Trump Turns COVID-19 Briefings Political

With the pandemic-prompted shutdown of gatherings of over 10 people nearly everywhere in the U.S., the cancellation of the Nuremberg-style rallies of depraved authoritarian Donald "Moron Vector" Trump has forced him to use the daily televised updates on the pandemic as his substitute. Even if the stock market drops during and after his daily shit shows, Trump is determined to put his false spin on the state of preparedness and to spew baseless happy talk about potential therapies, vaccines, etc. to keep his cult and the gullible pumped up.

As Lucien Truscott writes, Trump's participation in these increasingly political pep rallies is undermining the message that doctors, local public health officials, governors and mayors are trying to convey, that vital medical resources are not flowing to them:

"The entirety of Trump’s re-election campaign is being televised as he appears every day with his 'task force' in the White House press room. He stands there backed up by a panoply of simpering, sold-out, suck-up enablers who may as well be wearing MAGA hats and waving 'Trump-Pence' placards. The 'task force' briefings are Trump’s new rallies. They’re televised by all the major cable networks without commercial interruption. They run Trump’s lies without real-time corrections. Every day he has said that he 'inherited a broken, old testing system, and we’ve fixed that system.' Lie. He has implied that somehow the Obama administration did something to limit the number of tests they could have been running. Lie. He repeatedly brags that he’s doing things that 'have never been done before.' Lie. He says over and over again that he’s done 'more than anyone' to fight the virus. Lie." (our emphasis)

If the broken media were doing their jobs, they would tape these briefings, and allow time to fact-check the statements made by both Trump and his personal valet VP Mike "Dense" Pence. The only person that is essential to the daily briefings is Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has often fact-checked Trump's lies in real time. Others can be jettisoned, especially the political, happy-talking Surgeon General and anesthesiologist Dr. Jerome Adams, who was previously on the staff of then-Governor Pence in Indiana, and who can be counted on to sing from the Trump songbook.

Time for the media to tape the briefings, edit and broadcast only the science and medical news, and drop the Trump - Pence campaigning. It's called journalism.

(photo: Trump attacking reporters at yesterday's briefing. At right, Dr. Fauci's face speaks volumes. Reuters)