A new message from your friends at People For the American Way.

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[ [link removed] ]45's Falshoods and Failures: Weekly Coverage of Trump During COVID-19

PFAW Member,

One of the most daunting things about living in the era of COVID-19 is
that there is so much information flying back and forth from different
sources that it can be hard to know whom to trust. That’s one reason why
we at PFAW are providing weekly updates on what Donald Trump is saying and
doing during the pandemic – because you probably shouldn’t believe or
trust much of what he says.

This week has clearly demonstrated yet again that Trump’s priority during
the novel coronavirus health crisis is not helping to save American lives
or shoring up the struggling economy, but trying to position himself for
reelection. For him, it will always be Trump first – and everyone else a
distant second, if they even register at all.

Trump prioritized his own agenda again this week:

* Immediately after [ [link removed] ]Tuesday’s disastrous and unsafe election in
Wisconsin, [ [link removed] ]Trump began touting a common canard that vote-by-mail
ballots are disproportionately vulnerable to voter fraud, likely in an
attempt to hinder [ [link removed] ]a coming wave of vote-by-mail initiatives in the
run-up to the presidential election. In fact, although vote-by-mail
alone is not a solution for all in-person polling difficulties, [ [link removed] ]it
results in extremely few cases of fraud and is widely accepted as
being one of the safest means of voting during the pandemic.
Underscoring Trump’s hypocrisy, [ [link removed] ]he and Melania had already signed
up for absentee mail-in ballots in Florida’s upcoming Republican
primary. Trump’s underlying message here is that vote-by-mail is
acceptable only so long as it doesn’t allow more people opposed to
Trump to vote safely in November.
* In a pair of removals seemingly designed to [ [link removed] ]cement his influence
over vitally important, nonpartisan government oversight, Trump
[ [link removed] ]ousted both the intelligence community’s inspector general, Michael
Atkinson, and the recently named Acting Inspector General of the
Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, Glenn Fine. Atkinson was
presumably removed because his management of the Ukraine whistleblower
report led to Trump’s impeachment, and [ [link removed] ]Fine was reportedly replaced
in order to preemptively undermine [ [link removed] ]independent oversight of the $2
trillion coronavirus stimulus package’s disbursement. Especially given
Trump’s corruption and his allegiance to corporate interests he sees
as “friendly,” this crisis requires comprehensive independent
oversight. Trump’s dangerous moves instead hinder our ability to
ensure our tax dollars are being used appropriately – and make it
harder for us to hold him accountable for wrongdoing.
* Despite experts’ repeated attempts to temper or correct Trump’s
persistent praise of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a miracle
cure for coronavirus, [ [link removed] ]he continued to make inflated claims about
its efficacy and asserted that it had been approved by the FDA as a
treatment for COVID-19 (which [ [link removed] ]the FDA has not done). [ [link removed] ]Reports
then revealed that Trump has holdings in Sanofi, the French drugmaker
of the drug’s brand-name version.
* [ [link removed] ]Trump refused to reopen the Healthcare.gov marketplace to new
customers for a coronavirus special enrollment period. Had he done so,
the [ [link removed] ]10 million Americans who lost their jobs in March due to the
growing health crisis would have had an easier time obtaining health
insurance – but instead, Trump ignored the urgent need for affordable
care amid this crisis.
* Doubling down on his refusal to provide state leaders with medical
supplies and emergency federal assistance, Trump alternately
[ [link removed] ]questioned whether or not the states actually need life-saving
equipment such as ventilators, [ [link removed] ]claimed that some states aren’t in
jeopardy from COVID-19, and [ [link removed] ]argued that it’s not the federal
government’s job to provide such supplies. In fact, on Wednesday
[ [link removed] ]Trump arranged for Republican Senator Cory Gardner (CO) to receive
100 ventilators for his state in an apparent political favor designed
to help Gardner win reelection in the fall. In addition to
contradicting himself and experts’ stockpile reports, Trump is
hijacking Americans’ health and safety and using vital medical
equipment as a partisan political tool.
* In order to distract from his own egregious failures of leadership and
response to the pandemic, [ [link removed] ]Trump attacked the World Health
Organization – which warned of COVID-19’s dangers long before Trump
acted – and even threatened to end funding for the critical medical
organization despite its importance during this crisis.
* Lastly, some of the most significant lies Trump uttered this week
include: [ [link removed] ]his recent overblown claims of closing the border to
China early and providing testing at U.S. airports; his incorrect
bragging about [ [link removed] ]the country’s coronavirus testing capabilities and
facilities; and [ [link removed] ]his repeated erroneous assertions that he acted as
soon as he heard about COVID-19. [ [link removed] ]The intelligence community warned
the Trump administration as early as November 2019 about the emergence
of a pandemic in Wuhan, but Trump didn’t take any actions related to
coronavirus until January 31. Even then, he was constantly downplaying
the threat of the crisis to Americans, [ [link removed] ]despite significant
evidence to the contrary.

Disappointingly, we also learned that [ [link removed] ]the Federal Communications
Commission will not investigate Trump over the reams of misinformation
that he has been spreading since the pandemic began, even with [ [link removed] ]the
very real dangers his lies pose to people nationwide (like his promotion
of an unproven cure for the coronavirus, for example).

The Washington Post recently crowned Trump [ [link removed] ]Commander of Confusion, and
at PFAW, we couldn’t agree more. That’s why we’re here, to help you comb
through the muck and make sure we’re all as informed as possible during
this crisis.

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The [ [link removed] ]Falsehoods and Failures series will appear every Friday on our
blog. [ [link removed] ]You can find last week's post here. For ongoing coverage of
Trump and the Right Wing's response to the coronavirus, check out PFAW's
[ [link removed] ]Right Wing Watch.

Thanks as always for your ongoing support – stay safe and stay healthy!

- Sarah, PFAW

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