Yesterday's campaign presser aka guidelines to "reopen" the country

But, first:

That's supposed to be a point to cheer.  Overworked truckers.

Okay...the presser with Daniel Dale coverage:

Trump: "My administration is devoting every ounce of our energy, every fiber in our bodies, to give a tremendous -- really, create a border, create something very powerful, against this virus, this horrible virus."

Build a wall.

Trump begins a speech about truckers by patting a truck. He says: "They are beautiful, beautiful trucks. That's the real deal. You wouldn't switch jobs with anybody, would you, huh? You wouldn't. I know the truckers. They wouldn't switch with anybody. It's what they love, right?"

Trump, on script, begins by saying they have undertaken the country's greatest mobilization "since World War II." He says they have unleashed the "most potent weapon of all": Americans' courage. He tells people who've lost loved ones that their pain is our pain.

Trump's script says they have made "great progress." He adds, "You could really say incredible progress."

Trump says we're on track to beat the most optimistic projection, then immediately says, "There is no such thing as an optimistic projection on death."

Trump: "America wants to be open and Americans want to be open."

Trump warns of "a sharp rise" in drug abuse, alcohol abuse, heart disease, and other "physical and mental" problems from a prolonged shutdown.

Trump: Some states not in the kind of trouble others are; we have passed the peak in new cases; we're now starting "life again" in a "safe and structured and very responsible fashion."

No. No we haven't passed the peak in new cases.

Trump: If the virus returns in the fall, "as some scientists think it may, possibly," we will "put it out quickly."

This is, again, Trump suggesting he has made a decision to let states do something they don't need his permission to do. (He could have tried in various ways to make governors' lives difficult, but he never had the power to lift their restrictions.)

Fauci: "It will be staggered; not every state, not every region will do it at the same time"; that's "obvious"; but "sooner or later," we'll safely get back to some form of normality.

We're already in "some form" of normality. Have been since Trump took office. It's not a good form.

Fauci: "There may be some setbacks" with reopening; "we may have to pull back a little" at some point.

Trump: Some governors told me they're now "in very good shape," and I think there'll be some good news to report in the next "few days" about things opening up.

Those Republican governors who are gambling their citizens' lives against favors and nice tweets from Trump.

Trump: I spoke to sports commissioners, and many of them will start without fans; "Made for television. The good ole days." (?) He says there'll then be space between fans; then, "when the virus is gone, we'll be back to normal." (We haven't heard this stuff from the commishes)

Trump: I asked today, why would they wear masks in Wyoming or North Dakota? And it's because if someone comes in from another area where things haven't been so successful.

Trump on the anti-restrictions protesters: "They seem to be protesters that like me." (Indeed, there were MAGA hats and Trump flags in Michigan.)

Also guns and Confederate flags.

Trump: Some states "got too much credit for what they've done," while others "haven't been given credit" but did a phenomenal job.

Trump: There's not going to be a new normal where somebody with an 158-seat restaurant now has to have 30; they're going to be 158 seats, and that's going to happen relatively quickly, and we want a normal with 100K fans back at Alabama football games.

Trump says "it's ridiculous" to think the federal government is supposed to be doing testing in a parking lot somewhere. (He called up corporate CEOs at a press conference to tout a supposed initiative to test people in their parking lots; few sites are operational.)

Trump says some states can reopen because of "location," "luck," and also "talent."

Trump on state-by-state reopening: "I call it: a beautiful puzzle. You have 50 pieces. All very different...But when it's all done...a very beautiful picture."

Trump: "A lot" of states will open relatively soon; "we're beating the date" of May 1. "That's big stuff...big stuff, very important states."

Trump: "You have state without any problem...few cases, and those few cases have healed." (Every state is in the hundreds of confirmed cases, though obviously some have far fewer than others.)

Trump on how this virus has "decimated" people, even his own friends: "Some are DEAD, right now. They're dead."

Trump on the $349 billion small business loan program whose funds have run out: "So just for the viewers watching this, or hearing you ask that question, exhausted is a good thing, not a bad thing. It went quickly, it is so popular."

Trump: "People should have told us about this. They should've told the rest of the world, too." He continued downplaying the virus well after lots of warnings.

After the CDC director talks about the importance of "early diagnosis, isolation and contact tracing," Trump interjects that there are places with "wide open plains, wide open spaces," "where you're not going to have to do that."

"Cruel."  "Unfair."  "Distant land."

The list

The president spent much of his day hosting conference calls with company executives, industry groups and others that he announced Tuesday as part of a hastily formed outside advisory council devoted to the issue.

Advisers said the effort was aimed at building national momentum to reopen much of the country’s economy by next month.

[...]

But across the business world, there was private unhappiness with how the White House handled the announcement of the advisory council — which it has dubbed its “Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups” — and others warned that Trump’s goal of a May 1 reopening date for much of the country was unrealistic.

Many of the chief executives urged the White House to focus more on mass testing, according to several participants on the calls.

  WaPo

He uses everybody. You're all pawns in his game of thrones.

Trump seemed to downplay the issue while speaking Wednesday in the Rose Garden.

“We have the best tests in the world,” Trump said. “And we will be working very much with the governors of the states. We want them to do it. . . . The states are much better equipped to do it.”

Some of the groups involved in the calls were notified in advance of Trump’s announcement, while others heard their names for the first time during the Rose Garden event Tuesday night.

[...]

“My company is furious. How do you go from ‘Join us on a call’ to, ‘Well, you’re on our team?’”

You become Donald Trump, that's how.

[P]articipants in the calls — which took place in four rounds and included representatives from more than a dozen industries, including banking, sports, agriculture and health care — painted a picture of a chaotic approach by the White House.

What else is new?

“Trump made it very clear he was ready to go on May 1,” a person who was on one of the afternoon calls said. The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private call, added that Trump seemed to bask in the praise from CEOs, who repeatedly opened their comments with compliments for the president.

That's how he uses you, dumbshits. You play right into it. More afraid of a nasty tweet or a threat to withhold some government favor than of an actual pandemic destroying your workforce, your market, and the whole of the national economy.

In addition to the issue of mass testing, experts have argued that because the virus has an estimated incubation period of up to 14 days, states should refrain from moving toward relaxing their restrictions until they have seen a sustained reduction in new cases for at least that long.

One member of a group that participated in the calls, the AFL-CIO, was told in advance of being named to the outside advisory council. But a spokeswoman for the AFL-CIO said its leader, Richard Trumka, was not asked — rather, Trump just announced that the coalition of labor unions would be a part of the council, she said.

He has total authority, you know.

In another example of the apparent disorganization, the White House misspelled the name of Lockheed Martin chief executive Marillyn Hewson in its news release announcing the members of the advisory council.

Interesting. Trump called her Marilyn Lockheed one time.

The president — who acted as the emcee of the call — expressed his personal view that the economy will snap back quickly as soon as the country begins to reopen, citing what he described as pent-up demand.

Pent up demand to get rid of this absolute failure of a presidency.

Forbes has long argued that the Federal Reserve, not Congress, should be taking the lead and should increase lending to businesses, a point he reiterated on Wednesday. He also called for the Treasury Department to issue 100-year bonds. Laffer, meanwhile, called for a cut in payroll taxes, which are used to fund Social Security. Trump responded with encouragement but noted that Democrats are opposed.

They damned well better be. Republicans have been trying to dismantle Social Security for years.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

Well at least "some" understand what's happening.

President Take-No-Responsibility has scapegoats

Impatient with the economic devastation wrought by social distancing and other mitigation measures — and fearful of the potential damage to his reelection chances — Trump has been adamant in private discussions with advisers about reopening the country next month.

[...]

Aides stressed that, despite the president’s fixation on May 1 as a reopening date, the timing remains fluid and no final decision has been made.

[...]

Although governors and mayors have the authority to impose or lift stay-at-home orders and to permit businesses and schools in their localities to reopen, recommendations or guidance from the president or federal agencies could be influential — one of the reasons Trump has called his impending decision the most important of his presidency.

[...]

Trump has been agitating to find ways for businesses to reopen, mindful that he could end up paying a political price for the staggering number of unemployed Americans.

[...]

[T]he debate this week has been over how to implement the return, what data could be used to justify the decision, and how to build public support for it to provide the president maximum political cover, according to one senior administration official involved in the discussions and a second person who has been briefed on them.

Trump’s advisers are trying to shield the president from political accountability should his move to reopen the economy prove premature and result in lost lives, and so they are trying to mobilize business executives, economists and other prominent figures to buy into the eventual White House plan, so that if it does not work, the blame can be shared broadly, according to two former administration officials familiar with the efforts.

  WaPo

So that's why he was reading that list of corporate names at his "briefing" yesterday. (His briefs are actually campaign sessions, and there's nothing "brief" about them - they're running as long as 3 hours.)

During Tuesday’s media briefing, Trump read aloud the names of scores of business leaders, as well as labor, religious and thought leaders, who will be consulted in coming days by the administration.

Painted targets on their backs.

Some [...] are concerned that under federal law, the contents of the meetings would have to become public, should the body meet a certain number of times.

[...]

Conservative advocacy groups such as FreedomWorks and the American Legislative Exchange Council are also mobilizing to help push the White House and Republican lawmakers to relax public health restrictions. Informally, they have started calling their group “Save Our Country,” although the project has no official name. The Heritage Foundation is launching a parallel set of working groups that is expected to deliver its recommendations on reopening the economy to Vice President Pence.

One idea that has emerged among these conservative groups is to push a liability shield for businesses that would insulate them from lawsuits if their employees get the coronavirus while at work.

[...]

“There are about 10 metropolitan-area cities, and like 90 percent of cases are in 10 metropolitan areas, so you treat those metropolitan areas differently than the rest of the country,” [Stephen Moore, a conservative economist who informally advises the White House] said, adding that he has discussed this “Zip code idea” with the administration.

“You find the counties and Zip codes that don’t have the disease, and you get those things opened up,” Moore said.

[...]

"I’m not speaking on behalf of the White House there. But they are looking at that approach to figuring out where the economy can open up first. This isn’t rocket science.”

No, it's not, and guess what? Those places that "don't have the disease" are not the places that run this country's economy. The places that actually do, are the metropolitan-area cities, and that's where the bulk of the disease is. So....opening up the disease-free areas (if there are any), won't get the country's economy back up. So, how's this genius plan supposed to work?

At the White House news conference that day, Trump stressed the need for Americans to get “back to work,” saying he could envision a reopening scenario based on geography.

[...]

Trump penned a letter to the nation’s governors in late March stating that as the federal government expanded its testing and surveillance capabilities, it planned to categorize counties as “high-risk, medium-risk, or low-risk.”

[...]

“We may take sections of our country,” Trump said at the time. “We may take large sections of our country that aren’t so seriously affected, and we may do it that way. But we’ve got to start the process pretty soon.”

Exact same problem.

Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, was asked how such county classifications would work, since no domestic travel restrictions exist to prevent people from moving between, say, a low-risk and high-risk jurisdiction. Birx said a staggered reopening plan would hinge on “highly responsible behavior between counties.”

That's a point, but it's not the big problem.

Arthur Laffer, a conservative economist who is close to the White House, said Trump and his advisers are looking at “a whole panoply of issues,” including staggering the reopening by sectors.

“Everyone wants to get the economy back and going again,” Laffer said. “Aren’t you a little stir-crazy?”

Better than being plain crazy, like the lot of you.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Jesus wept

Is there one person on there who can actually make an educated assessment?

Why didn't he just go ahead and put Thing 1 and Thing 2 (Eric and Junior) on that panel, too?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

UPDATE: