Kristin Urquiza

On April 23, 2020, President Donald Trump offered his own suggestions for how COVID-19 might be prevented or cured:  

“So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous—whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light—and I think you said that that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it.  And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too.  It sounds interesting. 

“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute! And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you’re going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds interesting to me.”   

THE DANGERS OF TRUMP’S QUACKERY

Medical experts found Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks no laughing matter. Several doctors warned the public against injecting disinfectant or using UV light.   

“It is incomprehensible to me that a moron like this holds the highest office in the land and that there exist people stupid enough to think this is OK,” said Walter Shaub, the former director of the Office of Government Ethics. “I can’t believe that in 2020 I have to caution anyone listening to the president that injecting disinfectant could kill you.”

Faced with public ridicule, Trump canceled a White House press briefing for the first time since Easter weekend. 

Instead, on April 25, he issued this tweet: “What is the purpose of having White House News Conferences when the Lamestream Media asks nothing but hostile questions, & then refuses to report the truth or facts accurately.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has urged Americans to wear masks and keep at least six feet from their fellows. And most of the nation’s governors have issued stay-at-home orders that ban large gatherings—including visits to parks and beaches.

CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia

TRUMP’S DEFIANCE OF SCIENCE–AND LAW

Yet President Trump has openly encouraged defiance of those orders.

On April 17, he issued a series of tweets to his supporters, encouraging them to defy the law:

“LIBERATE MINNESOTA!”

“LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” 

“LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!”

All these states had Democratic governors. Their residents were being urged to stay indoors, wear masks when they ventured outside and keep a six-feet distance between themselves and others. 

These states had been targeted for Right-wing protests—featuring large numbers of men and women standing close together, with most of them not wearing masks. They claimed their “freedoms” are being infringed upon.

On April 17, Trump launched his latest effort to deal with Coronavirus:

He issued a series of tweets to his supporters, encouraging them to defy the stay-at-home laws of Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia.

Trump saw the stay-at-home orders as a two-fold threat to himself:

1. He couldn’t return to his hate-filled rallies until these were lifted; and
2. The stock market wouldn’t start soaring again so long as the country was “locked down.”

Without his Nuremberg-style rallies and a roaring stock market, Trump faced the danger of being a one-term President. 

Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia all had Democratic governors. They had urged their residents to stay indoors, wear masks when they ventured outside, and keep a six-feet distance between themselves and others. 

As a result, those governors—especially Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer—were being targeted for abuse and even death threats. And their states were facing disruptive protests by large numbers of Right-wingers standing close together, with few of them wearing masks. The protesters claimed their rights were being infringed upon.  

Since the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973, the Right has demanded that even women who are pregnant due to rape or incest carry the fetus to term. Yet now that Right-wingers were being asked to wear masks in public—to protect themselves and others from a deadly plague—they had suddenly discovered the mantra: “It’s my body!”

Writer Steven Pressfield summed up the immorality of these protests: “Why are we asked to wear surgical or face masks in public, to practice social distancing and to observe self-quarantining? Because these practices are not for the individual alone but for the protection of the whole [community].”

Washington Governor Jay Inslee tweeted: “The president’s statements this morning encourage illegal and dangerous acts. He is putting millions of people in danger of contracting COVID-19.

“His unhinged rantings and calls for people to ‘liberate’ states could also lead to violence. We’ve seen it before.”

Once states across the country began “reopening,” Trump scheduled his first 2020 re-election rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

It was held on June 20 at the BOK Center.

Scientists had learned that Coronavirus is more likely to be transmitted indoors than outdoors, when masses of people are packed together, and when people are loudly talking—or, worse, shouting. This is especially true when they’re not wearing masks.

In 2020, the Federal Government seized vitally-needed medical supplies in at least seven states. FEMA didn’t publicly reporting the thefts, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Nor did the Trump administration explain how it decides which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.   

TRUMP HAS SEIZED STATES’ MEDICAL SUPPLIES

The Federal Government didn’t inform states whose supplies it seized if they would receive the materials they ordered and paid for. That fueled concerns about whether the Trump administration was fairly distributing scarce medical supplies.

“We can’t get any answers,” said a California hospital official who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation from the White House.

Trump said it was the states’ responsibility to obtain critically-needed medical supplies. But when they weren’t outbid by the Federal Government, hospital systems and states found their shipments of medical supplies seized with no explanation.

Where did those supplies go?

To China?

To Trump’s private warehouses?

To Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, for sale on the black market?

No one still knows.

A March 2 Washington Monthly story concluded ominously: “What if the White House simply gives all the masks and ventilators to red states and counties, leaving blue ones to struggle? What mechanisms of accountability are left?

“U.S. democracy wasn’t set up to deal with a president openly behaving like a James Bond villain while being protected by a political party behaving more like a mafia than a civic institution.”     

PROPAGANDA AS “NEWS”

After Easter weekend, President Donald Trump began holding daily press briefings at the White House. 

Their official purpose: To update the country on the administration’s ongoing response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Their real purpose: To serve as a substitute for Trump’s hate-filled political rallies, which have been likened to those staged by Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, at Nuremberg.

These had been temporarily cancelled due to demands for social distancing to stem the rising tide of the COVID-19 pandemic. That had been Trump’s primary reason for seeking to end social distancing.

On Twitter—the social media platform Trump routinely used to attack everyone he hated—his suggestion that injecting disinfectants could treat Coronavirus drew scorn and ridicule.

One tweet showed Trump as a doctor hovering over a patient and saying: “Once I’ve pumped you full of disinfectant, I’ll zap you with this UV torch until you’re cured.”

Another meme featured Trump as Marie Antoinette saying: “Let them eat Clorox.”

Medical experts found Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks no laughing matter. Several doctors warned the public against injecting disinfectant or using UV light.   

On February 7, 2020, during a recorded phone interview, President Donald J. Trump shared his thoughts—and the latest medical Intelligence—about the Coronavirus with Washington Post editor/investigative reporter Bob Woodward. 

TRUMP CONFESSES TO BOB WOODWARD   

Bob Woodward: And so, what was [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] saying yesterday? 

Donald Trump:  Oh, we were talking mostly about the virus, and I think he’s going to have it in good shape. But it’s a very tricky situation.

Woodward: Indeed, it is. 

Trump: It goes through air, Bob. That’s always tougher than the touch. The touch, you don’t have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flues. People don’t realize, we lose 25,000, 30,000 people a year here. Who would ever think that, right?

Woodward:  I know. It’s much forgotten.

Trump: It’s pretty amazing. And then I said, “Well, is that the same thing?”

Woodward:  What are you able to do for—

Trump:  This is more deadly. This is 5% versus 1%, and less than 1%. So this is deadly stuff.

“This is deadly stuff.” 

Unfortunately for those who believed in him, Trump was not saying this in public. 

WHAT TRUMP SAID IN PUBLIC

From January to early March, 2020, Trump and his allies within the Republican party and Fox News Network repeatedly assured Americans they had nothing to fear. 

Donald Trump

Barnstorming the country in a series of hate-filled political rallies, Trump told his supporters:

• January 22:“We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”
• February 2: “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China. It’s going to be fine.”
• February 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.”
• February 25: “CDC & my administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.”
• February 25: “I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away. They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”
• February 26: “The 15 cases within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” 
• February 26: “We’re going very substantially down, not up.”
• February 27: “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” 
• February 28: “We’re ordering a lot of supplies. We’re ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn’t be ordering unless it was something like this. But we’re ordering a lot of different elements of medical.”

Coronavirus 

• February 28: “Now the Democrats are politicizing the Coronavirus….We did one of the great jobs….One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia’….They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax….It’s all turning, they lost….And this is their new hoax.”
• March 4: “If we have thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work—some of them go to work, but they get better.” 
• March 6: “I think we’re doing a really good job in this country of keeping it down. A tremendous job of keeping it down.”
• March 6: “Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. And the tests are beautiful.”
• March 6: “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for President.”
• March 8: “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on Coronavirus.”
• March 9: “The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it used to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the facts would warrant. Surgeon General, The risk is low to the average American.” 
• March 10: “It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.” 

MORE CONFESSIONS TO BOB WOODWARD

But on March 19, Trump offered a completely different take on the virus in another phone interview with Woodward:

Donald Trump: Now it’s starting out it’s not just all people, Bob. But just today and yesterday, some startling facts came out. It’s not just old, older-

Bob Woodward: Yeah. Exactly.

Trump: Young people too. Plenty of young people. We’re looking at what’s going on in—

Woodward:  So, give me a moment of talking to somebody, going through this with Fauci, or somebody who kind of… It caused a pivot in your mind, because it’s clear just from what’s on the public record, that you went through a pivot on this to, “Oh my God. The gravity is almost inexplicable and unexplainable.” 

Trump:  Well, I think Bob, really, to be honest with you-

Woodward: Sure. I want you to be.

Trump: I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic. 

The virus first appeared in Wuhan, China, in December, 2019.  Its first reported victim became ill on December 1.

By December 31, the outbreak was traced to a novel strain of Coronavirus.

Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that affect birds and mammals. In humans, Coronaviruses can cause pneumonia and may cause bronchitis. 

As President, Trump had access to Intelligence sources denied to his fellow citizens.

Trump first learned of the virus on January 3, 2020. This did not prevent him from playing golf on January 4, 5, 18 and 19.

On January 19, the first Coronavirus case appeared in the United States.  

On January 27, then-acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney tried to get the President to act.

But, according to officials who spoke with the Washington Post, Trump was “dismissive” of early briefings “because he did not believe that the virus had spread widely throughout the United States.”

Trump fired Mulvaney one month later. 

Then, for Trump, it was back to the golf course—on February 1, 2 and 15. 

Coronavirus

TRUMP CONFESSES TO BOB WOODWARD

On February 7, he decided to share some of his Coronavirus Intelligence with legendary Washington Post editor and reporter Bob Woodward.

Why he chose to do this remains a mystery.

It’s possible that Trump—whose hatred of the press is infamous—thought he could “take” Woodward. Or perhaps even cultivate him. 

Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks thinks so. On the September 11 edition of The PBS Newshour, Brooks offered:

“First, the hubris to think, you could be the president and talk to Bob Woodward and not get hurt by it. Donald Trump walked right into this. 

“Two, the extreme cynicism of not only bumbling around in February and March, because you didn’t know how serious the pandemic was, but the confirmation that you did know, and you still thought you could talk it down, as if you can talk down a force of nature, and that this—you wouldn’t end up getting caught.”

If Trump thought he could “take” or cultivate Woodward, it wasn’t the first time a high-ranking government official had done so. 

William J. Casey

During the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, CIA director William J. Casey spilled countless secrets to Woodward—which found their way into a 1987 book: Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987. Woodward admitted that he didn’t know why Casey had been so forthcoming.