“It affects virtually nobody,” the acting president said of the coronavirus at a September 21 rally.
Welcome to the ranks of virtual nobodies, Mr. Acting President.
The virus that has killed 209,000 Americans now has infected Hope Hicks, one of the acting president’s closest advisers, the acting president, his wife, and likely many more to be announced on the mask-averse White House staff. They work together and travel together, maskless, in tight quarters.
“We will get through this TOGETHER!” tweeted Trump-is-for-Trump even as his administration continues its fight in the courts to strip health insurance from 20 million Americans.
Here is how CNN announced the story:
(CNN) A country already unnerved by a devastating health catastrophe and a turbulent political season faced fresh upheaval Friday as Americans awoke to news President Donald Trump had contracted coronavirus.
The President made the announcement on Twitter at nearly 1 a.m. ET on Friday and the development — after months of debilitating losses, set against a badly mismanaged federal response overseen by a commander-in-chief who repeatedly downplayed the crisis — threw fresh turmoil into the country’s leadership at a moment of deep national strain.
“This season of the reality show called ‘America’ has jumped the shark,” tweeted Anthea Butler, a professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania..
“In ‘America,’ the shark jumps you!” replied Salon’s Paul Rosenberg.
“How do we know it’s true?” tweeted Anand Giridharadas (“Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World“), echoing my first reflex. Could this be a flailing — if impossible to keep secret — ploy by the liar-in-chief to stop his reelection from swirling down the drain?
But that’s not likely. First, as Cliff Schecter points out, if Trump just wanted sympathy, “they could have just come out w Melania’s having it.” And second, he has to know what this would do to the stock market and the domestic economy he has tried desperately to prop up.
Axios reports:
Stock futures plunged after Trump tweeted the news. Market watchers warned of a potentially deep selloff, with an unknown extent of the spread at the top of the American government.
Giridharadas points to this chilling thread by The Guardian’s Carole Cadwalladr:
Some Trump adversaries will no doubt gloat (quietly, at least) while wishing him, his wife, and his staff speedy recoveries. Assuming again that the acting president in his desperate hour has not manufactured a hoax diagnosis to go with what for much of the year he called a hoax pandemic. Nothing is beyond him.
With Trump’s heaven-knows-what underlying conditions, obesity, and terrible fitness in general, we could under the provisions of the 25th Amendment have an Acting President Pence or even Pelosi by Election Day.
Lucky for Trump and Co., the White House staff all have excellent, government-funded health care. You’re welcome. Now us?
Maybe two weeks of quarantine will give this nuevo virtual nobody time to pass his ACA replacement plan. Because I’ve gotta say it is hard not to be impressed by the acting president’s health-care plan. It’s better. It’s cheaper. You’re gonna love it. And it’s been better, cheaper, you’re gonna love it, and he’s going to sign it — “a full and complete health care plan” — within two weeks for the last for three and a half years.
Nothing like COVID-19 in the morning to concentrate the mind.
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