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,

This week Donald Trump’s lies and misdirections backfired, further
emphasizing the harm he is causing to millions of Americans. This public
health crisis requires a true leader, not someone who is willing to
sacrifice human lives in order to retain power.

Trump’s [ [link removed] ]White House steers the chaotic federal response to COVID-19,
while Trump himself focuses on [ [link removed] ]attacking Joe Biden, the presumptive
Democratic presidential nominee, and [ [link removed] ]promoting content defending his
bad decisions.

* To start, some of Trump’s false claims have been recently exposed as
such:

* Findings from [ [link removed] ]a new report confirmed that more people died
after using hydroxychloroquine than patients who were given
routine care. Tragically, [ [link removed] ]Trump’s recommendation of the drug
as a “game-changer” without evidence of efficacy may have played
a role in the needless loss of human life.
* News reports indicate that the World Health Organization, which
Trump [ [link removed] ]accused of “minimiz[ing] the threat very strong,” [ [link removed] ]has
been transmitting real-time information about the coronavirus to
Trump and his administration since January.

* After anti-lockdown protests began across the country last weekend,
Trump tweeted his support for the supposedly “grassroots” protesters,
[ [link removed] ]urging them to “liberate” states with Democratic governors who have
issued strict stay-at-home orders. In fact, Trump was encouraging the
[ [link removed] ]highly funded and well-executed actions of [ [link removed] ]far-right
organizers.
* Trump has continued to foment argument with [ [link removed] ]governors on both
sides of the aisle who are fighting to protect their states from the
virus. After [ [link removed] ]telling governors last week that they were in charge
of both securing testing supplies and deciding when and how they would
reopen their economies, Trump spent much of this week [ [link removed] ]directly
contradicting himself. When Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan [ [link removed] ]secured
500,000 testing kits from South Korea with the assistance of his wife,
[ [link removed] ]Trump lashed out against him and claimed that the federal
government would have been happy to provide the tests if only Hogan
had asked. Then, in response to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp planning to
partially reopen the state by the end of this week, Trump
[ [link removed] ]criticized Kemp for reopening “too soon.” No governor is safe from
Trump’s haranguing, Democrat or Republican – and yet, Trump has been
silent on the fact that his administration’s January appointment to
lead the Department of Health and Human Services coronavirus task
force [ [link removed] ]had no experience in public health or medicine, and in fact
was primarily experienced in breeding labradoodles.
* Seemingly without any forethought, Trump took to Twitter to announce
that his administration [ [link removed] ]planned to close the U.S. to all
immigration until the pandemic has passed. In addition to stoking
xenophobic sentiment when [ [link removed] ]immigrants are already
disproportionately struggling during the coronavirus, an executive
order would change very little about current U.S. immigration rates,
which have largely halted due to the pandemic. One day later, Trump
backed away from his initial call and watered it down to a 60-day halt
in issuing green cards, rather than suspending guest worker programs,
[ [link removed] ]after the business sector expressed concern about the economic
toll of losing access to immigrant labor.
* Trump [ [link removed] ]has “dangerously undermined truth” by continuing to attack
the media and health experts during the pandemic. In his Wednesday
briefing, [ [link removed] ]Trump repeatedly downplayed the risk for coronavirus to
have a debilitating resurgence in the fall and winter, vacillating
between saying that either it wouldn’t return or that it would come
back in a very limited way. These statements directly [ [link removed] ]contradicted
those of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top medical expert on the White
House’s coronavirus task force, and the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) [ [link removed] ]Director Robert Redfield in the same
briefing, both of whom warned of the significant damage that a
resurgence of COVID-19 would have on people and the economy. To top it
all off, in Thursday night’s press briefing he suggested that doctors
should consider [ [link removed] ]injecting toxic disinfectant into COVID-19
patients and asked the White House coronavirus response coordinator if
she’d heard of sunlight being used to treat the infection.
* One of the most important indicators of Trump’s failure of leadership
is his false promises about the country’s capacity for testing of
COVID-19. In addition to [ [link removed] ]the federal government seizing
coronavirus test kits from state-bound shipments, Trump’s earlier
[ [link removed] ]assurances that the country would have 27 million tests completed
by now were horribly overstated. As of April 23, [ [link removed] ]the U.S. has only
completed a little over four million tests in total, or a woefully
scarce [ [link removed] ]140,000 tests daily.
* Lastly, since [ [link removed] ]Trump weakened fuel economy standards last month,
air pollutants in heavily industrialized parts of Houston have risen
as much as 62 percent, according to [ [link removed] ]a new analysis of air monitor
readings done by Texas A&M. Further emphasizing [ [link removed] ]his prioritization
of certain special interests above the overall welfare of the American
economy, [ [link removed] ]Trump called for an oil industry bailout as soon as oil
prices started to plunge earlier this week.

One news story that deserves an honorable mention this week is that, as
The New York Times put it, [ [link removed] ]Trump (the company) asked Trump (the
administration) for hotel relief during the economic crisis caused by the
pandemic – in the midst of smaller businesses around the country being
[ [link removed] ]unable to get the emergency funding that they need.

PFAW is working hard to make sure our members have as complete a picture
of the pandemic’s effects as possible. This weekly round-up tracks Trump’s
deplorable failures of leadership during the worst social and financial
crisis this country has experienced [ [link removed] ]since World War II. But COVID-19
has also magnified societal inequities that vulnerable communities have
long endured – and the right wing continues its campaign against sense and
truth. PFAW’s [ [link removed] ]Right Wing Watch is tracking coverage of the far-right’s
misdeeds, and [ [link removed] ]a new PFAW blog series highlights how many historically
marginalized communities across the country are disproportionately
affected by coronavirus.

Together, we can stay informed and hold leadership accountable during the
coronavirus crisis and beyond.

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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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