If one wants to measure the degree of devastation inflicted on the Trump campaign due to the revelations from Woodward’s book, one need only look at the amount of time Trump has spent defending himself from the allegations. The revelations came out last week, meaning that Trump has now spent near six days talking about whether he did or did not downplay COVID prior to it sweeping over the country. For every day that Trump spends defending what he didn’t do back then, he loses a day talking about what he’d like to do in the future, or point to something with which he feels more comfortable, like how he’s going to prevent bad guys from stealing your suburban housewife.

Trump is still at it tonight on a townhall broadcasted by ABC.

Now Trump says that he actually didn’t “downplay” the virus, indeed he “up-played it” by his actions. Daniel Dale is CNN’s fact-checker:

In a clip from tonight’s 9 PM ABC town hall, Trump tells a voter he didn’t downplay the pandemic (he did, for months, and explicitly told Woodward he did), but “actually in many ways, I up-played it, in terms of action.”

(He cited his “ban”s on China/Europe, which aren’t bans.)

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 15, 2020

So, wait.

Trump himself said that he always wanted to “downplay” COVID because he wanted “calm.” So did he actually downplay it or is he now saying that he screwed up downplaying it and risked a panic by “uplaying it?” We all know the answer, he doesn’t know and is flailing away right now.

From his own voice, we know he wanted to downplay it. He hid his head under the pillows, screamed, and acted like nothing was happening in the hope that the Dow Jones wouldn’t dive – his best political hope. In so doing, Trump revealed himself to be the ultimate real estate guy and horrific stockbroker, or president. Real Estate guys can lie about the property and hope that the buyer doesn’t learn the truth until after the sale. They can then fight it out in court. Stockbrockers know that the market will always catch up, there is no court for the market, they just want to plan a bit ahead of the news … kind of like a real president. A real president would know that the disease, and the market, would catch him eventually.

Not for nothing but Trump damn sure didn’t “up play” it with action, either. Does everyone else remember how we were supposed to have millions of tests by the end of March? What about “Governors it is on you,” and the next day “LIBERATE!!” Is that up-playing the risk?

No. Trump is just spinning his wheels in a panic. And every day that Trump spins his wheels is another day he’s not talking about your suburb as the setting for the next Spike Lee movie. The election is now just 49 days away. He’s running out of time.

My God, he is unfuckinghinged.

Young woman asks Trump why he downplayed the pandemic.

“I didn’t downplay it. I actually in many ways up-played it, in terms of action.”

She interjects: “Didn’t you admit it yourself?”#TrumpTownHall pic.twitter.com/CvTbpbWiJv

— Holly Figueroa O'Reilly (@AynRandPaulRyan) September 16, 2020

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom