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Jeremy Konyndyk Profile picture
@JeremyKonyndyk
Sep 30, 2020 • 13 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
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Going to try to fact-check what Trump says on COVID.

Wish me luck.
"It is what it is because you are who you are."

Fact-check: Yup, as I told Vox back in March.

vox.com/2020/3/5/21166…
Trump says if the country had listened to Biden, the country "would have been left wide open."

False. Biden didn't speak against the China ban, and when Trump banned EU travel, Biden rightly pointed out that the ban was not a substitute for a plan:
Trump also claims that China is to blame for the virus. As I've written at length, China's bad behavior doesn't explain the US outbreak:
Trump says the bleach comments were made sarcastically. You be the judge.

As for the vaccine timeline, Fauci knows better than Trump.
(Hard to keep up)
Pelosi is not the obstacle to the next round of COVID aid. The House has moved; the Senate hasn't. bizjournals.com/washington/new…
Trump claims that the states that shut down have done poorly.

False. The states that reopened prematurely across the Sun Belt experienced huge surges over the summer. States like NY, NJ, CT that clamped down after early surges have been the best performers. Image
Trump rallies are *not* all outside. ImageImage
Trump claims Biden will close down the whole country.

False. Economic disruption is driven by the virus. What keeps communities closed is the failure to beat the virus. Curtailing the virus - what Trump has utterly failed to do for 9 months - is what will get the country open.
I'm tallying 8 big lies so far on this topic; sure I've missed some.
OK, they're off COVID. Whew.

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More from @JeremyKonyndyk

Jeremy Konyndyk Profile picture
May 24
Over 1000 cases barely a week past detection.

Soon to be the 2nd largest Ebola outbreak ever, and echoing the 2014 mega-outbreak in all the worst ways.

A thread outlining the huge challenge that looms, and some thoughts on what must be done:

The effort to contain this outbreak starts with four strikes against it:

Momentum

Location

(Lack of) Medical Countermeasures

Weakened Global Response Capacity

Let's look at each.
Momentum:

The >1000 cases so far are undercount; # still rising fast as true scale emerges.

For context, the huge West Africa outbreak in 2014 was detected at 49 cases and rose to 208 a month later. So this one starts off *much* bigger. who.int/emergencies/di…
Read 15 tweets
Jeremy Konyndyk Profile picture
May 18
It is pretty unprecedented for WHO to declare a PHEIC so rapidly after detecting an outbreak, but it is absolutely merited in this case.

This is a scary one.

Why?

- Very late detection
- Difficult context
- Limited countermeasures
- and global response tools got DOGE-d

🧵...
It's instructive to compare this against other major past outbreaks.

The largest Ebola outbreak in history, West Africa/2014 (which I worked on for @USAID), was detected at a far earlier stage (49 cases / 29 deaths) than this one (246 cases/65 deaths).

Deaths are now >88 and ⬆️
This one has already built up more momentum at time of detection.

Worrying because Ebola risk and response scale in an exponential, not linear, fashion.

Each extra uncontrolled case means tens of more people potentially exposed in super spreading events.
Read 18 tweets
Jeremy Konyndyk Profile picture
Apr 9
To mark the 6 month anniversary tomorrow of Trump‘s deal to end the war in Gaza, we at @RefugeesIntl teamed up with humanitarian partners to assess its humanitarian impact.

The headline: it is failing. But political will could salvage it.

🧵 Image
The problem is not the plan itself; the problem is an execution failure.

Many of the humanitarian and civilian protection commitments of the plan are good & right.

But they are failing - and the deal's guarantors (the USG foremost) are letting that happen.
Getting the humanitarian components right is a crucial proof of concept for the wider deal, and a confidence building measure toward future steps.

If those elements fail with impunity, it is hard to see how disarmament & political/governance elements could ever succeed.
Read 9 tweets
Jeremy Konyndyk Profile picture
Feb 26
Hugely important ruling.

DHS has been abusively sending migrants - including refugees and others protected from deportation - to unrelated third countries.

We @RefugeesIntl have been partnering with @humanrights1st to expose these shady arrangements: thirdcountrydeportationwatch.org

🧵 x.com/rparloff/statu…
The core of US and global refugee law is non-refoulement - the principle that people fleeing persecution must not be returned to face that harm.

DHS uses 3rd-country deportation agreements to circumvent those and related laws.

And also to coerce migrants into self-deporting.
In one such case, DHS was barred from deporting a man to Gambia because he would face persecution there.

DHS deported him to Ghana instead, and Ghana then deported him to Gambia.

DHS is outsourcing refoulement. Image
Read 9 tweets
Jeremy Konyndyk Profile picture
Feb 5
A year has passed since @elonmusk began the wood-chipper-ing of @USAID.

Since then, global humanitarian funding has collapsed by almost 1/3, mostly due to the Trump/Elon cuts.

Vast suffering has ensued.

🧵
US relief aid collapsed from $14bn in 2024 to just $3.7bn in 2025.

This meant global humanitarian relief reached 25 million fewer people, even as the number of people needing aid rose.

We at @RefugeesIntl have a new report that assesses the emerging human toll. Image
To start with the obvious:

The Trump-Elon cuts are killing people.

In crisis settings around the world, aid groups and journalists are documenting deaths that are directly attributable to the aid cuts.

nytimes.com/2025/09/20/opi…

propublica.org/article/kenya-…

propublica.org/article/trump-… Image
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Image
Image
Read 15 tweets
Jeremy Konyndyk Profile picture
Dec 30, 2025
Great to see major US investment into UN pooled funds!

But - $2bn is a tiny fraction of needs; US humanitarian funding in 2024 was $14.1bn.

So this is a very welcome step but comes nowhere to close to filling the life-threatening gaps *the US itself created* this year.

🧵
US funding and humanitarian diplomacy have supplied the backbone of global emergency response for decades.

Both collapsed this year with the closure of USAID.

The result so far has been preventable death, starvation, disease on an extraordinary scale.
The effects are huge.

Our teams @RefugeesIntl are seeing impacts of the US aid cuts everywhere.

One grim recent example below from our recent report on Tigray. There are many, many more instance like this.

Efficiency matters, but so does scale.
refugeesinternational.org/reports-briefs…Image
Image
Read 10 tweets

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