Donald Trump is angry at politicians for acting just like him. | Image: Samuel Corum/Getty Images/AFP
Donald Trump is taking his anger out on someone who appears almost as incompetent as himself. Rep. Thomas Massie requested a roll call vote today, requiring members of congress to travel back to the Capitol to vote on the stimulus package. Shockingly, Trump did not hide his feelings.
Massie pulled off a ridiculous stunt today, and he deserves every bit of criticism. Delaying the passage of this bill is pointless and costly.
You know it’s a weak move when even John Kerry starts blasting it.
Trump called Massie a “third rate grandstander.” He probably just feels threatened that anyone would dare step into his grandstanding territory. He’s criticizing Massie for his costly delays, but Trump’s recent delays will likely cost American lives.
As the United States rockets into first place with more coronavirus infections than any other country, Donald Trump has mostly made it worse. The delays he’s caused have created immeasurable damage to the health of the country.
First, he downplayed the threat of the virus, calling it a “hoax.” As a result, millions of Americans continued their social lifestyles while the virus silently multiplied. The U.S. is now getting its first big wave of infections, which are already overloading health care systems in New York.
Then, Trump tweeted that New York has thousands of ventilators in storage. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo quickly corrected him.
Cuomo said that Trump is “incorrect and grossly uninformed.” Cuomo continues:
We have ventilators in a stockpile and we didn’t send them to the hospitals yet. Of course, we didn’t. That’s the whole point. The hospitals don’t need them yet. The hospitals aren’t at their apex.
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We’re planning for an apex in about 21 days. That’s when we need the 30,000 ventilators. Not today.
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So the point is, ‘well they’re in a stockpile, you must not need them,’ is just ignorant.
Trump aid Dr. Deborah Birx backed up Trump’s New York ventilator claim, saying:
To make the implication that when they need a hospital bed, it’s not going to be there. Or when they need a ventilator, it’s not going to be there–we don’t have an evidence of that right now.
Duh, Deborah. As Cuomo said, we’re not at the apex yet. But it’s coming. We need to start making ventilators now.
At the same time, Birx slow-played the need for equipment; Trump started sending panic tweets about ventilators.
So what is it, folks? Do we need them, or do we not? Trump delayed production of the ventilators today, in order to strike a better deal. The messages could not get any more mixed.
Trump was terrible at his job when things were relatively normal. Now that there’s a global pandemic, his incompetence is undeniable. He can try to blame Thomas Massie, he can try to blame General Motors, but Trump is the biggest problem of them all.