Yesterday, March 20, 2020, more people filed for unemployment benefits in the United States in the history of unemployment benefits. The stock market dropped another 900 points wiping out gains in the market since Donald J. Trump became President.
During his daily press conference at the noon hour, President Trump picked a fight with another journalist. This time he attacked Peter Alexander, a White House correspondent with NBC News. Alexander asked the President what he could say to assure Americans that the Corvid-19 outbreak was under control.
Trump responded that Alexander had asked a mean question and questioned Alexander’s professional accuracy. Again, Trump bushwhacked what had been an excellent press conference where the experts gave meaningful information to the public.
During the pressers, Trump advised the public he has “a hunch” that an experimental drug will heal coronavirus patients. However, the Food and Drug Administration has not approved the use of any drug to combat this virus. Trump asked the American people to trust his hunch. “What do you have to lose,” Trump asked the American people.
Essentially, Trump is asking Americans to forego the safety of scientific research and to march into this war against coronavirus on the hunch of “a stable genius.”
What do Americans have to lose on Trump’s hunch?
There is nothing to lose but their very lives.
Somehow, I do not believe Trump grasps the implications of his question.
Trump’s news conferences do little to assuage public fear. While they are useful for tossing red meat to his base, the majority of Americans are left confused and fearful.
Two things are becoming increasingly clear about the Trump Corvid-19 pressers:
(1) Assembling the experts at noon every day in close quarters is not prudent in the age of physical distancing. God forbid the experts should contact and spread the coronavirus and spread it among the leadership of the country at one of Trump’s press conferences.
(2) President Trump inevitably confuses and cast fear in public with his seeming uneducated pronouncements. Moments after his “What do you have to lose” criticism, the stock market dropped precipitable.
Meanwhile, Californians are locked indoors, New York is under seized from Covid-19, and the days ahead look difficult.
Harold Michael Harvey is the author of Freaknik Lawyer: A Memoir on the Craft of Resistance. He is a Past President of the Gate City Bar Association. He is the recipient of Gate City’s R. E. Thomas Civil Rights Award, which he received for his pro bono representation of Black college students arrested during Freaknik celebrations in the mid to late 1990s. An avid public speaker, contact him at [email protected].
I can’t understand why Trump is dragging his ass on providing federal assistance unless he is trying to set up companies that he can personally profit from this disaster.
I did not think of this motive, but you are probably right.