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,

Despite [ [link removed] ]last week’s revelations that Donald Trump has been
intentionally misleading the public about the severity of the pandemic, he
has doubled down on his dangerous behavior. Even after [ [link removed] ]new clips from
Bob Woodward’s interviews emerged in which Trump admitted that COVID-19 is
“so easily transmissible,” his administration’s playbook has remained the
same: Deny. Lie. Misdirect. [ [link removed] ]Repeat.

* On September 15, Trump participated in an ABC News town hall with
undecided voters. Often incoherent and rambling, his [ [link removed] ]responses to
questions from the audience [ [link removed] ]further reveal his denial, refusal and
inability to respond to the crisis:

* When asked about his comment that he deliberately downplayed the
true danger of the virus, Trump said that he “actually, in many
ways, up-played it.”
* Trump criticized Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for
not implementing a national mask mandate, even though Biden does
not currently hold a seat in federal office.
* Trump [ [link removed] ]repeated false and unscientific claims that COVID-19
would “disappear” over time even without a vaccine because people
will develop a “herd mentality.”
* Contradicting [ [link removed] ]his own earlier admission that a vaccine would
take months, Trump [ [link removed] ]insisted that “we’re within weeks of
getting” a distributable vaccine, even saying that it “could be
[out within] three weeks, four weeks.”

* Trump continued to defy health experts’ social distancing
recommendations and held two indoor campaign events this week, on
September 13 and 14 in Henderson, Nevada, and Phoenix, Arizona. The
Nevada [ [link removed] ]rally was [ [link removed] ]held despite the state’s regulations that
limit public gatherings to no more than 50 people. An anonymous Trump
adviser [ [link removed] ]told The New York Times that the campaign was “playing a
game of Russian roulette” in holding these indoor events, and that
Trump’s “cavalier” attitude toward COVID-19 would likely backfire.
* In a particularly callous moment at a news briefing, on September 16
Trump falsely [ [link removed] ]claimed that “blue states had had tremendous death
rates. If you take the blue states out … We’re really at a very low
level.” This seems to suggest that the only deaths Trump cares about
are those in red states where he perceives his base is located.
* Further proving that Trump’s [ [link removed] ]interest in a vaccine is politically
motivated, Trump [ [link removed] ]told Fox News Channel TV host Jeanine Pirro
during a September 12 interview that if a vaccine is released prior to
November 3, “it wins the election for me.”
* On September 16, Trump [ [link removed] ]chided Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Robert Redfield for his [ [link removed] ]estimation
that a COVID-19 vaccine will likely not be available for widespread
public use until mid-2021, claiming that the CDC director had “made a
mistake” and provided the Senate with “incorrect information.”
* One of the major stories in Trump world this week revolved around the
strange [ [link removed] ]behavior of Michael Caputo, a fervent Trump devotee
formerly on the campaign and installed in April – [ [link removed] ]by Trump himself
– as Health and Human Services’ new spokesperson. Initial [ [link removed] ]reports
described how he and his adviser, Paul Alexander, [ [link removed] ]made substantial
efforts to align the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report with
the White House’s coronavirus messaging, irrespective of the
scientific truth. In the wake of that news, Caputo went on a bizarre
tirade on a Facebook Live broadcast against the scientists at the CDC,
accusing them of “sedition” and claiming that his life was in danger.
He later [ [link removed] ]apologized, and then [ [link removed] ]announced that he will step down
for two months, while Alexander will leave HHS permanently.
* Less than two months after Trump [ [link removed] ]released executive orders he
claimed would spark the economy amid the pandemic, data increasingly
demonstrate how ineffective that effort has been. Companies
[ [link removed] ]overwhelmingly [ [link removed] ]chose not to shore up workers’ incomes by
deferring payroll taxes, and Yelp’s latest economic report [ [link removed] ]reveals
that about 60 percent of all pandemic-related business closures are
now permanent.

It has now been nine months since the first confirmed COVID-19 case in the
United States. Our country continues its grim march towards 200,000
deaths. The Midwest saw its case surge [ [link removed] ]reach new, worrisome heights.
Donald Trump has shown us for nine months his complete lack of fitness to
lead Americans through the public health crisis, let alone acknowledge the
devastation that his lies and failures continue to cause.

We deserve leaders who are equipped to solve the multiple crises we are
facing. Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris offer us a
path forward from this moment of darkness – and with less than 50 days
until Election Day, it’s more critical than ever that we do everything in
our power to make sure they take back the White House.

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The [ [link removed] ]Falsehoods and Failures series will appear every week on our blog.
[ [link removed] ]You can find the previous 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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