Thread by @SethAbramson

(THREAD) Trump's Fox News town hall today was wall-to-wall lies—*information warfare* waged against America, even as America is the epicenter of the worst global public health crisis in over a century. I break down some of the most vile lies in this thread. I hope you'll RETWEET.

1/ Fox News asks Trump when he knew he had to "move" on coronavirus. Trump says that he first heard about what was happening in China in the *media*—not via any of the means the *most powerful man in the world* has at his disposal to hear about *major national security threats*.

2/ In fact China informed the World Health Organization about coronavirus in *2019*. DHHS and the NSA knew by January 3 at the *latest*. DHHS briefed Trump by January 18 at the *latest*. It's likely that Trump was first told in late December—over a month before he *did* anything.

3/ Put aside that Trump says Wuhan is a Chinese *province*—it's a city—that he claims he heard about coronavirus "on TV and in the papers," then immediately moved to decide about blocking some flights from China is a lie. That was January 31; he knew of coronavirus weeks earlier.

4/ He says "everyone was against" him blocking some flights from China—suggesting he was a hero for bucking conventional wisdom—when in nearly everyone *supported* that move, and wondered why it had taken him *weeks and weeks* to do anything at all about the growing virus threat.

5/ Fox News asks Trump if a "world leader"—there was a suspiciously unreported phone call with Putin on December 29, right after Russia signed a historic partnership agreement with China and Wuhan was already in crisis—told him how bad things were. Trump lies; he says "instinct."

6/ In fact, whether Trump and Putin discussed coronavirus or not—and whether Trump got a briefing on China's December 2019 WHO notice or not—there's *no* chance Trump made *any* coronavirus decisions on "instinct." He was under *immense* pressure from *all* sides to take action.

7/ Trump said he "closed off to China" and "weeks early"—both lies. His decision came weeks *late*, after he'd refused to acknowledge the crisis or do anything about it for a month, and he didn't "close off to China" but restricted *certain* travelers from China, not all of them.

8/ The idea that Biden called Trump's China-flight decision "xenophobic" is a lie that's since become a far-right meme—with Trump's encouragement. Biden did *not* call Trump's decision "xenophobic," he gave a speech in which he accused Trump of being xenophobic generally (true).

9/ Biden *also* never called Trump's China-flight decision "racist." Here, Trump conflates *multiple* false far-right memes he's stoked; this one falsely claims Schumer called Trump's flight decision "racist" on Twitter—but Snopes reports that this is false. No such tweet exists.

10/ Trump says "tens of thousands more would be dead right now" if he hadn't made the decision he did on January 31—a *month* after he *should've* made it. The current toll is 600, China stopped many flights itself, and Trump's decision was late... so this is a lie in *3* ways.

11/ Trump says "doctors" opposed stopping flights from China on January 31—another lie. He says he acted "very, very early"—another lie. He then says "a lot of people agree" with his decision to "re-open the country" at the height of a pandemic. Another lie—almost no one agrees.

12/ Trump implies that some other countries are "built" to have people hole up in buildings for a long time—but the U.S. isn't. I don't know if this is a "lie" or just "deranged," but the fact is, *no society welcomes quarantines*. During pandemics they are *medically necessary*.

13/ Trump says "we had the best economy in the history of our country 3 weeks ago"—a lie. He's equating the Dow Jones with the state of the US economy, when *the two aren't synonymous*. *No one* thinks they're synonymous. He's been *told* they're not. But the lie works for *him*.

14/ Trump says we on average lose 37,000 people to the seasonal flu each year. That part's true. But he then falsely equates a flu for which we have a vaccine to a virus for which *we won't have a vaccine for at least 18 months* in terms of public health threat...which is insane.

15/ He then falsely compares a global public health pandemic to... *car crashes*. Again, *no one* around him has told him these things can be equated. No *doctor* has said this to him. This is a deranged lie of his own devising that comes from nowhere but his fevered imagination.

16/ Trump then lies about Pelosi—saying she tried to put items in the coronavirus stimulus deal "that had nothing to do with workers." In fact, he means they had nothing to do with *private-sector* workers—Pelosi's additions were intended to help save public-sector workers' jobs.

17/ Trump then lies about Pelosi again—saying she wanted to "control boardrooms." He refers to Democratic efforts to ensure that huge companies given taxpayer bailouts can't use those taxpayer funds to enrich themselves rather than stay afloat—a premise *Trump voters agree with*.

18/ Trump lied in saying "he'd never heard of" any country shutting down businesses during a pandemic. In fact, not only had *many* countries enacted such actions *this year* by the time he was considering it, but experts would have told him *this is what happens in pandemics*.

19/ Trump's goal is to make *standard practice* during a pandemic sound *insane* to people so he can—*contrary to experts' advice*—do something that will kill untold thousands of people just to preserve his chances of being reelected later this year. It's a thoroughly *evil* lie.

20/ Trump says that we can "socially distance" while everyone in America is going to work as usual. *No you can't*. And the reason is that coronavirus *lives on smooth surfaces in your workplace for many hours*—it's *putting a lot of people in one space at once* that's dangerous.

21/ Here—again—Trump has *had explained to him by experts* that "social distancing" means much more than not touching other folks or washing your hands. He *pretends* it means something different because the *real* definition of the term doesn't suit his selfish political agenda.

22/ Trump says "more people" will die of depression-driven suicide than THE CORONAVIRUS if the nation's economy isn't immediately opened up. This is such a vile, self-serving lie—in the face of hundreds of thousands or millions of potential virus deaths—it takes your breath away.

23/ Trump calls "closing" the country "one of the most difficult decisions I've ever made." That's a lie for an interesting reason—which is that *there was no decision* and *Trump* didn't close *anything*. Governors are making decisions he can't stop—he has nothing to do with it.

24/ Trump put out some *guidelines* for social distancing that affected virtually *no one*, as it was local and state authorities deciding what actual restrictions to put on their locale's commerce and other cultural activities. So Trump is trying to govern by mere rhetoric here.

25/ I'm not going to get into Trump's lies about the crisis in northern Syria. I'll have more to say on that later. The simple version is that Trump committed war crimes in Syria and his claim he pushed for a "peace deal" prior to the Turkish invasion of Syria is a goddamned lie.

26/ The opposite happened: Trump *greenlit* the Turkish genocide of Syrian Kurds in northern Syria. He knew women and children would be massacred. And now he's saying he pushed for a "peace deal." This is the sort of lie you burn in Hell for. Okay, moving back to the coronavirus.

27/ Trump says that America has had "other" pandemics that we never advised a restriction on business operations for—a lie. I've no idea what other "pandemics" (a very specific term) he's talking about, but he's wrong that social distancing has never been used/considered before.

28/ Trump says that "no one could have predicted" the coronavirus. In fact, *his own damn administration* conducted a public health exercise called Crimson Contagion (Google it!) in the middle of last year and it predicted *exactly* this scenario. Trump did *nothing* in response.

29/ My God, people, look at all these lies. And this is just in a matter of minutes. WHY DOES U.S. MEDIA ALLOW THIS ON TELEVISION? It literally takes journalists hours and hours and hours just to fix all the lies he's telling in real time. THIS IS NOT THE PURPOSE OF JOURNALISM.

30/ Trump blames the lack on testing on "prior administrations"—but the fact is, when the CDC test failed the US *had the option* of taking tests that worked from the World Health Organization or other nations and it *refused* to do so. Inexplicably. Trump couldn't admit failure.

31/ Trump saying that *the CDC couldn't anticipate needing to test Americans during a pandemic* is... I mean JFC... it's *on the face of it* insane. What the hell does he or anyone think the CDC is *for* if not to respond to a global pandemic in which testing Americans is vital?

32/ Trump lies and says "we had a [coronavirus stimulus] bill that was done" and then Democrats destroyed it. That's a lie. What he means is the *Republicans*, talking largely to themselves, constructed a bill *their caucus* was happy with, and then—surprise!—Democrats disagreed.

33/ By the way, this whole thread so far is just *15 minutes* of Trump speaking. This is how many lies Trump has told in 15 minutes. And others were speaking for some of that time.

34/ Trump reads out a report (we have no idea who or where from) that says New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo, "rejected" purchasing 16,000 ventilators back in 2015. Who knows what the truth is—I can't call this a lie because no one knows what the hell Trump is talking about here.

35/ Trump lies and says that recently Dr. Birx missed a meeting and everyone was demanding answers on whether he was arguing with her—an event that never happened. He's made up this story to try to deflect attention from very *real* concerns about his relationship with Dr. Fauci.

36/ Trump keeps saying "the cure is worse than the problem"—which in his *alternate reality* is *true*, as he's defined the "problem" in a way that, I can't emphasize it enough, *bears no connection to reality*. He's the president and has *no idea* about the problem we're facing.

37/ This lie isn't Trump's—but it's stunning enough I have to mention it: Bill Hemmer (FNC) just got Dr. Birx to agree that the coronavirus is "not very deadly."

She's saying this at a time the *confirmed* case fatality rate (CFR) is 14% across 121,000+ *closed* cases worldwide.

38/ Trump lies about the CFR of the 1918 flu (it *wasn't* 50%, it was 3.5% to 10%—numbers similar to the *observed* rates among *closed* coronavirus cases, nation-by-nation) and then lies *again* to say "millions" of Americans have coronavirus now. We don't have any data on that.

39/ This next one isn't a lie, but I still can't believe it: Trump saying "we can't have"—i.e. he can't have—governors publicly stating the Trump administration is making *any* mistakes. That's a stunning statement—and frankly, an implied threat against those states—from Trump.

40/ Trump now *specifically* says that "depression" (the mental health condition) will cost more lives than coronavirus—"far more people," he says—if the economy remains "closed" beyond mid-April. This is.... well, as insane as anything the man has ever said. I mean Jesus Christ.

CONCLUSION/ America *cannot* continue like this—we cannot stand, any longer, putting a man on TV for an hour or more a day to spread lies en masse to America that misinform, mislead, and even—as recently as yesterday—*kill* people.

MEDIA, YOU HAVE TO STOP DOING THIS TO AMERICA.

VIDEO/ Here's the livestream of the FNC town hall, if you want to watch it yourself. Keep in mind, nearly every word out of Trump's mouth in this nationally broadcast "panel" is a lie. Literally *nearly every single word* out of his mouth. It's staggering.

DATA/ I'll end with coronavirus FACTS via Worldometers, a WASHINGTON POST source:

US global rank in new cases/day: 1⃣
US global rank in total cases: 3⃣*
US global rank in new deaths/day: 4⃣*
US global rank in critical cases: 5⃣*
US global rank in total deaths: 6⃣*

*Rising fast.