to be watching with my jaw dropped as Trump goes into full meltdown at his press briefing?

[sadpapercourtesan]

Is anyone else watching this?! He is literally ranting like a man possessed, I've never seen anything like it. He's declared war on the media (I know we're used to him lashing out at journalists but this is on another level)

I'm watching it on CNN and they have breaking news straplines like "Trump uses task force briefing to rewrite history on coronavirus response", "Angry Trump turns briefing into propaganda session" and "Angry Trump uses propaganda video, produced by government employees at taxpayers' expense"

He has just said, verbatim: "When somebody is President of the United States, that authority is total"

I thought our daily briefings were bullshit

The more frightening thing is that a lot of voters still think he is wonderful and can do no wrong.

Some, maybe, but an awful lot of people are reasonable and moderate and doubtless have doubts about him. The thing is that many of them also - for good reason - have doubts about the way these stories are covered and the entrenched bias of the media. And they also don’t have a viable alternative candidate to vote for.

Joe Biden is not that person.

As it was, he closed the economy down in mid March, pretty much in step with everyone else.

This fascinates me, in what way did he close the economy down other than the banning of flights? He was very clear from the beginning that the stay at home orders were nothing to do with him, he wouldn't be authorising any, and governors who came astonishingly late to that decision (eg Florida) were 'very good people'. That's why it's so controversial now that he's claiming he can reopen states and get people back to work. He doesn't have that power and played absolutely no part in ensuring the safety of citizens through lockdown in the first place.

He'll get more and more deranged as this goes on. He knows he was elected on an 'economy' ticket and he'll be desperate now the economy is in such a mess. He'll no doubt bring pressure on Republican governors to end lockdown asap to increase his election chances. And that would undoubtedly lead to additional deaths.

His conferences are fascinating, we've watched then since they beginning of all this. His lies are jaw dropping, and they just keep coming. He's combative and most days he is abusive to journalists asking perfectly reasonable questions. As for his touting of Hydroxychloroquine shows him to be the nasty snake oil seller he is.

I still can't get over him crowing about one of his press briefings getting higher viewing figures than The Bachelor.

His confidence in his own ignorance is astounding

@Jillyhilly

The thing is that many of them also - for good reason - have doubts about the way these stories are covered and the entrenched bias of the media.

Isn't this 'problem' of bias because reality has a liberal bias. If you have two political parties in the US, and one of them has become increasingly anti-science, anti-fact, anti-expertise, isn't it inevitable that journalists reporting facts and evidence are going to look terribly biased to one side?

His language is is really interesting. If you watch him closely during these conferences, he starts out reading from a script. Now and again, he embellishes the speech; his vocabulary is tiny and these interjections show that perfectly. Tremendous, great, stupid, fake, winning, smart, fake news. He's a terrible communicator. When he's challenged by reporters, his vocabulary just becomes cheaply abusive. God knows how he ever rose to this job, I just hope these are the last few months of his 'reign'.

Obama tweeted such a wonderful statesmanlike comment yesterday and I remembered what 'President' means.
Trump read Hitler's writings when younger (before fake bake flawless tan was even a glimmer in an investor's mind).
If you ever studied the rise of Nazism, you'll see parallels daily. Enablers are the biggest issue.
Fortunately, historically, things always swing back to the middle, as one of the first judges deposed by Trump explained a few years ago. Forgotten her name. She took none of Trump's misogynistic, misinformed crap.
He deffo has Alzheimer's.
This was from 2016. Prescient: '
Future years will reveal whether the story is prophetic or far-fetched...'
www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/12/outbreaks-trump-disease-epidemic-ebola/511127/

I wonder if he'd ever pass the "I am nota robot" captcha thingies AnnofPeeves.

He's beyond stupid.

Where have you guys been? He’s been like that since campaigning.
He also clearly has the signs of early dementia.

Why would anyone be surprised at Trump being a narcissistic twat?

Our leader of the Western World!

Apparently his Daughter and her Husband are involved in talks about when to end Lockdown. How does he get away with that? It’s like some kind of confidence trick.

When I see his daughter and her husband I imagine her deciding one day 'daddy, I want to be president' and him going 'ho ho ho, don't be silly honey. A girl can't be president. But I tell you what, why doesn't daddy become president and then you come along too? Who's the best daddy?'

It was just extraordinary. I've never seen anything like it. He's completely off his rocker. I was impressed by the CBS reporter who stuck doggedly to her point. Only to be told she was (Trump cliche alert) disgraceful, fake news.

I cant get the clip, the Twitter link isnt showing it and the BBC is doing weird stuff.

He has lost it big style, i feel sorry for America right now. Must be scary knowing he's in charge during a global crisis

Absolutely terrifying. Is this how democracies become dictatorships?

The press's job is to mainly report on the "stories" of the day.

For the most part, in Dec and Jan public information about the virus was still quite limited. Hence the concentration on impeachment and Bloomberg et al.

However, at the end of 2019, the mighty US government and it's dictator had been fully briefed and warned about the scientific predictions of a fast approaching pandemic.

They chose to ignore it.

The man is totally out of control. It's terrifying.

Just one thing though, about hydrochloroquine. He doesn't actually own shares in the company that produces it. His financial stake in it is minute and diluted through investment trusts he has no control over.
www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-profit-hydroxychloroquine/

But still. It's stupid of him to be pushing the drug, like he wants to take credit if it works and will shrug it off in his usual gaslighting way if it doesn't. Let alone his responsibility for dangerous side-effects, and taking the drug away from people who actually need it.

Attack him for magical thinking, nepotism, incompetence, reckless disregard of science, yielding to lobbyists, benefiting financially from office, etc etc. There's more than enough to be going on.

As for his touting of Hydroxychloroquine shows him to be the nasty snake oil seller he is

The drug is far from snake oil. It seems to work on mild cases and many hospitals in NYC are using it in their protocols. I suspect Trump took it as a prophylactic, as do some doctors. The AMA has told doctors not to do take it prophylactically because of supply issues.

Also Snopes has fact checked this and says that Trump does not benefit from it: www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-profit-hydroxychloroquine/

NYT should have been more careful

This is what happens when you put a toddler in charge of a country.

It really does demonstrate that Americans really will choose anything over a woman, won't they?

Not right after having a Black President no. It was a massive jump having a Black President for eight years considering race relations in the US. A female President would have been too much change to soon.

Trump (and US gun law) are the reasons DH and I have turned down jobs in the US.

It really does demonstrate that Americans really will choose anything over a woman, won't they?

Reminds me of a Norm McDonald joke: American voters hated Hillary Clinton so much that they went and voted for someone they hated even more 😂😂😂

My friends all teased me in 2016 when I was constangly inveighing about how dangerous it would be for Trump to succeed as President, they thought I was a joke, and that he was, too. Not so much now, we find, sadly. I wish I'd been wrong.
@ CatherineOfAragonsPomegranate - did you try the link to the CNN video of the persistent female reporter I posted on the first page? It takes time, but it works if you're patient.
edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/04/13/paula-reid-trump-coronavirus-tsr-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/coronavirus/

I didn't mean that Trump would benefit financially from touting the drug, but that he benefits hugely in another way - on a personal level (as in votes) if he can make claims that he knows of a cure. There are plenty of people naive enough to believe him.

As Dr Fauci had said numerous times, there simply haven't been enough studies done to back up what Trump has said. It had not been shown to be safe or effective for this scenario yet.

And yet Trump says: What do you have to lose? Take it

While he is truly terrifying, it was pointed out by Yuval Noah Harari that one of the functions of the US President has been to get other G7 nations together for a response, and with his, 'America First,' rhetoric, this is clearly not happening.

Trump is not responsible for Covid 19, but he is incapable of being that President who has the ability to create a global action plan.

Nominate the PM of New Zealand or Germany.