Thread by @TheViewFromLL2

This piece of shit is claiming we have more cases than any other country because we do more testing than any other country. He's trying to Baghdad Bob his way through a pandemic.

There is literally no number of bodies that will stop Trump from doing this. If even the worst case scenarios were blown out of the water, and twenty million people died, he'd still be showing up in the Rose Garden to brag about how many lives he saved with hydroxychloroquine.

The President is now asking reporters to investigate whether someone is embezzling medical masks because "from a practical standpoint he doesn't see how that's possible" for New York's mask use to have increased so much in the past month. Because he has catfood for brains.

Trump's plan for coronavirus and the economy: allow corporations to fully deduct meal and entertainment expenses again.

Trump is declaring that the peak death toll is going to hit in two weeks. He does not explain how he reached this estimate. Nor does he mention two weeks from today is the day he announced he wanted to end the quarantine and 'open up the country' again.

Trump is asked about his reference to the alleged Great New York Mask Caper, and whether he's suggesting mask shenanigans are going on. He says no – then immediately launches into another explanation of why he thinks there's a mask embezzlement scheme going on.

Trump declines to address Dr. Fauci's statements earlier today about the possibility of a 100k+ people dying, and instead asks Dr. Fauci to speak to it.

But Fauci basically says the same thing he said earlier. So then he points at Dr. Birx and tells her to get up and address it.

Dr. Birx doesn't directly address the numbers given by Fauci, but she does mention that ongoing mitigation measures give us 'the opportunity to save hundreds of thousands of lives.'

Trump says he's been asking "Tony and Deborah" what would happen if we do nothing, and says the number they got back "today" was 2.2 million dead. He says that "when I heard the number today, first time I heard that number," he felt even better about the 2 trillion stimulus bill.

Trump himself is now setting 100k as the number that's expected to die, though he mentions that maybe we can even go under that.

Wow.

That's the benchmark Trump is setting now: 100,000 people are expected to die. He now wants credit if the number ends up being lower than that.

Question: Why yesterday did you threaten to quarantine NY/NJ/CT?

Trump: I didn't. I didn't. Read what I said. I said we were *thinking about it.*

Hard to see how this would be meaningfully different if there was a broken Furby addressing the Rose Garden.

When @Yamiche quotes something Trump said on Hannity and tries to ask him about it, he gets furious, yells about how great Pence and the coronavirus task force are doing, and then accuses her of threatening him.

It's so strange to hear Dr. Birx stand up here and talk about the likelihood of up to 200,000 people in the U.S. dying.

In her appearances at all the briefings over the past week, her position has been as if we've just about solved the crisis, and all will be well.

Nearly a month after Trump stood at the CDC and announced "anyone who needs a test can get a test," an HHS official is in the Rose Garden explaining why we still have to prioritize testing on people in the most need, like those who are hospitalized.

"The reason we show more cases than anyone else in the world... is because we're doing more testing than anyone else in the world," Trump lies. Before telling another lie about how, when he came into office, the U.S. had run out of ammo.

Trump says all the governors are happy with what he's done, they're thrilled with how he's handled the crisis. They wouldn't be happy if someone else was president now, he says.

The question was about why Florida has gotten 200% of what they've asked for, while other states have only gotten a fraction.

Trump denies that Florida is getting more than others, and then says that Florida gets more because they're good at being pushy.

I get the impulse to ask Trump two questions at once, but it's a waste. He'll just use it as an opportunity address only the one he feels more like answering.

👏👏 FINALLY a reporter gets the mic and asks Trump to go back to Yamiche, who he refused to finish answering before.

We're going to have "tremendous suicides" and "people dying all over the place from drug addiction" as a result of the quarantine guidelines, Trump says. He mentions "celebrity chefs" who have lost their jobs and are now spiraling down (?).

Trump just audibly seethed in anger at a reporter as he read out the transcript of Trump's own words.

"When they disrespect me, they're disrespecting the government," Trump says.

@atrupar I'm hoping you're pulling the hiss clip, strong gif potential there.

If you had "Trump, while giving an address at the Rose Garden on a pandemic raging through the country, compares the TV ratings of his press briefings to the final rose ceremony on The Bachelor" on your Bingo card, check that sucker off.

I don't say this lightly, but right now Trump is talking about New York, and it is the closest thing to an expression of empathy that I have ever heard from him.

I mean it was all about him and his experiences and feelings, still. But it was way closer to empathy than usual.