suggested that patients treated with the drug may die at a higher rate than those not treated with the hydroxychloroquine. ” Dr. Bright’s resistance to the indiscriminate use of the drug was prudent and may have saved lives. Yet, in Trumpworld,

providing sound scientific advice that contradicts Trump’s wishful thinking is a fireable offense. When Trump was asked whether he forced out Dr. Bright, Trump responded, “Maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t; I don’t know who he is.” In other words, “Yes.”
After the VA study showed

hydroxychloroquine was potentially dangerous to Covid-19 patients, Trump and Fox News immediately alerted their followers that their previous advice was both wrong and possibly deadly. In your dreams! Instead, Trump and Fox pretended they never mentioned the drug. See Vox,

“Trump and Fox News want to send their hydroxychloroquine hype down the memory hole.” (“They’ve suddenly stopped talking about an unproven drug they touted as a possible miracle cure.”)
The politicization of the coronavirus has created animosity between the federal government

and the states never before experienced in our nation’s history. First, there is the fact that the federal government is seizing medical supplies that have been purchased by states and local hospitals. The New England Journal of Medicine just published a letter from a

“chief physician executive” who described his harrowing experience in obtaining PPE for his hospital in Massachusetts. The letter reads like a spy novel, but the point is that as soon as the chief physician took possession of the equipment delivered by two semi-trailers,

FBI agents appeared and questioned the physician. After talking his way past the FBI agents, the physician learned that the Department of Homeland Security was still considering redirecting the trucks filled with equipment to a federal facility. The goods were released to the

doctor only after a congressional representative intervened. See New York Magazine, “The White House Has Erected a Blockade Stopping States and Hospitals From Getting Coronavirus PPE.”
What makes the above story so disturbing is that the fact that Trump has told the states that

they must buy the equipment they desperately need to treat victims of the coronavirus. (“We’re not your shipping clerk.”) It seems that Trump wants the states to fail—so he can blame them. Any doubt in that regard was removed on Wednesday when Mitch McConnell said that

cash-strapped should “declare bankruptcy” rather than asking for aid from Congress. See New York Times, “McConnell Says States Should Consider Bankruptcy, Rebuffing Calls for Aid.” States are not permitted to declare bankruptcy—and McConnell knows it.
McConnell’s sudden refusal

to help the states is politically motivated. After he made his callous remarks, McConnell’s staff sent a news release with the heading, “Stopping Blue States Bailouts.” Per the Times, “The phrase suggested that the top Senate Republican was singling out for scorn some of the

hardest-hit, heavily Democratic states such as California, Illinois, and New York.” McConnell will soon learn that it is not only blue states that will suffer economic disaster from the pandemic. Indeed, some red states are already suffering.
Be safe.