Let’s help Poor Donald out...

Allandavid

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At that time there were only 15 reported cases. Obviously his statement about that number dropping to zero was a reassuring gesture, he can’t predict the future. Neither of these constitute as a lie because anyone with common sense can understand the difference between a reassuring gesture and a lie. If the Dallas Cowboys say their going to win the Super Bowl this year it’s common sense that if they fail to do so it’s not an intentional lie. Nobody actually expects them to undoubtedly win, people understand that their intention was that they are going to do the best they can to win. I’m surprised you don’t understand this concept.

Wrong.

At that time there were already closer to 100 cases. Any reporting of this was considered a “hoax” by Trump.
 
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Allandavid

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At that time there were only 15 reported cases. Obviously his statement about that number dropping to zero was a reassuring gesture, he can’t predict the future. Neither of these constitute as a lie because anyone with common sense can understand the difference between a reassuring gesture and a lie. If the Dallas Cowboys say their going to win the Super Bowl this year it’s common sense that if they fail to do so it’s not an intentional lie. Nobody actually expects them to undoubtedly win, people understand that their intention was that they are going to do the best they can to win. I’m surprised you don’t understand this concept.

If the Cowboys say they’re going to win the whole season because they’ve already won 3 of their first 4 games, but in actual fact they’re 0-4, then they are lying.

So was Trump....
 
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SimplyMe

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If the Cowboys say they’re going to win the whole season because they’ve already won 3 of their first 4 games, but in actual fact they’re 0-4, then they are lying.

So was Trump....

I think the better analogy is if the Cowboys were 1-3 and the claimed to be 1-1 -- and that they could finish the season with 1 loss.
 
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KCfromNC

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If the Cowboys start the season 0-8, claiming that they still have a shot at the Super Bowl is, at best, wishful thinking.

I don't know if Trump was engaged in wishful thinking or outright dishonesty - if I had to guess, I'd say it was some measure of both. His entire career has been built around being able to fudge things (I'd use a more vulgar term related to excrement) to people who can't check his numbers and then hoping things work out for the best later.
This kind of approach works better when one can use daddy's money to throw lawyers at making the problem go away. Bankruptcies, fraudulent universities, corrupt charities, inappropriate content stars who are going to go to the media about your affair with them, that sort of thing.

It is obviously less successful here when one has to make reality go away - a virus won't take money, no matter how much one has attorneys willing to help.
 
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cow451

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I'm not excusing him, I'm just sorting through what he says and disregarding meaningless stuff.
It's pretty much all meaningless, IMHO
 
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BNR32FAN

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If the Cowboys start the season 0-8, claiming that they still have a shot at the Super Bowl is, at best, wishful thinking.

I don't know if Trump was engaged in wishful thinking or outright dishonesty - if I had to guess, I'd say it was some measure of both. His entire career has been built around being able to fudge things (I'd use a more vulgar term related to excrement) to people who can't check his numbers and then hoping things work out for the best later. But what works when it comes to self-promoting or stoking others' vanity or greed doesn't work on a situation that only cares about biology, physics, and math. You can't fudge your way out of a pandemic any more than you can fudge your way out of gravity.

How does a win loss ratio of 0-8 compare to 15 out of 326 million people in the US? It seems to me at that time the score was 326 million-15. What does vanity and greed even have to do with this situation? He was too vain or greedy to set measures into motion? Your not making much sense here. How is a greedy or vain person any less capable of dealing with the situation than a generous and humble person? The costs of any actions he would implement doesn’t come out of his pocket so greediness is completely irrelevant and I don’t see how vanity even calculates as a factor. I don’t disagree that he has these flaws but they seem pretty irrelevant to his course of action in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. And how does he try to “fudge” his way out of this situation exactly? What does that even mean? Typically the term “trying to fudge your way out of a situation” means your trying to absolve yourself of any guilt or wrongdoing. Again the coronavirus outbreak was not Trump’s fault. He can’t be blamed for people traveling overseas and catching the virus. What was he supposed to do stop all international traffic going in and out of the US as soon as he heard the word coronavirus? Nobody knew what to expect or what the rate of the spread would be and we didn’t have any way to test anywhere near that many people. So tell us exactly WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE TO STOP THE SPREAD OF THE VIRUS?
 
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BNR32FAN

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Wrong.

At that time there were already closer to 100 cases. Any reporting of this was considered a “hoax” by Trump.

We’re not talking about at the time he said that to the reporter I’m replying to a post pertaining to a couple weeks before that incident.


By speaking the truth and by giving context to his question, he is being sensationalist...??

What then of Trump’s statement just a couple of weeks ago that there were “only 15 cases” that would “be soon down to zero” and that the disease would disappear “like a miracle”...? Just a sober analysis of the facts, right....??
 
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BNR32FAN

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If the Cowboys say they’re going to win the whole season because they’ve already won 3 of their first 4 games, but in actual fact they’re 0-4, then they are lying.

So was Trump....

again we’re talking about a few weeks prior to this incident when there were only 15 reported cases in the US and no one knew what to expect from the spread and since the fatality percentage is 2%, at that time there was a very high chance that all 15 people would survive and be just fine if only 2 out of 100 die from it. So his statement at that time doesn’t seem overly optimistic.
 
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Kentonio

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Nobody knew what to expect or what the rate of the spread would be

How do you draw that conclusion? At the time he said that the disease was already exploding across the world, and other countries were being hit extremely hard by what was clearly an extremely virulent strain. How could anyone seriously think that it wouldn’t effect America in the way it was effecting other countries?
 
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ArmenianJohn

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Tell that to those affected by his directives.
That would be me. Cow is right, it's pretty much all meaningless. Hardly worth listening to him. Finding what's meaningful out of everything he says is not worth the effort, it's literally like finding a needle in a haystack.
 
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OldWiseGuy

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That would be me. Cow is right, it's pretty much all meaningless. Hardly worth listening to him. Finding what's meaningful out of everything he says is not worth the effort, it's literally like finding a needle in a haystack.

You have to trust that 'his people' will fill in the details. ;)
 
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iluvatar5150

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How does a win loss ratio of 0-8 compare to 15 out of 326 million people in the US? It seems to me at that time the score was 326 million-15.

He made that “15” claim in late February, after we’d already seen it exploding in China. At that point, focusing on the “15” as if it was insignificant and as if the exponential growth wasn’t coming belies a degree of ignorance that is, or at least ought to be, embarrassing for anybody, much less the leader of the free world. It’s hard for me to articulate how moronic that argument is. It’s middle school algebra and yet our president and, apparently, a significant percentage of his followers can’t grasp it.

What does vanity and greed even have to do with this situation? He was too vain or greedy to set measures into motion? Your not making much sense here. How is a greedy or vain person any less capable of dealing with the situation than a generous and humble person?

What I meant was that he’s usually able to appeal to the greed and vanity of others. IOW, he can get away with saying things that aren’t true because he tickles their ears when he does so. You can’t do that with a virus.


And how does he try to “fudge” his way out of this situation exactly? What does that even mean?

I’ll concede that it’s not the best description, I was trying to avoid using a word synonymous with “cow pie”.

Does my earlier post make more sense now?


What was he supposed to do stop all international traffic going in and out of the US as soon as he heard the word coronavirus? Nobody knew what to expect or what the rate of the spread would be and we didn’t have any way to test anywhere near that many people. So tell us exactly WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE TO STOP THE SPREAD OF THE VIRUS?

I’m reserving most of my judgment regarding those kinds of actions. It’s hard for me right now to evaluate where exactly the failures lay.

What I’m not reserving judgment of is his public statements both on camera and on twitter. He’s said a lot of stupid, incorrect stuff and has long dismissed the severity of the situation. After a fair bit of time, he finally seemed to get the fact that it’s a big deal, but recently has started flirting with the idea of opening everything back up prematurely, which suggests some mixture of mathematical ignorance and misplaced priorities to which he still feels pulled.
 
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OldWiseGuy

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He made that “15” claim in late February, after we’d already seen it exploding in China. At that point, focusing on the “15” as if it was insignificant and as if the exponential growth wasn’t coming belies a degree of ignorance that is, or at least ought to be, embarrassing for anybody, much less the leader of the free world. It’s hard for me to articulate how moronic that argument is. It’s middle school algebra and yet our president and, apparently, a significant percentage of his followers can’t grasp it.



What I meant was that he’s usually able to appeal to the greed and vanity of others. IOW, he can get away with saying things that aren’t true because he tickles their ears when he does so. You can’t do that with a virus.




I’ll concede that it’s not the best description, I was trying to avoid using a word synonymous with “cow pie”.

Does my earlier post make more sense now?




I’m reserving most of my judgment regarding those kinds of actions. It’s hard for me right now to evaluate where exactly the failures lay.

What I’m not reserving judgment of is his public statements both on camera and on twitter. He’s said a lot of stupid, incorrect stuff and has long dismissed the severity of the situation. After a fair bit of time, he finally seemed to get the fact that it’s a big deal, but recently has started flirting with the idea of opening everything back up prematurely, which suggests some mixture of mathematical ignorance and misplaced priorities to which he still feels pulled.

Trump has just taken "throw it all against the wall and see what sticks" to another level. ;)
 
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BNR32FAN

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How do you draw that conclusion? At the time he said that the disease was already exploding across the world, and other countries were being hit extremely hard by what was clearly an extremely virulent strain. How could anyone seriously think that it wouldn’t effect America in the way it was effecting other countries?

Are you talking about when there were only 15 cases in America or when he made the comment to the reporter? Malaria outbreaks happen quite often in other countries as well as other epidemics that don’t appear in America nearly as bad as in other countries.
 
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BNR32FAN

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He made that “15” claim in late February, after we’d already seen it exploding in China. At that point, focusing on the “15” as if it was insignificant and as if the exponential growth wasn’t coming belies a degree of ignorance that is, or at least ought to be, embarrassing for anybody, much less the leader of the free world. It’s hard for me to articulate how moronic that argument is. It’s middle school algebra and yet our president and, apparently, a significant percentage of his followers can’t grasp it.



What I meant was that he’s usually able to appeal to the greed and vanity of others. IOW, he can get away with saying things that aren’t true because he tickles their ears when he does so. You can’t do that with a virus.




I’ll concede that it’s not the best description, I was trying to avoid using a word synonymous with “cow pie”.

Does my earlier post make more sense now?




I’m reserving most of my judgment regarding those kinds of actions. It’s hard for me right now to evaluate where exactly the failures lay.

What I’m not reserving judgment of is his public statements both on camera and on twitter. He’s said a lot of stupid, incorrect stuff and has long dismissed the severity of the situation. After a fair bit of time, he finally seemed to get the fact that it’s a big deal, but recently has started flirting with the idea of opening everything back up prematurely, which suggests some mixture of mathematical ignorance and misplaced priorities to which he still feels pulled.

SARS also exploded in China and had a minuscule effect on America. I completely agree that he does say a lot of really stupid things. I just think on the subject of coronavirus people are blaming him for the outbreak when there was no way of knowing how bad it would be. The SARS outbreak in China was also huge and the measures taken at that time were very minimal, much less than what we’re facing now. It didn’t really affect America’s way of life at all. People can’t look back and say we should’ve done this or we should’ve done that unless they had that idea at the time they believe it should’ve been done. You can’t look at the way things are now and start pointing fingers at others, blaming them if you didn’t have the idea before the outbreak in America began. It’s easy to say you should’ve done this or that after the effect has taken place but unless you had the idea before it took place your no more helpful than the person who made the decision that resulted in catastrophe. We see this all the time in everyday life. How many times have you said to yourself I should’ve done this instead of that? It’s a lot easier to see the correct course of action after the effect has taken place but it doesn’t necessarily mean you were incompetent when you made your initial decision because the outcome was unclear.
 
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Allandavid

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again we’re talking about a few weeks prior to this incident when there were only 15 reported cases in the US and no one knew what to expect from the spread and since the fatality percentage is 2%, at that time there was a very high chance that all 15 people would survive and be just fine if only 2 out of 100 die from it. So his statement at that time doesn’t seem overly optimistic.

Wrong and wrong again...

At the time he made his ridiculous “only 15 cases and soon down to zero” statement, there were already closer to 100 cases. At that time. The health and disease experts had to correct his lies. At that time.

His whole attitude of ‘we’ve got this under control’, when clearly it was exploding worse than anywhere else in the world, cost the US valuable time. Time that it could have been using to obtain tests, to prepare medical facilities, to equip professionals with the PPE they were going to need, etc.
 
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Mitty

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Wrong and wrong again...

At the time he made his ridiculous “only 15 cases and soon down to zero” statement, there were already closer to 100 cases. At that time. The health and disease experts had to correct his lies. At that time.

His whole attitude of ‘we’ve got this under control’, when clearly it was exploding worse than anywhere else in the world, cost the US valuable time. Time that it could have been using to obtain tests, to prepare medical facilities, to equip professionals with the PPE they were going to need, etc.
It'll be interesting to see how his bumbling media-updates change as the figures on this table change, now that he can brag that he is leading the world with 111,281 active cases and still increasing logarithmically and only 3224 fully recovered. At least he seems to be able to read what is written for him.
Coronavirus Update (Live): 650,926 Cases and 30,299 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Outbreak - Worldometer
United States Coronavirus: 120,076 Cases and 1,993 Deaths - Worldometer
 
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iluvatar5150

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SARS also exploded in China and had a minuscule effect on America. I completely agree that he does say a lot of really stupid things. I just think on the subject of coronavirus people are blaming him for the outbreak when there was no way of knowing how bad it would be. The SARS outbreak in China was also huge and the measures taken at that time were very minimal, much less than what we’re facing now.

No, the SARS outbreak in China wasn't "huge." It was serious and it was taken seriously, but the total number of cases was about 5300 in China and 8100 worldwide. I'm just eyeballing these graphs, but when Trump made that statement on Feb 26, the COVID-19 outbreak had roughly 10x that amount and was spreading and growing rapidly.

It didn’t really affect America’s way of life at all. People can’t look back and say we should’ve done this or we should’ve done that unless they had that idea at the time they believe it should’ve been done. You can’t look at the way things are now and start pointing fingers at others, blaming them if you didn’t have the idea before the outbreak in America began. It’s easy to say you should’ve done this or that after the effect has taken place but unless you had the idea before it took place your no more helpful than the person who made the decision that resulted in catastrophe. We see this all the time in everyday life. How many times have you said to yourself I should’ve done this instead of that? It’s a lot easier to see the correct course of action after the effect has taken place but it doesn’t necessarily mean you were incompetent when you made your initial decision because the outcome was unclear.

I can appreciate the "fog of war" being a factor to some degree. But saying stupid stuff and failing to appreciate the severity of something like this is inexcusable when the professionals all knew and were saying it was a big deal. If a regional grocery chain can appreciate the severity of this in January, so, too, should the President of the United States.
 
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BNR32FAN

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Wrong and wrong again...

At the time he made his ridiculous “only 15 cases and soon down to zero” statement, there were already closer to 100 cases. At that time. The health and disease experts had to correct his lies. At that time.

His whole attitude of ‘we’ve got this under control’, when clearly it was exploding worse than anywhere else in the world, cost the US valuable time. Time that it could have been using to obtain tests, to prepare medical facilities, to equip professionals with the PPE they were going to need, etc.

How do you know they weren’t trying to obtain tests yet?
 
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