https://www.businessinsider.com/kushner-covid-19-plan-maybe-axed-for-political-reasons-report-2020-7
Some members of Jared Kushner's coronavirus task force believed the pandemic would affect Democratic areas worse and may have adjusted accordingly, Vanity Fair reported.
Kushner told Steve Hilton, the host of the program, that Trump took the virus seriously from the start.
“They said we would have shortages on the frontline workers PPE; they said that we were going to have people dying because they weren’t in ventilators,” Kushner said.“That didn’t happen.”
Kushner also credited Trump for his leadership in the push for a vaccine. He said there are several vaccines that are now in Phase Three trials, which is “faster than anyone thought possible.”
Kushner said the coronavirus has brought a lot of heartbreak to Americans and has been challenging. But he said Trump is the man for the job and prevented the country from being in a “much worse position."
Reports have emerged that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s wife asked if senior staff members at the State Department could work during the week of Christmas last year to help complete the family’s personal holiday cards.
According to emails obtained by McClatchy, Susan Pompeo asked an aide to the secretary of state who would be available the week of Christmas to help with the holiday cards.
The emails from Susan Pompeo are the first publically available documents indicating that the secretary of state and his wife have used State Department employees to carry out personal business while on the clock for the federal government.
The revelations in the emails also come amid a congressional inquiry into the State Department's firing of its inspector general earlier this year.
https://apnews.com/48f77170558376db143da5f0a3f2b3e8
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany highlighted comments from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, to try to make the case that Trump didn’t lie to the public. She cited a Feb. 17 interview in which Fauci focused his concern on the seasonal flu then playing out.
But a day later, Fauci had spoken of alarming potential implications from the new virus, saying, “Not only do we not have an appreciation of the magnitude, even more disturbing is that we don’t have an appreciation of where the magnitude is going.”
Larry Gostin, a professor at Georgetown University who has advised Republican and Democratic administrations on public health issues, said there should be no confusing honest mistakes and expressions of uncertainty from public health officials with Trump’s effort to minimize the threat of COVID-19.
“It is irrefutable that he has played down the epidemic and sidelined trusted scientists, and in some cases, muzzled them,” Gostin said.
The media continues to bash President Trump for his toned-down response to the coronavirus pandemic, even though allegations have been debunked by officials, former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said to Fox News’ “Media Buzz.”
Since journalist Bob Woodward publicly pinned the president for “downplaying” the virus in his book "Rage," Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Anthony Fauci has come out and defended Trump, saying he listened to the professionals and followed their advice.
“I wonder why the media’s not leaning on Dr. Fauci’s statement anymore,” Sanders asked.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/peter-navarro-abruptly-cut-from-cnn-jake-tapper-trump-covid
"Why wasn’t the president straightforward with the American people?" he asked. "He was straightforward," Navarro replied. "You're cherry-picking...You just don’t want to listen, Jake."
Tapper claimed Trump "knew [COVID] was deadlier than the flu" and "was lying to the American public two weeks later."
Navarro flipped the script and accused CNN of lying to the American people, which led Tapper to end the interview.
President Donald Trump offered a glaring new example of his refusal to put medical science before politics with a large indoor rally Sunday night that made a mockery of social distancing, while the pandemic he mismanaged has now claimed more than 194,000 American lives.
https://time.com/5888534/trump-rally-nevada/
Kicking off a Western swing, President Donald Trump barreled into Nevada for the weekend, looking to expand his path to victory while unleashing a torrent of unsubstantiated claims that Democrats were trying to steal the election.
Trump defied local authorities by holding a Saturday night rally in tiny Minden after his initial plan to hold one in Reno was stopped out of concern it would have violated coronavirus health guidelines. Unleashing 90-plus minutes of grievances and attacks, Trump claimed the state’s Democratic governor tried to block him and repeated his false claim that mail-in ballots would taint the election result.
“This is the guy we are entrusting with millions of ballots, unsolicited ballots, and we’re supposed to win these states. Who the hell is going to trust him?” Trump said of Gov. Steve Sisolak. “The only way the Democrats can win the election is if they rig it.”
