John,

This week, Trump rallied in Nevada, corporate landlords ramped up evictions, Bill Barr compared stay-at-home orders to slavery, and all this as the death toll from COVID nears 200,000. Trump and the GOP have blatantly mishandled the pandemic at every step of the way - and their actions are costing lives. 

We’re tracking the pandemic profiteers and politicians exploiting the COVID crisis for personal and political gain. We want to make them pay a price: Support our work to call out and DEFEAT the Republican Senators empowering Trump’s corrupt agenda of mass death and we’ll do everything we can to keep the pressure on all the way through the election.

Here’s a rundown of this week’s biggest COVID Shitbags (check covidshitbags.org for the latest to stay up-to-date!):

DONALD TRUMP (and Trump’s cronies)

The week started in the wake of Trump’s dangerous rally in Nevada - which flouted social distancing guidelines and broke the state’s mandate of no public gatherings of 50 people or more. Then Trump spent the week denying reality, blame-shifting, and trashing American citizens while corporations and his political cronies continued to profit. 

He claimed he has no regrets about his response to the virus saying he “up-played” it despite evidence that he downplayed it. He again claimed the virus will “disappear” due to “herd mentality.” And he falsely suggested the COVID death toll is not so bad if you leave out the blue states. Shockingly, we also found out the Post Office had a plan in April to mail facemasks to every American household, and Trump’s White House blocked it.

To top it all off, Trump crony Rudy Giuliani apparently took as much as $350,000 in completely unaccounted PPP loans for a shady company he claimed not to have heard of despite being listed as CEO. He quickly changed course in an exchange with reporters and admitted to it being his company. We still don’t know what happened to the money. 

This follows on revelations last week that Trump official and member of the coronavirus task force Seema Verma spent more than $3.5 million taxpayer dollars on GOP consultants to build her brand and buy accolades - you know, because a pandemic is just such a great career opportunity.

BILL BARR

Trump’s fascist Attorney General Bill Barr this week compared coronavirus lockdowns to slavery while attacking Black Lives Matter activists and suggesting local officials in cities with protests should be prosecuted. It’s difficult to even know where to start, but if you think scientific advice to save lives in a pandemic is nearly equivalent to America's history of slavery, then you just might be an abhorrently privileged racist white man in the Trump administration.

CORPORATE LANDLORDS (and JARED KUSHNER) 

Corporate landlords are evicting tenants and taking taxpayer money at the same time. Forcing people into homelessness is bad enough, but taking taxpayer money while you’re at it - well, that’s something only a true COVID Shitbag could do. In Duval County Florida, corporate landlord Princeton Enterprises, which is aggressively pursuing evictions, received as much as $1 million in forgivable PPP loans. And across the country, private equity firms and other corporate landlords have filed more than 1,500 new eviction cases since September 1, Judd Legum reports. 

Surprise, surprise, notorious slumlord Jared Kushner is getting in on the action too. 

Your support keeps us going: Chip in now to hold the COVID Shitbags accountable and to DEFEAT the Republicans in the Senate.

As long as these COVID Shitbags continue to exploit the pandemic for personal and political gain, we’ll keep calling them out. Their greed is no match for our power when we come together.

-HAZMAT America 

PS: Don’t forget to check out our webstore to help call out the biggest Covid Shitbags and support tipped workers at the same time!