The new Vanity Fair expose out today is an absolute must-read, with more information than we’d ever be able to pack in a column. It appears that it is finally sinking-in with Trump, the depth of the country’s problem with the Coronavirus, and how terribly it has been handled from the very beginning. Trump is finally starting to get it.

So what is Trump’s response? Find someone to blame, of course. Only this time, the “blame” is directed squarely at someone “close to home,” Jared, and this time, the blame has some legitimacy.

“In the last 48 hours he has understood the magnitude of what’s going on,” a former West Wing official told me. As Trump processes the stakes facing the country—and his presidency—he’s also lashing out at advisers, whom he blames for the White House’s inept and flat-footed response. Sources say a principal target of his anger is Jared Kushner. “I have never heard so many people inside the White House openly discussed how pissed Trump is at Jared,”

Wow, it’s almost enough to make you feel a little bad for the smug little scrawny ass … never mind, no – I don’t feel the least bit bad for Jared, and not just because it may well be partly Jared’s fault that this thing has been mishandled from the start. Someone had to grab Trump by the collar and shake him while yelling “wake up!”

Yes, of course, Trump is the person bearing the most blame – of course. That doesn’t mean he’s the only one.

Trump is regretting that Kushner swooped into the coronavirus response last week. Kushner, according to sources, encouraged Trump to treat the emergency as a P.R. problem when Fauci and others were calling for aggressive action. “This was Jared saying the world needs me to solve another problem,” a former White House official said. One source briefed on the internal conversations told me that Kushner advised Trump not to call a national emergency during his Oval Office address on March 11 because “it would tank the markets.” The markets cratered anyway, and Trump announced the national emergency on Friday. “They had to clean that up on Friday,” another former West Wing official said. Trump was also said to be angry that Kushner oversold Google’s coronavirus testing website when in fact the tech giant had a fledgling effort.

Alright, now I am almost on Trump’s side of this!! That scrawny little piece of shit advised Trump to treat this as a “P.R. problem”!!

He should have to attend the funeral of everyone who passes due to an insufficiently bold and much too delayed response, take that sort of “PR hit.”

And who does Jared think he is, anyway? Dr. Anthony Fauci is renowned around the world – worshipped by physicians as a true leader in the field – and yet Jared knew better as to what actions to take? Jared would organize advice from his little brother’s father-in law’s Facebook group? Are you kidding me?

Damn.

The impossible is happening. On this one, I believe I am on Trump’s side. Trump should be pissed off at the little fucker. Moreover, I think Jared has just definitively proven that he cannot “play” at this level. Of course, he proved that long ago, but you know. That doesn’t mean it’s not Trump’s fault for thinking that Jared had the experience and the intellect to be a senior White House adviser in the first place, that’s on Trump, but Jared has clearly earned the long overdue “You’re fired!” that he should have coming.

By the way, Trump’s mood isn’t going to get any better any time soon. As the nation prepares to lock itself down, there is precious little for Don to do, other than …

What’s he going to do, watch reruns of the Masters from 2017? He’s just going to watch TV and tweet and it’s going to get worse,” the former official said.

Yes, it is going to get much worse, for Trump, for Jared, and for us, that is what is going to happen.

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Peace, y’all

Jason

[email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom