Wow. Trump looked terrible today, big bags under his eyes – bigger than usual, and he sounded … well medicated and – amazingly – that might be a good thing. This was one of those press conferences in which Trump comes out with little energy and mumbles through stuff that he’s been told to read. He seems safer when this way. It was only at the end that he blew up.
He did show emotion whenever he talked Biden and had the balls (sorry) to say that Biden and Obama’s Swine Flu response was a “disaster.” How he could have said such a thing and not self-implode is a question that must be answered. Trump then accused Biden of being an anti-vaxxer, which is a lie. Biden said he would trust scientists with a vaccine but he didn’t trust Trump. That is not an “anti-vax” position.
Trump bragged that hospitalizations have dropped significantly since July. Congrats because it was unbelievably high in July. He did announce some good news in that the mortality rate is down 85% – that’s science and clinicians learning, having nothing to do with Trump. He then argued that we needed to open some blue states – the ones doing a great job. We were under the impression he left it up to the governors? Where does he get off telling states what to do?
Trump did a great job because two million people haven’t died, yet:
Trump wants you to grade his coronavirus on a curve where more than 2 million Americans would've died without his leadership. Totally absurd. pic.twitter.com/VMf0Pu5cJO [1]
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 16, 2020 [2]
Big 10 football found a way to be important enough to be in the presidential news conference many times. Trump acted as though he’s to credit for it, but it’s already been reported that Trump had nothing to do with it and indeed made it harder because they didn’t want it to appear political. Trump demanded the Pac 12 open up. “Get going.”
Trump again punched a bunch of Americans in the balls:
Trump says that if you take out “blue states” from the death statistics, they’re much better. (He’s previously talked about removing New York in particular, which was itself ridiculous.)
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 16, 2020 [3]
Trump continues to promise things regarding a vaccine that experts have deemed impossible.
Trump: You can have perfect safety and have much more speed pic.twitter.com/ymxsfI18dl [4]
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) September 16, 2020 [5]
Trump also had Dr. Scott Atlas talk about the distribution of the vaccine, which is ironic since Atlas used to be a “herder.” Additionally, Atlas is a neuro-radiologist who happened to come into Trump’s orbit … make of that what you will.
This might be a good time to point out that no vaccine has gone through phase III trials yet. Minor detail, we know.
Trump took questions, the first one asked about the fact that the CDC director said that vaccines wouldn’t be available for the general public until next summer. Trump says he’s wrong. Trump says the CDC director was confused and has incorrect information. This is what Biden means when saying he doesn’t trust Trump.
The President claims his CDC director was wrong on vaccines and says he got confused pic.twitter.com/vKekzCZgkU [6]
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) September 16, 2020 [7]
Trump then said regarding Tiktok that he wanted a lot of the money going to the US government and said that when he made that demand people said they’d never heard of that before. That might be because the U.S. doesn’t shake down private companies and does things according to law, but that’s just us.
LOL. Trump is surprised and dismayed to learn that the government has rules against forcing private companies to give money to the Treasury as a condition of a sale pic.twitter.com/qYr5f1VLO8 [8]
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 16, 2020 [9]
Trump went into railing about mail-voting and how it was a disgrace to democracy. This man is the same one who says that the only way he can lose is if the election was “rigged.” He says that the biggest threat to this election is unsolicited ballots sent out by governors – like the one in Nevada (Democrat) – who is “very political” (says the man who hasn’t drawn a bipartisan breath). We have a “they say” event, “they say” that all kinds of countries can do things with ballots they know is wrong.
LOLOLOL:
OhAN screwed up here; they asked him a very complicated question and he didn’t understand it at all
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) September 16, 2020 [10]
We’re told to take a look at what’s happened. In the past, there have never been significant issues with mail-in ballots. “It’s a disgrace.”
The WTO was created to suck jobs out of the United States, to take advantage of the United States. The U.S. used to lose every single case in front of the WTO until Trump, except that’s a lie:
It’s not true that the US used to lose every single time at the WTO before Trump. The US has long won the overwhelming majority of cases where it brought the complaint, lost the majority where it was the subject of the complaint. Trump’s White House admits this: https://t.co/mgAh5lwaXA [11]
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 16, 2020 [12]
The press continued to go back to pinning Trump on saying that Dr. Redfield made a “mistake” in saying that any vaccine wouldn’t be ready to be distributed until next summer. Trump just continued to say that he thinks Redfield – who does this every day – must have made a mistake. Under no circumstance will it be as late as the doctor said, says Trump, about a vaccine that doesn’t yet exist.
Challenged on what was said in his claimed phone call with CDC Director Redfield, Trump is being very fuzzy.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 16, 2020 [13]
He read Woodward’s book last night. All of it. Very quickly. Except …
Trump just said he read Woodward’s book very rapidly “last night.”
Yesterday, he said he read it very rapidly the night before.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 16, 2020 [14]
We will leave this right here:
Centers for Disease Control director says a SARS-COV-2 vaccine won't be widely available until mid-2021. Trump just predicted 100 million doses by the end of 2020. I think I can predict the first question, if he takes questions.
— Olivier Knox (@OKnox) September 16, 2020 [15]
And now we’re supposed to believe that the MidEast Peace Agreement has any weight to it. Trump then lied about the Obama Iran deal saying Obama “gave” Iran billions – it was their money, they got it back as part of the deal. Trump said we’d be phasing out of that deal now, it was for ten years. He just stands up and lies.
The press wasn’t going to let the vaccine lie go: “I think you’re going to see things that are amazing.”
“We’re going to have a vaccine — at most — within a couple of months,” President Trump says, openly disputing a timeline provided by his CDC director. He phoned Dr. Redfield after his testimony today but doesn’t characterize his response.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) September 16, 2020 [16]
Trump knows better than Dr. Redfield about masks being more effective than vaccines. Trump again said that Redfield must be confused because “masks have problems, too.” Trump said that he called Redfield today to discuss vaccines and masks. Trump is busy telling us that vaccines are much more effective than masks, directly contradicting his own specialists who testified before Congress under oath.
The President disputes that masks are definitely effective pic.twitter.com/x1z8xGT4BX [17]
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) September 16, 2020 [18]
This is criminal. We are getting real information from the CDC and getting lied to by Trump.
Trump then said that maybe Biden doesn’t want to “expose his face” – saying that when Joe is far away from people he still wears a mask and maybe Joe doesn’t want people to see his face. Outrageous.
Trump says that Joe Biden wears a mask because he doesn't want "to expose his face," not to set an example for the country or to slow the spread of Covid pic.twitter.com/u3qNvg16yM [19]
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 16, 2020 [20]
My God, the President of the United States is having another nervous breakdown in front of the entire country
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) September 16, 2020 [21]
Atlas then said that it was an outrageous use of politics for Joe Biden to be anti-vaxxer. Trump then said that he thought we’d have a vaccine before November 3rd and it was only when the Democrats heard it might be before the election that they “knocked the vaccine.” This is a lie.
When challenged as to why Trump could be trusted over the head of the CDC Trump said it was because of the “great job” they have done – a phenomenal job – Trump got pissed. Trump says people cannot believe how good a job they’ve done. He just continues to lie. But on this occasion, he got really angry. “It’s going to be a very powerful distribution … I don’t know if the doctor knows that.”
Trump is out here making up calls from world leaders who purportedly privately praise his coronavirus response pic.twitter.com/GEH8Tuajgx [22]
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 16, 2020 [23]
It was an epic Trump press conference with perhaps more lies spewed in one hour of presser than any previous press conference and about the most important topic yet, the vaccine and when we might expect it.
****
Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom