While everyone else is encouraged to go out and “open up the economy” Dear Leader lives in a sterile bubble:
President Donald Trump appears ready to move on from a still-raging coronavirus pandemic — skipping the first White House task force briefing in months and moving the event out of the White House itself. But the measures meant to protect him from catching the virus have scaled up dramatically. As he seeks to insert rival Joe Biden’s health into the presidential campaign, Trump has voiced escalating concern about how it would appear if he contracted coronavirus and has insisted on steps to protect himself, even as he refuses to wear a mask in public and agitates for large campaign rallies where the virus could spread.
When he travels to locations where the virus is surging, every venue the President enters is inspected for potential areas of contagion by advance security and medical teams, according to people familiar with the arrangements. Bathrooms designated for the President’s use are scrubbed and sanitized before he arrives. Staff maintain a close accounting of who will come into contact with the President to ensure they receive tests.
While the White House phases out steps such as temperature checks and required mask-wearing in the West Wing — changes meant to signal the country is moving on — those around the President still undergo regular testing. And even as Trump attempts to put the pandemic behind him by encouraging reopening and downplaying the new surge, there are signs of the still-raging pandemic even within his orbit.
This week, the virus again struck members of the President’s staff, this time a collection of campaign aides and US Secret Service personnel who had been working on Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa.And CNN has learned a third White House staffer who was recently in Trump’s vicinity also tested positive. According to two sources familiar with the matter, the staffer is a senior economic official who was in the Rose Garden with Trump during an event this month. Because of privacy concerns, CNN is not naming the individual.
As infections surge and several states grind their reopenings to a halt, the President’s political advisers and allies are growing concerned he is moving on from a pandemic still gripping the nation — and, this week, members of his own team. Trump’s absence from Friday’s coronavirus task force briefing only heightened the impression that he is leaving the pandemic response to others.
None of the nation’s top health experts — dropped off in the circular drive in front of the Department of Health and Human Service — seemed overly concerned that Trump wasn’t there.
The coronavirus task force meeting had been moved from the White House Situation Room to the health agency’s headquarters without much explanation. Vice President Mike Pence arrived with his security in tow and several aides were driven from the West Wing in black suburbans.As the meeting got underway, the President was back at the White House tweeting about attempts to tear down statues and abruptly canceling a planned trip to New Jersey so he could, he claimed, ensure that “law and order” is maintained over the weekend.
His absence at the meeting across town seemed largely unremarkable to his staff; Trump hasn’t attended a formal task force meeting since April, two sources familiar with his attendance say.”The President continues to lead the whole-of-government response to Covid-19 and regularly receives updates on the work of the task force from the vice president,” White House spokesman Judd Deere told CNN.
Of course he wasn’t missed. He always makes things worse. And in any case, Pence has learned to be a mindless cheerleader without openly insulting the press corps so Trump is able to get his suicidal message out anyway.
He still doesn’t see that economic revcovery depends upon the virus being contained. He’s convinced himself that it will “go away” and everything will be fine and anyway all the white people will be so upset about the removal of confederate statues that they’ll vote for him and he’ll win. It’s as delusional as it gets.
Even Tucker Carlson is losing hope:
.”At some point in the future, historians will marvel at the fact that the President lost ground during a pandemic and then during mass riots,” the Fox News host Tucker Carlson said during his opening monologue Thursday night. “Both crises should have highlighted his strengths. They were naturals for him.””An awful lot of people voted for Donald Trump precisely to avoid a moment we are now in,” Carlson said.
It’s unknown if he’s listening to Tucker. But really, he can’t do what Tucker says he should do because he doesn’t know how. He’s a poser, a phony, a clown.
He’s also a pathetic coward:
Even as Trump attempts to move on, the protective bubble around him has grown thicker. Aides say the steps are necessary to allow the President — by all definitions an essential worker — to continue leading the country amid the pandemic. But people familiar with the matter say the precautions also stem from Trump’s own insistence that he not contract the disease and his heightened awareness of how a sick President would affect both the country’s view of him and his ability to command a response to the pandemic.
After Trump told aides at the beginning of the outbreak he must avoid getting sick at all costs, efforts to prevent him from contracting the virus have progressively become more intensive and wide-ranging. Early steps such as keeping more hand sanitizer nearby eventually evolved into an intensive safety apparatus, including the testing regimen requiring dozens of staffers.
So far the efforts appear to have been effective, at least at preventing the President from contracting the virus. But events of the past week have also underscored the primacy of Trump himself to the safety measures, with the safety of staffers who compose his massive footprint coming second.
I think he is terrified and wants to stay in his bunker but believes that if he demonstrates any kind of responsible behavior to the public it will show weakness. So he’s trapped, desperate to stay out in the public and keep up the pretense that the virus is gone knowing that it’s roaring out of control and killing people just like him:
Trump, who turned 74 on June 14, is considered obese, according to the results of his last physical, which showed he weighed 244 pounds and stands 6 feet 3 inches tall. The results from his first physical while in office indicated he also had a common form of heart disease.
Trump’s most recent physical results showed his cholesterol is lower than when he first took office. But other aspects of his health remain unknown. The summary of results provided by the President’s doctor this year did not include the same level of detail Trump provided in 2018, when he insisted he be administrated a mental acuity test to put to rest questions about his sharpness.
Trump’s abrupt trip last October to Walter Reed National Medical Center remains the source of questions and speculation, even among some of his aides. The White House insisted the trip was meant to get a head start on his yearly physical, but it was not announced ahead of time and the results of the physical were not released for another six months.
The President has told officials repeatedly that he cannot get sick, and he grew upset when he learned last month that one of the military valets who handles his food and drink had come down with the disease. Trump asked how it was possible that someone with such intimate access to his person could have contracted the virus, and in the days following the revelation appeared cautious around people he did not know well, people familiar with his reaction said.
Trump appeared genuinely alarmed when people close to him contracted the disease, seeing in their experiences a fate he was adamantly working to avoid for himself. He raised repeatedly his friend Stanley Chera, a New York real estate developer who Trump had been friends with for decades. Trump described his surprise at Chera’s descent from contracting the virus to entering a coma to eventually succumbing to the disease.
Later, Trump was surprised again to learn that one of his closest foreign allies, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, had fallen seriously ill from the virus, at one point being admitted to an intensive care unit in London. Trump asked for frequent updates on Johnson’s deteriorating condition and later asked to speak with him as soon as he was on his way to recovery.
Meanwhile as he’s telling all of us to out and expose ourselves, get sick and die.
What a guy.