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| Coronavirus US live: Trump speaks on Fox after deaths in America climb past 2,500 | |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| Figures compiled by researchers at Johns Hopkins University show US passed 2,500 deaths among nearly 143,000 confirmed cases | Figures compiled by researchers at Johns Hopkins University show US passed 2,500 deaths among nearly 143,000 confirmed cases |
| Now Trump is asked if Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, would make a better Democratic presidential nominee than Biden, who looks set to take the nomination. | |
| Trump says Cuomo’s high ratings for handling the outbreak are mostly down to the federal response: “We’ve helped make him successful.” Controversial, to say the least. | |
| Trump says he wouldn’t mind running against Cuomo, then attacks “Sleepy Joe” Biden for his supposedly lagging mental acuity. | |
| Trump repeatedly says he has “gotten great marks also” for the outbreak response. | |
| Asked about his shift to a 30 April date for relaxing social guidelines, Trump repeats a line from Sunday – it’s better not to declare victory too soon. He discusses the developing hotspots of the disease, including Louisiana and New Jersey. Both those states have Democratic governors who Trump says he gets on with well. He doesn’t like the Democrats in Michigan and Washington so much, of course. | |
| He also praises the medical ship sent to Los Angeles and says he was there when they sent it out – that was the ship that went to New York. | |
| Fox are asking about the international situation, leading off on Benjamin Netanyahu going into isolation. | |
| While Trump attacks the Washington Post and the New York Times, his favourite targets, it’s worth remembering what Pelosi said about his response to the outbreak. This is from our report yesterday: | |
| Now Trump is asked about the production of direly needed ventilators and other equipment by private companies and his reluctance to use the Defense Production Act, which enables a president to compel companies to work for the national interest. | |
| Biden has said Trump must invoke the DPA in the next 48 hours but Trump says again he doesn’t need to, that the likes of General Motors are now working well with the government, and he doesn’t want to “nationalise the country”. | |
| Trump also repeats a claim that ventilators sent to New York by the federal government were stacked in a warehouse in New Jersey and not used. Governor Cuomo has disputed this but Trump hits it regularly. | |
| Trump also says he has spoken to Boris Johnson and been told the UK needs ventilators, as does everyone else. | |
| Soon ventilators will be “a dime a dozen”, Trump says, accusing New York again of having dropped the ball on the issue before the outbreak. | |
| Here’s Ed Pilkington and Victoria Bekiempis’s report on what Pelosi said yesterday: | |
| “There’s something wrong with the woman,” Trump tells Fox & Friends, returning to familiar complaints against Pelosi including that her city, San Francisco, is supposedly a “slum”. Trump says the federal government may go in there and take over – which would be interesting. | |
| He slams Pelosi again regarding impeachment, which he survived in the Senate. | |
| “She lost,” the president says. | |
| Trump answers a question about testing speeds from Dr Oz, a popular TV doctor. | |
| Steve Doocey now asks if this is a “make or break week” for many US businesses, with rent due on 1 April. Trump agrees and says “nobody more worried than me for the country”. | |
| He then boasts about having “the best economy we’ve ever had … and then one day they said, ‘By the way there’s a virus coming in and everyone asked what’s that all about and we had to shut it down.” It’s a familiar response and economists are happy to quibble about the “best economy” claim. | |
| Trump salutes the $2.2tn stimulus bill passed by Congress last week and says he is pursuing a course to ensure the “least death”, saluting the public response. Then he trots out the 2.2m deaths line. | |
| He’s asked about Nancy Pelosi, who he says is “a sick puppy” for saying he is responsible for US deaths because of the administration’s slow and chaotic response to the onset of the coronavirus outbreak. | |
| The House Speaker has “a lot of problems” Trump says, she was “playing the impeachment game where she ended up looking like a fool … impeaches went on for years”. Her statement on Sunday about his culpability was a “disgrace to her family, her country”. | |
| Trump also says she does not credit him for shutting down travel from China early in the outbreak. He did not totally shut down such travel. | |
| The president and the speaker have not spoken in five months, according to reports and Pelosi’s own semi-confirmation on Sunday. | |
| Trump also says “if Sleepy Joe Biden were president, no one would know what was going on”. | |
| Trump is now talking about tests, new tests being developed and his hope that an antimalarial drug might be used to treat Covid-19. He also repeats that the US has “tested more than anybody in the world by far” – in fact the US does not lead the world in terms of tests per capita, and it is largely agreed that the Trump administration presided over a catastrophically slow start to the testing regime. | |
| Trump now praises Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Deborah Birx, the public health experts who convinced him not to try to reopen the economy by Easter, and the administration’s response to the crisis in New York. | |
| He repeatedly mentions the new hospital built at the Javits Center in Manhattan by the Army Corps of Engineers, all 2,900 beds of it. He doesn’t mention that it is not for Covid-19 cases but to take pressure off the rest of the healthcare system. Nor does he repeat Sunday’s insinuation that hospitals in New York are stealing or selling face masks. | |
| Trump also says “deaths will be brought down to a very low number”. He doesn’t mention the 200,000 figure predicted by Fauci yesterday or the 2.2m if we do nothing figure Trump repeated in the Rose Garden. | |
| Do we have enough equipment to handle the coming peak of the crisis, the president is asked. | |
| “We should,” he says, repeating a familiar line about how nobody could ever have seen this coming – in fact, many people charged with preparing the country for such a pandemic did see it coming. | |
| And here comes the claim that this is just like when “the general” told Trump in his first week in office that the US was out of ammunition. It wasn’t. | |
| Here’s Donald… | |
| Before Trump gets on the phone, Fox & Friends is interviewing Guy Fieri, a celebrity chef, about his efforts to support the restaurant industry and those who work in it, all hit horribly hard by the coronavirus shutdown. | Before Trump gets on the phone, Fox & Friends is interviewing Guy Fieri, a celebrity chef, about his efforts to support the restaurant industry and those who work in it, all hit horribly hard by the coronavirus shutdown. |
| There’s more about his grants programme, run with the National Restaurant Association, here. Trump is now trailed for 8am, top of the hour, two minutes from now. | There’s more about his grants programme, run with the National Restaurant Association, here. Trump is now trailed for 8am, top of the hour, two minutes from now. |
| Trump’s due imminently. Meanwhile, worrying news for New Yorkers and others dependent on online shopping and delivery as the outbreak paralyses their city: multiple outlets are reporting that workers at Amazon’s massive facility on Staten Island will stage a walkout today, over inadequate coronavirus protection measures at a warehouse where an employee has tested positive. | Trump’s due imminently. Meanwhile, worrying news for New Yorkers and others dependent on online shopping and delivery as the outbreak paralyses their city: multiple outlets are reporting that workers at Amazon’s massive facility on Staten Island will stage a walkout today, over inadequate coronavirus protection measures at a warehouse where an employee has tested positive. |
| This is from the New York Post: | This is from the New York Post: |
| Amazon is not the only online firm facing unrest from uneasy workers and customers. Instacart workers are also preparing to strike on Monday. | Amazon is not the only online firm facing unrest from uneasy workers and customers. Instacart workers are also preparing to strike on Monday. |
| This is from CNN Business: | This is from CNN Business: |
| … and welcome to another day of coverage of the coronavirus outbreak in the US. Joanie Greve will be here later to take you through the day. | … and welcome to another day of coverage of the coronavirus outbreak in the US. Joanie Greve will be here later to take you through the day. |
| The day will likely get off to a lively start, because Donald Trump is due to be interviewed on Fox & Friends at 7.55am ET – not long from now. The Torquemadas of the long beige sofa will no doubt grill the president pitilessly about his administration’s coronavirus respo– … no, not really. The president will take softball after softball and, aiming for the cheap seats, potentially cause news. | The day will likely get off to a lively start, because Donald Trump is due to be interviewed on Fox & Friends at 7.55am ET – not long from now. The Torquemadas of the long beige sofa will no doubt grill the president pitilessly about his administration’s coronavirus respo– … no, not really. The president will take softball after softball and, aiming for the cheap seats, potentially cause news. |
| After all, in the more august setting of the White House Rose Garden on Sunday night, Trump: | After all, in the more august setting of the White House Rose Garden on Sunday night, Trump: |
| Extended federal guidelines on social distancing and other measures to fight the outbreak to 30 April, thereby scotching hopes of an Easter reopening of the economy he denied having ever been serious about. | Extended federal guidelines on social distancing and other measures to fight the outbreak to 30 April, thereby scotching hopes of an Easter reopening of the economy he denied having ever been serious about. |
| Denied that he had seriously floated some form of quarantine for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut – in fact on Saturday he did, prompting confusion, fear and a furious response from New York governor Andrew Cuomo. | Denied that he had seriously floated some form of quarantine for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut – in fact on Saturday he did, prompting confusion, fear and a furious response from New York governor Andrew Cuomo. |
| Implied that 100,000 or 200,000 US deaths from Covid-19, as predicted by Dr Anthony Fauci, would represent a successful government response. | Implied that 100,000 or 200,000 US deaths from Covid-19, as predicted by Dr Anthony Fauci, would represent a successful government response. |
| Implied that New York hospitals were stealing or selling face masks they insist they desperately need. | Implied that New York hospitals were stealing or selling face masks they insist they desperately need. |
| Attacked PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor, again, and a representative of CNN, again. | Attacked PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor, again, and a representative of CNN, again. |
| Bragged about his “ratings” for such briefings being better than “Monday Night Football and the Bachelor finale”. | Bragged about his “ratings” for such briefings being better than “Monday Night Football and the Bachelor finale”. |
| And more… here’s David Smith’s full report from the Rose Garden: | And more… here’s David Smith’s full report from the Rose Garden: |
| There’s a White House briefing on the schedule for today, too – at 5pm ET – so between that and the interview, here’s Oliver Milman’s look at five of the president’s most misleading (and oft-repeated) claims about the coronavirus outbreak and response: | There’s a White House briefing on the schedule for today, too – at 5pm ET – so between that and the interview, here’s Oliver Milman’s look at five of the president’s most misleading (and oft-repeated) claims about the coronavirus outbreak and response: |
| And after all that, more sober and sobering news. Overnight, in figures compiled by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, the US passed 2,500 deaths from Covid-19, among nearly 143,000 confirmed cases. According to other counts, New York state counts for 1,000 or more of such deaths. A huge US Navy medical ship, the USNS Comfort, is due to arrive in New York harbor today, to provide relief for a healthcare system under terrible strain. | And after all that, more sober and sobering news. Overnight, in figures compiled by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, the US passed 2,500 deaths from Covid-19, among nearly 143,000 confirmed cases. According to other counts, New York state counts for 1,000 or more of such deaths. A huge US Navy medical ship, the USNS Comfort, is due to arrive in New York harbor today, to provide relief for a healthcare system under terrible strain. |