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,

This week, more Americans [ [link removed] ]died on a single day from COVID-19 than died
during the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. Yet Donald Trump’s
references to the pandemic were predictably insensitive.

As Trump continues to complain about the “stolen” election and attend
indoor, maskless holiday [ [link removed] ]parties, hospitals across the country are
short-staffed and [ [link removed] ]reaching maximum capacity. Front line health care
workers are [ [link removed] ]exhausted, overwhelmed, and frightened. And thousands of
people are dying every day.

* On December 8, the United States counted 222,211 new COVID-19
[ [link removed] ]infections – a new daily record – and on December 9, the country
surpassed its previous single-day death record with more than 3,055
COVID-19 deaths [ [link removed] ]reported. This week’s [ [link removed] ]catastrophic tallies
provide additional context about the virus’s progression throughout
the country: Each day since December 2, more than 100,000 coronavirus
patients have been in hospitals, [ [link removed] ]outpacing the previous highest
averages in the spring and summer, and the country [ [link removed] ]surpassed the
marker of 15 million total cases since last January on December 8.
* On December 10, the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) advisory
panel formally [ [link removed] ]recommended approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech
COVID-19 vaccine, meaning that the agency is likely to give its
official approval as [ [link removed] ]early as this evening. Trump took to Twitter
to complain about the FDA’s speed of approval, calling the agency “a
big, old, slow turtle,” and to publicly berate the agency’s
commissioner, Dr. Stephen M. Hahn.
* Pfizer’s vaccine has been proven to be 95 percent successful during
clinical trials, but news broke this week that months ago the Trump
administration [ [link removed] ]passed on the opportunity to purchase an additional
100 million doses above the initial 100 million already purchased from
Pfizer. The Trump administration is now scrambling to purchase
additional doses, but Pfizer has [ [link removed] ]said that it won’t be able to
supply the U.S. with any substantial additional vaccine doses until
late June or July due to earlier commitments made with other
countries. Thirty-one countries worldwide have [ [link removed] ]reserved more
COVID-19 vaccine doses (from various sources) than the U.S.
* Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell continue to
[ [link removed] ]refuse to make a genuine, good-faith effort to pass the
coronavirus relief that Americans desperately need. On December 8, the
Trump administration [ [link removed] ]proposed yet another skimpy bill, which
includes far lower unemployment benefits and state and local funding
than lawmakers have previously proposed, and also calls for corporate
liability exemptions, which would only worsen the economic
[ [link removed] ]inequities that the pandemic has exacerbated.
* Pfizer and Moderna both [ [link removed] ]declined invitations to Trump’s “vaccine
summit,” which was held on December 8. Ironically, at the same event
intended to celebrate the “miracle” of the vaccine, Trump [ [link removed] ]claimed
that the current surge in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths is
actually a “terrific” development, because “you develop immunity over
time, and … that is a very powerful vaccine in itself.” Politico aptly
[ [link removed] ]described the event as “the typical Trumpian mixture of political
theatrics, brags, grievances, and accolades,” which included Trump’s
grievances that no one had the “courage” to help him overturn the
country’s election results.
* Trump’s praise for the vaccine and plans for its distribution fail to
account for many critical logistical details – details that must be
resolved as distribution will soon be underway. His administration
[ [link removed] ]promised that 300 million vaccine doses would be delivered before
the end of 2020, but the current system’s capacity would allow for a
mere 40 million doses to be delivered, which would only cover 20
million Americans. There are at least 21 million health care
[ [link removed] ]workers who need to be vaccinated. Additionally, the Trump
administration has only [ [link removed] ]allotted $340 million to state and local
agencies for vaccine distribution, while the estimated actual cost of
these efforts will run somewhere between $6 billion to $13.3 billion.
* Trump and his associates continued to hold in-person events that defy
mask and social distancing guidelines and regulations, including a
packed and [ [link removed] ]maskless rally in Georgia for the January runoff races,
a [ [link removed] ]crowded Hanukkah party at the White House, a State Department
holiday [ [link removed] ]gathering of over 200 guests, and hundreds more guests at
the White House’s [ [link removed] ]indoor Congressional Ball.
* Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s new requirement that states
submit to federal entities the personal information of those who
receive the vaccine has raised [ [link removed] ]privacy alarms.
* Further information continues to trickle out about the government’s
failed response to the coronavirus, including that Trump’s promises to
use the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile to provide much-needed
personal protective equipment to hospitals, such as particle-filtering
N95 respirator masks, fell far short. In May, the administration
[ [link removed] ]announced that it would deliver 300 million masks within 90 days –
but it never met that goal, instead topping out at a vastly
insufficient 142 million N95 masks.
* The New York Times reported on December 7 that the Trump
administration [ [link removed] ]refused to tighten rules on particulate pollution,
such as soot, despite the increasing volume of evidence that areas of
the country with greater particulate pollution density are connected
to a higher rate of deaths due to COVID-19.

Countries from Western Europe to Canada are [ [link removed] ]providing their citizens
with additional economic aid – but thanks to McConnell’s obstruction and
Trump’s disinterest, that has not been the case in the U.S. The president
of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Maya MacGuineas, has
[ [link removed] ]warned of the “widespread hardship” that Americans will face if the
expected 25 coronavirus aid programs all expire by or before the end of
2020. And hospitals that together serve more than 100 million people
[ [link removed] ]reported having fewer than fifteen percent of their intensive care
beds still available last week.

Millions of Americans’ lives have been devastated by this pandemic, and
neither Trump nor the rest of his Republican allies are doing anything to
help them. If Senate Republicans refuse to override McConnell’s
unconscionable blockade and pass comprehensive coronavirus relief
immediately, the cost will be more American lives and further severe
economic damage.

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The [ [link removed] ]Falsehoods and Failures series will appear every Friday 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, People For the American Way

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