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

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

PFAW Member,

During his 2016 presidential campaign, [ [link removed] ]Donald Trump told a reporter
that fear is “real power.” His preference for Machiavellian machinations
has never been more evident than during the coronavirus pandemic as he
continues to do everything in his power to deflect responsibility for his
failures.

* One of the week’s most alarming developments came on May 20, when
Trump tweeted that [ [link removed] ]he would withhold federal funding from Michigan
and Nevada if they expanded voter access ahead of the 2020 election.
His false claims of voter fraud and corruption and his potentially
illegal threats have become [ [link removed] ]especially worrisome during the
pandemic. Significant [ [link removed] ]improvements in election security and safety
measures during the time of coronavirus are [ [link removed] ]desperately needed but
are being [ [link removed] ]stonewalled by Republican lawmakers. Republicans’ voter
suppression tactics in 2020 include [ [link removed] ]plans to send 50,000
“poll-watchers” to polling places nationwide to monitor [ [link removed] ]“voters
deemed suspicious.”
* Trump has continued to remove oversight officials from their
government positions. Last Friday, after the publication of [ [link removed] ]that
week’s round-up, [ [link removed] ]Trump fired Steve A. Linick, an inspector general
at the State Department. Linick had been working on an inquiry into
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s possible misuse of a political
appointee to perform personal tasks. During the following days, the
White House spoke openly about the retaliatory nature of this
dismissal, [ [link removed] ]confirming that Pompeo himself requested that the
inspector general be let go. Trump’s efforts to [ [link removed] ]“dismantle the
multiple mechanisms of accountable democracy” are especially harmful
during this public health crisis. The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) has also been feeling pressure from Trump to conform
to his preferences, with the [ [link removed] ]administration pressuring the agency
to revise down the U.S. death count and CDC staff saying that they
have felt [ [link removed] ]“muzzled” during the pandemic.
* According to [ [link removed] ]a new report, only 13 percent of small businesses
that applied for Trump’s bungled Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) were
approved for the loan. Without that aid, just 31 percent of the
[ [link removed] ]30.7 million small businesses in the U.S. can afford to operate
for another few months or less under the existing stay-at-home
measures – and six percent could be forced to close in less than a
week. These disbursement delays are also happening in other
[ [link removed] ]pandemic stimulus programs.
* Trump continues to advance [ [link removed] ]his racist anti-immigration agenda
during the pandemic: The New York Times reported on May 20 that the
Trump administration has cruelly [ [link removed] ]deported hundreds of migrant
children since the onset of COVID-19, often alone and without
notifying their families. Additionally, the Trump administration has
been refusing to provide the coronavirus legislation-required
[ [link removed] ]stimulus payments to families that include a non-U.S. citizen
spouse, exposing them to even greater harm during this crisis.
* While everyday Americans struggle to put food on their families’
tables, we continue to learn about how many Trump allies and campaign
donors were able to easily get a hold of coronavirus stimulus funding.
Some new examples include: A hotel company that made $2.2 billion last
year and is [ [link removed] ]owned by a large Trump donor received $96.1 million
meant for small businesses. Another [ [link removed] ]Trump donor’s private jet
company received a $27 million bailout. A technology company whose
[ [link removed] ]largest shareholder is Trump’s reelection campaign manager
received almost $800,000 from the small businesses relief fund. In
addition, Trump’s newly appointed “vaccine czar” reportedly [ [link removed] ]has
significant ties to Moderna, the company that this week became the
first to enter a vaccine into clinical trials.
* Almost exactly one year before the onset of the coronavirus lockdown,
Trump declared that the GOP was going to become the [ [link removed] ]“party of
health care.” Not only has this promise not materialized, the
Republicans have followed Trump’s path toward [ [link removed] ]destroying health
care in this country altogether. Moreover, he has continued to spin
the administration’s disastrous coronavirus response with similar
rhetoric, asserting that their next pandemic phase is going to be the
[ [link removed] ]“transition to greatness.” He also claimed that he considers the
devastating death count ([ [link removed] ]more than 93,000) to be a sign of
progress and a [ [link removed] ]“badge of honor.” Yet, there are new COVID-19 hot
spots [ [link removed] ]appearing in the South and the Midwest and [ [link removed] ]more than
half of all U.S counties don’t have even one testing site. Republican
administration officials have been searching for [ [link removed] ]“pro-Trump”
doctors who are willing to publicly prescribe a rapid reopening of
both society and the economy, to help aid Trump’s overzealous push to
prematurely remove stay-at-home restrictions. And the
[ [link removed] ]Republican-funded lockdown protests that [ [link removed] ]Trump supported
appear to have spread coronavirus widely in those communities,
[ [link removed] ]according to cellphone data.
* Trump doubled down on his support of the anti-malaria drug
hydroxychloroquine this week, saying that [ [link removed] ]he has been taking it
himself and calling the study that disproves its effectiveness and
emphasizes its danger a “Trump enemy statement.” He also baselessly
[ [link removed] ]dismissed the official FDA warning against hydroxychloroquine as a
treatment for COVID-19.
* A new study released by Columbia University disease modelers
demonstrates that had Trump listened to health care experts and
started social-distancing measures only one week earlier in March,
[ [link removed] ]about 36,000 fewer people would have died in the U.S. due to the
pandemic. Instead, at the time, he was busy [ [link removed] ]downplaying the danger
of COVID-19. Today, he [ [link removed] ]continues to downplay the dangers of
coronavirus and denies the people who are hardest hit by the
pandemic’s economic effects [ [link removed] ]a vital extension of their
unemployment insurance. These are not the actions of a true leader.

The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus recently described the [ [link removed] ]“exhaustion
factor” in reading or producing any coverage of Trump during this
unprecedented crisis. It’s difficult to read over and over again about
Trump abdicating responsibility for his failures, his lies, his cronyism,
and his lack of empathy. But it’s crucial that we don’t permit ourselves
to become numb to these outrages. Together, we will prevail and build an
America that honors the values of justice, opportunity, and equity for
all.

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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 healthy!

– Sarah, PFAW

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