Category Archives: Donald Trump

Donald Trump, reality-TVphony to his core, clearly believes all he needs to do to erase his almost unfathomable levels of failure that have led to the coronavirus crisis is to play-act being a resolute leader on the teevee. Having spent weeks denying, minimizingand outright lying aboutthe coronavirus threat, Trump now seizes liveairtime every day to preen about what a strong and capable leader he is and also to present himself as the biggest victim of this crisis, even as people die and millions find their jobs are threatened even as he does nothing consequential but tweet, lie and boost his own ego.

Trump's commitment to being seen as the conquering hero (while doing as littleas possible) is a result of his bottomless narcissism, of course. New York Times White House reporter Maggie Haberman indicated on CNNthat Trump took over the daily coronavirus task force briefings from Vice President Mike Pence because he was jealous of all the attention Pence was getting. Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair also noted on MSNBC that his White House sources say Trump "has been furious and frustrated at New York Gov.Andrew Cuomo, who has been holding these very widely well-received early morning press conferences" because, of course, Trump sees it as stealing his precious spotlight.

There's good reason to fear that Trump's reality-TV simulacrum of a competent leader is working to fool Americans. His approval rating has jumped, hitting almost 50% in the latest Gallup poll, which is as highit's ever been. Indeed, polling repeatedly shows the majority of Americans believe Trump is doing a great job handling this crisis.

He isn't. On the contrary, Trump is largelyto blame for the horrific situation we now face, where the disease is spreading rapidly and the economy is tanking. As difficult as the task may be, especially with so much else going on, it is critical that journalists and activists do everything in their power to remind the public that the only reason the situation is so bad is that Trump screwed up.

The biggest screw-up that caused this situation was Trump's belief that any problem can be made to go away by simply lying about it and denying it. To that end, he did everything he could to hide the fact that the coronavirus had already reachedthe U.S. and by trying to hide the problem, he allowed the virus to spread unchecked through the population. Now it's too late to do anything but embrace drastic lockdown procedures nationwide, which are grinding the economy to a halt and, likelykickstarting what will amount to another Great Depression.

The sheer number of lies Trump told to bamboozle the public and the markets into thinking coronavirus was no big deal is too large to list in detail, though the New York Times published a lengthy breakdown last week. He promised it would "work out well" in January and suggested that a vaccine would be available shortly (atbest, it's next year). Throughout February, Trump promised that the virus "miraculously goes away" and said that "the numbers are going to get progressively better" (they have been getting progressively worse). In March, he was continuing to call it "mild" and saying "I'm not concerned at all."

He told these lies despite the fact that, as various reports have showed, intelligence services had been briefing him about the threat of coronavirus for months.Instead of trusting his own intelligence reports that the Chinese government was covering up the extent of the viral spread, the Washington Post reported, Trump instead chose to believe the notoriously dishonest President Xi Jinping of China, thanking Xifor his "transparency."

Meanwhile, South Korea was swinging into action, instituting a plan to corral the spread of the virus without facing the economic devastation of a lockdown. Thatnation has 50 million people and is one of the most densely populated in the world, and yet wasable to dramatically slowthe spread of the disease without much curtailment of people's freedom. The key, according to Science magazine, was the institution of widespread testing that allowed doctors to focus resources and quarantine efforts on people who were already infected, instead of locking people at home and crippling the economy.

While Italy has seen the coronavirus run rampant, the small town that was the center of the nation's outbreak has managed to curb its spreadby implementing mass testing. Testing on that scale is not possible in a country as big as the U.S., but these results show that the major restrictions and huge economic impactscould have been much reduced with astrategic approach that involved mass testing instead of treating everyone likea potential vector.

But Trump quite obviously didn't want mass testing, and seemedto believe he could hide the spread of the disease by preventing any measurements of it. As Politico reporter Dan Diamond told NPR, Trump did "not push to do aggressive additional testing in recent weeks" because "more testing might have led to more cases being discovered of coronavirus outbreak," and Trump believed "the lower the numbers on coronavirus, the better for the president."

What happened instead is that we have no idea how many cases there are in the U.S., but weknow for sure it's a lot more than what's being counted almost certainly orders of magnitude larger. Because there's no way to know, people are in a panic and governments are shutting down most public-facing businesses, grinding the economy to a halt. Trump continues to lie, claiming tests areeasily available. Inreality, they continueto be rationed across the country, sothere's no telling how long it will be until it's safe to return to normal.

"What's happening here, in this country, was avoidable," the Atlantic explained in an analysis of this disaster."Nearly every flaw in America's response to the virus has one source: America did not test enough people for COVID-19."

Even thoughTrump's pathological lying is the principal cause of this disaster, he hasn't backed off this lie-all-the-time strategy. He has started claiming there's an effective treatment using drugs that have potentially severe side effects, even though there's as yet no scientific evidence for this claim. (One person has already died due to taking Trump's advice.) He's making noises about "reopening" the economy by Easter, even though he has no authority to do this and there's no reason to believe the crisis will anywhere nearcontained by then. He repeatedly promises help is on the way in the form of naval ships, a testing website, medical suppliesand increased testing even though his administration hasin fact done almost nothingto provide those things.

The Senate is passing a bill that, despite Republican efforts tomake it a giveaway to the already-rich, appears to get directaid to people who need it. That should help, but it won't make this crisis disappear. We're still facing widespread infection, many deathsand catastrophic levels of unemployment.

Trump will try to use this crisis to position himself as a strong leader guiding his people through a difficult time. He mustnot be allowed to do this. None of this would be nearly as bad if he wasn't a sociopathic monsterwho from the beginning was more interested in concealing the crisis than fighting the virus. This crisis is Trump's fault, and it is the duty of the media and activists and Democratic politicians to remind the public of this every single day until the election. If we still get to have one.

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Trump wants to play-act the hero, but don't forget: This crisis is his fault - Salon

US President Donald Trump has said that the World Health Organization has "very much" sided with China on coronavirus crisis, asserting that many people are unhappy with the global health agency and feel that "it's been very unfair". President Trump was responding to a question on allegations by Republican Senator Marco Rubio that the World Health Organization (WHO) showed "favouritism" to China.

Congressman Michael McCaul, ranking member on the House Foreign Relations Committee, has questioned the integrity of the WHO's director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, saying "that there were several red flags in his past with respect to his relationship with China." "It (WHO) has been very very much sided with China. A lot of people are not happy about it," Trump told reporters at a White House news conference on Wednesday. Trump was asked if he agreed that the WHO showed favouritism and the US should re-explore its relationship with the health agency once the dust settles.

"I think there is certainly a lot of talk that it's been very unfair. I think that a lot of people feel that it's been very unfair," Trump replied. In a tweet Congressman Greg Steube alleged that the WHO has been a mouthpiece for China during the coronavirus pandemic. Both the WHO and China must face consequences once this pandemic is under control, he demanded. Senator Josh Hawley echoed Steube's view and demanded the same.

"There need to be consequences here. WHO has sided with China Communist Party against the world in this pandemic," he said in another tweet. WHO director Ghebreyesus has faced criticism for praising China's leadership for its "determination to end the new coronavirus outbreak". He has also been accused of conspiring with Beijing in its "propaganda" to hush-up coronavirus cases.

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WHO 'very much' sided with China on coronavirus: Donald Trump - Economic Times

Its true that the media often make mistakes; they are, after all, made up of human beings. Media conventions can be subverted, facts can be misunderstood or misreported, sources can mislead, reporters can succumb to confirmation bias, and editors can fail to see the big picture. For the most part, though, these outlets are trying their best to inform the public.

Trumpist media outlets, by contrast, have created a bubble of unreality where nothing but the most effusive praise of Trump is acceptable, where anyone who disagrees with or criticizes the president is part of a grand conspiracy to destroy him, and where the only facts that exist are those that reflect well on the president. Many conservatives dont distrust the mainstream media because they are biased; they distrust the media because the media do not tell them what they want to hear, and their own outlets have trained them to believe that the truth can only be exactly what they want to hear.

Nor can mainstream media bias explain why many Trumpist media outlets, supposedly so much more committed to the truth than their mainstream counterparts, consciously endangered their audience by disregarding and dismissing public-health warnings. Fox News told its audience that the coronavirus was a minor problem their heroic leader was quickly resolving, while quietly having its staff follow the very precautions its hosts were ridiculing on air. The mainstream press didnt force Fox News to do that.

The coronavirus pandemic provides a rigorous case study in the priorities of most of the conservative press: Faced with a choice between informing their own audiences about dire threats to public health and propping up a Republican president, they chose the latter, because informing the public is not their job. The job of outlets like Fox News is to ensure that the conservative masses believe that their leader is infallible, even if it causes them tremendous personal harm.

As cases began flooding into hospitals and medical facilities all over the country, the president shifted his tone, finally recognizing the reality of the pandemic and the economic catastrophe that threatens both the health and livelihoods of millions of Americans. On Tuesday, Trump declared that this is a pandemic, and that I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. Having denied that the coronavirus was a major issue for months, the president sought to recast himself as an oracle, and conservative media followed suit, shifting their tone from downplaying the severity of the pandemic to praising the heroic efforts of the president to address it.

Wajahat Ali: Where are the masks?

Predictably, Trump drew praise from some cable-news personalities for doing a passable job of portraying a president on television, even as the administrations failures continued to exacerbate the personal and economic toll of the pandemic. This is somewhat understandable; Americans want to believe that their leaders are competent, engaged, and concerned about their well-being. Recognizing that the presidency is occupied by an incompetent narcissist whose major life accomplishment is parlaying an inherited fortune into reality-show celebrity is rather less comforting, but it is the world we live in.

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Donald Trumps Cult of Personality Did This - The Atlantic

Dr. Justin Frank literally wrote the book on Donald Trump's mind and behavior. In "Trump on the Couch,"Frank tracks Trump's life from childhood to adulthood and reveals a man who is mentally unfit in many ways from his intelligence, values, emotions and temperament down tothe deepest parts of the psyche to be president of the United States of America.

In the conclusion of Frank'sbook he warned that Donald Trump would represent a dire threat to the safety, security and future of America and the world. In all, the power of the presidency is too vast and the opportunities for abusing that power are too great for a personality and mind such as Donald Trump's to resist.

On both a day-to-day basis, and in crises such as the Russia and Ukraine scandals and now the coronavirus (all of which are largely self-made and self-inflicted) Donald Trump's poor mental health has only gotten worse. Unfortunately, the presidency, with its uniqueburdens and responsibilities,have not forced Trump to become a better person and to rise to the occasion. Instead, he has been caught in the undertow of a public downward spiral.

Trump's lies, delusions,greed, corruption andmalignant narcissismhave thrown theUnited States and the world into peril as this unstable president has confronted thecoronavirus pandemic in increasingly erratic fashion. It'sa crisis of science and empirical reality that he cannot simplywish away or ignore, much as he has tried.

In addition to "Trump on the Couch,"Frank is also the author of bestsellers about the previous two presidents,"Bush on the Couch" and "Obama on the Couch."He is a former clinical professor of psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical Center and a physician with more than 40 years of experience in psychoanalysis.

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In this conversation, Frank told methat Donald Trump is essentially a sociopath who has no feelings of care, concernor empathy for other human beings. More frightening still, Frank raised the possibility that Trump is notcapable of feeling guilt or remorse. Not only will Trump feel no responsibility for thethousands if not millions of Americans who may die inthe coronavirus pandemic,Frank said, he is likely to blame Barack Obama and the Democrats for the carnage. Trump's followers, Frank warned, now perceive him as an infallible deity, and will obey his commands even at the risk of their own lives.

You wrote a book about the dangers represented by Donald Trump because of his mental health. You warned that he should not become president. Did you believe that Trump's behavior and the damage he is causing to the country and the world would get this bad?

Here is a quote from my book "Trump on the Couch": "Failure to intervene places the nation's people, rights and institutions at increasing risk of ending up as collateral damage in the wake of the externalization of Trump's epic internal struggle."

In other words, the struggle between building and breaking is an epic one for Trump. Trump's impulses towards breaking things has been winning and we are all going to be victims of it. The only way to deal with Trump is to remove him from office. Trump cannot be reasoned with. In many ways Trump is like a space alien, a force totally foreign to our world and human society.

I think this book predicted this, and that the only way to deal with it is stop him. You cannot reason with him. Like I said before, he's like an alien. He is a force.

During these last few days at his "briefings" on the coronavirus, and throughhis pronouncements on Twitter, Trump's behavior has further devolved. He cannot help himself. At this point, hisbehavior islike an entry from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Trump says the media itself hates him. He insists that media coverage of his response to the virus is unfair and negative. Beyond Trump's malignant narcissism and sociopathy lies paranoid thinking.

Trump escalates his attacks. A characteristic of paranoid thinking is rigidity he never gives up his paranoid worldview about whatever he fears attacked by. Thus, the press remains the enemy, and if he feels that the market is tumbling down and is losing the battle against the virus, he escalates his suspicion of questions,feeling attacked more often than not.

In his press conference on Monday, when he had free rein to ask a question himself, he first attacked the press with a question to Dr. [Deborah] Birx. He said, "We have a lot of very angry media all around this room, and they want one of these seats. Because of social distancing we are keeping them empty. Will there ever be a time when all those really angry, angry people who don't like me much to start off with and now they really don't like me will there ever be a time when those seats are full like they used to be?"It's as if he misses them, since paranoid people also need enemies for friends. The paranoid Trump needs them to feel complete, to keep his projected hatred nearby.

On Monday he also tweeted that the cure may be worse than the disease, and that social distancing can wreak havoc on our economy. Will he end social distancing because he needs the attention at his rallies?

President Trump himself is a public health risk. What I mean is that his paranoid behavior risks America's physical and emotional health. Because he is obsessed with the press being out to ruin him, he cannot accurately assess reality even the reality of his own intelligence services. He ignored the threat of coronavirus when presented with it on Jan.24. He didn't even think much about it because it didn't fit with his delusional belief system about "fake news."

There seems to be no bottom to Trump's pathological behavior.

There is no bottom. The only time you know about a bottom in human behavior is when a person reflects back on their behavior. One can say they hit rock bottom only in the past tense. One does not have the perspective in the middle of the journey. Everything that Donald Trump does is making things worse with the coronavirus. He has dismissed the reality of the virus. He was late to respond. He called it a hoax,ignored the experts anddid not order more tests for the virus.

It is very important to understand that if a person has a lifelong history of lying,the first person you lie to is yourself. The reason people lie to themselves is they do not want to face facts and reality. When a person lies like Trump does, they are attacking reality itself on an unconscious level. It even impacts how a person perceives things. For example, Trump could not perceive the dangers of the virus and therefore he is ill-equipped to respond to the pandemic. Because Donald Trump lies about reality so much, he does not have the ability to cope with it.

Donald Trump has told at least 16,000 public lies. He is a pathological liar. What happens when someone with that sickness is forced to confront reality? For example, what does a mind such as Trump's do when he actually sees thousands of people dead from the coronavirus something he very recently suggestedwas a hoax.

In my experience such a person will conjure up new lies. I've actually seen it happen in hospital settings. You can't convince a person out of a preconception if the person has been lying to themselves as extensively as Trump has. It is almost impossible. Donald Trump could see dead bodies lying in the street from the coronavirus and step over them. Trump would say to himself, "Whyare all these people lying around? How did that happen?" Trump would never think that he had anything to do with all of the deaths.

There is a part of Trump that is not even fully aware of the depth of his destructiveness. Trump recently sent out a tweet that said,"The world is at war with a hidden enemy. We will win." Unconsciously Trump is at war with an internal enemy, which is between wanting to be a builder and wanting to be a destroyer. The internal enemy is Trump's inner destructiveness.

The "hidden enemy" is also hidden from Trump himself. Other people see that Trump is the real "hidden enemy."

The hidden enemy is the president of the United Statesbecause he is the enemy of our collective well-being, of our feeling of safety, of our security, of leading the country in a time of crisis.

The coronavirus is just one of many scandals for Donald Trump. There wasRussia, Ukraine and impeachment, his numerous other scandals ofmalfeasance and corruption, etc.How do you connect the dots between these events?

One of the things that happens to every paranoid person and Trump is a very paranoid person is that the more they attack other people, the more frightened of other people they then become. So the more Trump attacks say the press, the more frightened of the press he becomes. The more he attacks Joe Biden, the more frightened of Joe Biden Trump becomes. Donald Trump is afraid of his actions coming back to hurt him.

When a person expresses hatred, and expels it, the hatred does not just dissipate. That hatred can bounce back at you. In psychoanalysis and psychiatry there is a term called the "return of the repressed." The thing that you've forgotten and gotten rid of can come back to get you.

The coronavirus is finally a reality he cannot attack and somehow alter or make go away. The coronavirus is reality coming back to get Trump. Unfortunately, the virus is hurting the rest of the American people and the world. Whatever Trump believes, he cannot stop the coronavirus with a wall.

Trump has gone from saying the coronavirus was a hoaxto claiming he was the first person to have used the term"pandemic" to describe it.How does hismind make such a huge move?

How does a mind like this convince itself? Because he really believes he's the first person to have said it's a pandemic. He really believes it.

Trump also believes he's the first person to realize that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. Trump is like a child who discovers something and says, "Did you know this?" It is all new to Trump, so therefore he thinks he discovered it before anyone else.

When a person such as Donald Trump has a long history of lying to himself, he has eradicated or attacked reality. This means for Trump the coronavirus is a "hoax." It's "fake news." Such claims are how Donald Trump protects himself from reality,especially if that reality is something negative about himself that he wants to reject.

But then reality must seep in. In this case, the coronavirus is penetrating Trump's delusional reality. Now Trump goes from calling the coronavirus a hoaxto imagining himself as some type of savior who was the first person to realize the dangers posed by the virus. Now Trump tells people he will make everything all better. This is very dangerous. Trump believes he can control reality, like some type of god. In clinical terms this what is called a"manic triumph." Trump believes he is going to triumph over the danger that he created. This also explains why Trump said that he is not responsible for the coronavirus pandemic because then he is free to say it is a threat that he alone can stop.

Trump, quite predictably, is now saying thatthe Democrats and Barack Obama are really responsible for the coronavirus pandemic. Well, if the Democrats are the disease, what do you do with the disease? You eradicate the disease. Trump and his mouthpiecesare againencouraging violence against their "enemies."

Yes, it is an encouragement to violence. Ironically, it is the coronavirus which is threatening and attacking Trump when he himself is a germ-phobic person.

In your book "Trump on the Couch" you document Trump's germ phobia.How is he resolving his deep fear of germs and his reaction to the coronavirus pandemic?

A germaphobe is a person who is frightened of germs, and they see them everywhere. The germs unconsciously represent parts of the self that have split off from the whole. It is another manifestation of deeply troubled feelings and beliefs that in some way are poisonous. For Trump, those germs are his destructive impulses.

When he talks about the coronavirus pandemic, Trump does not appear to care about the harm it is causing people. He always defaults to himself and then seeks praise from the members of his court. Trump appears to be incapable of empathy or sympathy or any level of human concern for others.

When Trump is basically saying, "Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!" it reflects a lack of genuine love from his parents, either one or both of them. Such behavior is an effort to compensate oneself by loving yourself more and more and more. That is narcissismor grandiosity.Those are behaviors and feelings which are compensatory for not feeling loved. That describes Donald Trump.

He delivered the eulogy at his father's funeral. Trump said one or two sentences about his father and the rest of the speech was about himself. He does the same things today. None of Trump's behavior as president is new.

Trump has repeatedly shown that he has no internal governor on his behavior. There seems to be a total inability to act in a moral and virtuous way. Is such a life liberating? Is it terrifying? Thrilling?

It is in fact liberating, frightening and terrifying. It's all of those things for Trump. It feels momentarily liberating because, "I've triumphed over guilt. I've triumphed over any anxiety about wrongdoing." And then it's terrifying, because of the return of the repressed. "I'm going to get it back. They're going to come and get me." All that hatred is going to come back at Trump. He fears it. "Allthe enemies of the people, the press, is going to come back and get me."

It is all so terrifying. The destructiveness is terrifying because ultimately you can end up destroying something you may also love. Trump may have loved his Trump Towers, but he's destroying them, one after the other. It truly is an epic struggle in Trump's mind.

Let's assume one of the worst-case scenarios, that the coronavirus may kill more than a million people in the United States. Will Trump have some type of emotional breakdown because of this loss of life? President Lincoln was horribly guilty about all the deaths in the Civil War. Will Trump have similar feelings?

No. It is not an option. Donald Trump does not feel guilt. He is incapable of it. I have not seen Trump ever display any form of guilt for his behavior. If there were a million dead, Trump would still say that Obama did it.Trump would still say the Democrats did it.Now Trump calls the coronavirus the "Chinese Virus." Trump would say it is the Chinese who did it. Trump is never responsible for his own behavior.

Donald Trump learned from his father to never admithe is wrong. That lesson there is also to never have any guilt for one's behavior. One would think that repressing all that guilt would cause Trump or someone like that to have nightmares. But I don't think that Trump does.

Trump leads a political cult. Until very recently, he has been telling his supporters that the coronavirus is a hoax, and that they should go out and hug each other, gather in large groups, and mock the scientists and Democrats.How do we make sense of Trump's followers and the love and loyalty they feel for him?

The followers are listening to their god. One of these people was interviewed and he said if he died from the coronavirus at least he would die believing in Christ. There are many fanatics in the world. They are very disturbed and sick people. These fanatics yearnfor an all-powerful protector. Trump's followers feel safe and triumphant because of him. It is a grandiose self-destructive fantasy between Trump and his followers.

As in other cults, the members are in love with the leader. Trump's followers are very damaged people. As such, whatever Trump commands them to do they will do,even if it means getting sick and dying from the coronavirus.

That is correct. Such a level of mass fanaticism is very disturbing, and issomething that we have not seen in the United States on such a large scale. We have seen it with Jim Jones and other cults. People follow the cult leader to their doom. Of course, there was a similar type of fanaticismin Germany with Adolf Hitler. Trump's followers really needa strong leader to make them feel safe. It could be a strong father figure, a god, anyone who is powerful enough to make them feel loved and safe.

Trump's followers,like other cult members,also want someone who will accept their aggression and destructiveness as being good and normal. These people are devoted to Trump. That devotion is more important than anything else.

What's going to happennext?

The only chance the American people have is to vote Donald Trump out of office.

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Dr. Justin Frank: Trump "could see dead bodies" from coronavirus "and step over them" - Salon

CLEVELAND, Ohio A new poll shows Republican President Donald Trump leading in Ohio and competitive in three other key Great Lakes states as voters generally approve of his response to coronavirus and the ensuing economic upheaval.

Trump led both Democratic presidential candidates, former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, in Ohio. Trump led Biden in Pennsylvania and trailed in Michigan, with the race in Wisconsin a dead heat. The president performed better against Sanders, leading in both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, though trailing in Michigan.

A majority of respondents in all four states said they approved of Trumps response to coronavirus and the economy, though they were worried about their current financial situation.

Researchers at Baldwin Wallace University, Ohio Northern University and Oakland University near Detroit polled 3,817 registered voters in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from Friday through Wednesday for the second of their planned four Great Lakes polls this year. The margins of error range from plus-or-minus 3.3 percentage points in Ohio to plus-or-minus 3.9 percentage points in Pennsylvania. The results are weighted by gender, race and ethnicity, education and annual household income to the 2016 electorate.

The poll results are generally good news for the president, who has been able to maintain support as the virus continues to spread and the stock market which he frequently brags about reaching record highs under his leadership craters.

An added political bonus for the president is the stoppage of in-person campaigning across the country. With the nation gripped by coverage of coronavirus, his Democratic challengers have little chances for earned media and a chance to criticize Trump on a wide scale as Washington works through the response, though Trump is also deprived of his favorite campaign tool large rallies.

Lauren Copeland, associate director of of Baldwin Wallaces Community Research Institute, said Trumps support could be tenuous, however, if the economy continues its skid.

Theres an intriguing finding where Trumps numbers are up, but people are worried about he economy and personal finances in particular, Copeland said. If the economy continues its downward spiral, I dont know if Trumps support will hold up.

Trump vs. Biden

Seth A. Richardson

A hypothetical matchup of Trump versus Biden produced races within the margin of error in all four states.

Trump led Biden in Ohio and Pennsylvania, but trailed him in Michigan. The poll results indicated a dead heat between Trump and Biden in Wisconsin.

The results in the four states for Trump against Biden were:

Trump vs. Sanders

Seth A. Richardson

Trump led Sanders in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, though trailed the senator in Michigan. All four races were within the margin of error, according to the poll.

The results in the four states for Trump against Sanders were:

Coronavirus response

The likely key factor in Trump remaining strong with voters despite significant upheaval to their lives and the economy is their current approval of his response to the coronavirus pandemic. More than 50% of voters in all four states said they approved of the presidents response to the outbreak. A roughly similar portion of voters said they approved of Trumps handling of the economy.

Robert Alexander, founding director of Ohio Northern Universitys Institute for Civics and Public Policy, said the wartime atmosphere against coronavirus was likely giving Trump a boost in the electoral matchups.

Like most crises, the president is likely to see a rally around the flag effect with a surge of support from the electorate, Alexander said. We find this to be the case with Trump, which may be inflating his numbers a bit. As concerns over COVID-19 persist and economic conditions worsen, it is likely Trumps approval numbers will wane. We are a long way from November, so we should be cautious about over interpreting results right nowespecially given the unprecedented circumstances we are currently experiencing.

Biden and Sanders received tepid responses from voters in comparison. Only around 30% of voters in each state said they thought Biden or Sanders would do a better job than Trump, with a similar amount saying they would do worse.

Soft Democratic enthusiasm

Trump had firmer support among respondents than either Biden or Sanders in all four of the states, with more voters saying they would definitely support the president than those who would definitely support either of the Democrats.

However, more respondents in every state said they were almost certain to vote against Donald Trump than for him.

Seth A. Richardson

That may indicate that voters want to vote against Trump, but dont like either Biden or Sanders as the nominee.

When asked if they would vote for Trump or the Democratic nominee, without either Bidens or Sanders name mentioned, Trump led in Ohio and trailed in Michigan and Wisconsin. The race was tied in Pennsylvania.

The Great Lakes Poll from January showed Trump trailing a generic Democrat in all four states.

Favorability

None of the candidates had a net-positive approval rating, save for Biden in Michigan. Trumps worst favorability rating was in Michigan, where only 41% of voters approved of Trump compared with 52% who held an unfavorable view of the president.

In Ohio, voters were split on their view of Trump, with 47% holding a favorable view of him and 47% holding an unfavorable view of him.

Seth A. Richardson

Ohio voters were more critical of Biden and Sanders. Biden had a net-unfavorable rating, with a 41% favorable to 44% unfavorable. Biden had net-unfavorable ratings in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, though voters in Michigan held slightly more favorable views of the former vice president.

Seth A. Richardson

Voters in the poll did not like Sanders, who held a net-unfavorable rating in all four states, and at more than 10% in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Michigan respondents were much kinder to Sanders, with only 42% holding an unfavorable view to 39% who held an favorable view.

Seth A. Richardson

Read full coverage of the Great Lakes Poll here.

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Poll shows Donald Trump ahead in Ohio, competitive in three other Great Lakes states as coronavirus pandemic - cleveland.com

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Donald Trump has boasted about splashing out on missiles and rockets while providing an update on the worsening coronavirus pandemic.

Addressing a crowd of reporters at the White House on Wednesday, the President of the United States went off-piste while breaking down a $2trillion stimulus package aimed at ensuring the coronavirus crisis does not tank the US economy.

Trump said: (Were spending) $27 billion dollars to build up the strategic national stockpile with critical supplies including masks, respirators, pharmaceuticals and everything you can imagine because it was very depleted, like our military was very depleted.

Now we have a brand new military, never had a military like this. We have equipment either coming or its already come planes, missiles, rockets, lots of things. The stockpile was very depleted like everything else.

President Trump also detailed on a $100billion relief fund for US doctors, as well as a $45billion disaster relief fund.

The package which will also see Americans earning under $95,000 presented with a $1,400 check is set to be put back before the US Congress later on amid hopes it will finally be passed tonight.

If rubber-stamped, those payments will be made within the next three weeks.

During a subsequent question and answer session Trump refused to rule out banning the exports of US medical equipment, amid a huge scramble for ventilators to treat coronavirus patients most at risk of dying.

The United States had almost 65,000 coronavirus diagnoses on Wednesday evening, and 910 confirmed deaths. It is likely to overtake Italy and China to become the worlds number one coronavirus hotspot in the coming weeks.

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Donald Trump brags about buying rockets and missiles while giving coronavirus update - Metro.co.uk

Sarah Kendzior is the co-host of the podcast Gaslit Nation and the author of coming book Hiding in Plain Sight.

Life is what you do while youre waiting to die, Donald Trump, then a real estate tycoon bound for bankruptcy, told Playboy magazine in 1990. You know, it is all a rather sad situation.

Life? the interviewer asked. Or death?

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Both. Were here and we live our 60, 70 or 80 years and were gone. You win, you win and in the end, it doesnt mean a hell of a lot. But it is something to do to keep you interested.

For his entire life, Mr. Trump has been a self-described fatalist. He has called himself a fatalist in interviews spanning nearly 30 years. This admission is a rare expression of consistent honesty for a man infamous for lying about everything his fortune, his criminal ties, objective reality. Its the outlook he hints at when he does things such as retweeting a meme of himself fiddling like Nero, while the novel coronavirus spreads across the United States.

Nothing seems to matter to Mr. Trump not only in the sense that the things that matter to other people, like love and loss, do not matter to him. Nothingness itself matters: Destruction and annihilation are what he craves. When bad times come, then Ill get whatever I want, he told Barbara Walters in an 1980s interview. His initial reaction to 9/11 was that the collapse of the World Trade Center made his own buildings look taller. His initial reaction to the 2008 economic collapse was joy at his potential to profit. Everything to Mr. Trump is transactional, and you all of you are the transaction.

U.S. President Donald Trump pressed his case on Tuesday for a reopening of the U.S. economy by mid-April despite a surge in coronavirus cases, downplaying the pandemic as he did in its early stages by comparing it to the seasonal flu. Yahaira Jacquez reports. Reuters

In February, 2014, when asked about the direction of the United States, Mr. Trump rooted for its demise:

You know what solves it? Mr. Trump told Fox News. When the economy crashes, when the country goes to total hell and everything is a disaster. Then youll have a [laughs], you know, youll have riots to go back to where we used to be when we were great.

Everything Mr. Trump has done since taking office has served to fulfill this goal, from appointing Steve Bannon, who also called for the collapse of the government, as an adviser; to gutting departments that protect national security and public health; to his disdain for slain soldiers and their widows; to his horrific handling of natural disasters such as Hurricane Maria.

For months, Mr. Trump has done little to stop the coronavirus from spreading throughout the U.S., creating a death toll that grows rapidly every day. As citizens self-isolate, he refuses to supply federal funds to states for the much-needed medical equipment, such as masks or ventilators. When a reporter offered him the chance to ease the fears of Americans, Mr. Trump instead lashed out at the reporter for even asking. Pundits have expressed confusion about why he will not invoke the Defense Protection Act, but they should have expected it.

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This is who Mr. Trump is, who he always was. In a time when everything is changing, you can rely on Mr. Trumps apathy to suffering.

What makes Mr. Trump particularly dangerous is that he is not acting alone. He is backed by the Republican Party, which translates his natural apathy to suffering into malicious policies. Mr. Trump is surrounded by brutal plutocrats such as Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross, who, like Mr. Trump, are protgs of the infamous corporate raider and former White House adviser Carl Icahn, who set the standard of destroying companies for profit.

Mr. Trump is also flanked by a number of religious extremists, such as William Barr, Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence, who use biblical imagery to cloak their brutal goals. The overall effect is a group that will sacrifice human lives to lift the stock market. Republican Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick of Texas stated that grandparents should die for the U.S. economy. In that mentality, the U.S. exists to be raided and razed, its citizens disposable and inconvenient.

Mr. Trump, a notorious germophobe with a lifelong fear of hand-shaking, is remarkably sanguine about the coronavirus, given that he is in the demographic more likely to die if infected. He is sanguine in the way he was about being impeached, or about being labeled Individual One in a federal indictment.

Maybe it is because the world finally exists as it has in his fantasies: Everything is collapsing, yet he remains untouchable. No GOP member has denounced Mr. Trump, just as they refused to impeach him; because Mr. Trump is still in office, public officials are struggling to contain the virus.

Mr. Trump is untouchable in a world where human touch literally kills. If the U.S. is to survive the pandemic, we need more than medical intervention. We need to get rid of the host.

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Opinion: The plague of Donald Trump - The Globe and Mail

In recent days, President Donald Trump has repeatedly defended his administration against the suggestion that the government is failing to secure enough ventilators, medical devices that help Covid-19 patients breathe and can save the lives of those suffering serious respiratory distress.

We have tremendous numbers of ventilators, but theres never been an instance like this where no matter what you have, its not enough, Trump said on March 18. It sounds like a lot, but this is a very unforeseen thing. Nobody ever thought of these numbers. A day later, he doubled down, noting that nobody in their wildest dreams would have ever thought that wed need tens of thousands of ventilators.

Except, of course, somebody did think that. A lot of somebodies, actually, and for a very long time. Almost every federal agency you can imagine has, in fact, warned about shortages and some have offered specific and sobering estimates of need for the better part of two decades.

Almost 15 years ago, for example, the Department of Health and Human Services published a 400-page Pandemic Influenza Plan that was nothing if not explicit. Analyzing models based on flu pandemics in 1957 and 1968, which suggested that there could be more than 900,000 hospitalizations under a similar scenario, HHS determined that demand for inpatient and intensive-care unit (ICU) beds and assisted ventilation services could increase by more than 25%. If that happened, the department predicted, mechanical ventilation would be needed in as many as 64,875 instances. A more severe pandemic like the flu of 1918-19 could result in ventilator shortages which, in turn, could lead to difficult questions about rationing. How many ventilators might be needed to stave that off? A staggering 742,500.

That startling report was just one of many to sound the alarm. Most were written in the wake of 2003 SARS outbreak or the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic.

A May 2003 report by the Government Accountability Office noted that few hospitals have adequate medical equipment, such as the ventilators that are often needed for respiratory infections to handle the large increases in the number of patients that may result.

Another GAO report issued a few months later similarly warned that few hospitals reported having the equipment and supplies needed to handle a large-scale infectious disease outbreak. Half of the 2,000 hospitals surveyed by the GAO had for every 100 staffed beds, fewer than 6 ventilators.

A 2005 Congressional Research Service report echoed those concerns in relation to H1N1 avian flu. If this strain were to launch a pandemic large numbers of victims may require intensive care and ventilatory support, likely exceeding national capacity to provide this level of care, the report said.

A July 2006 Congressional Budget Office report warned that the United States had only about 100,000 ventilators, with three-quarters of them in use on any given day. That number may have remained stable for the last 14 years, according to Vice President Mike Pence, who referenced the more than 100,000 ventilators that are in health care facilities and hospitals around America today in a briefing on Saturday. (The New York Times puts the number of hospital ventilators at about 160,000.) Meanwhile, according to the 2006 CBO report, HHS had calculated that a severe influenza pandemic like the one in 1918 would require 750,000 ventilators to treat victims.

In August 2006, the Defense Department rolled out its Implementation Plan for Pandemic Influenza, offering both a prescient prediction and important advice: Considerable demand for ventilators is likely, especially in the event that the pandemic occurs before a vaccine is available. Where feasible, consideration should be given to stockpiling instead of just-in-time acquisition of adequate numbers of ventilators.

A year later, President George W. Bushs White House warned that a severe influenza pandemic would place a tremendous burden on the U.S. healthcare system and that the projected demand for inpatient and intensive care unit beds and mechanical ventilation services would overwhelm the health care system. In November 2007, the Interior Department issued a Pandemic Influenza Plan, noting that a pandemic could lead to a shortage of ventilators.

The list of overlooked warnings from federal agencies goes on: A 2009 report by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which predicted that, in the event of a pandemic, healthcare facilities can be overwhelmed, creating a shortage of hospital staff, beds, ventilators and other supplies. A report by President Barack Obamas Council of Advisors on Science and Technology about the H1N1 flu, pointed out that [d]uring the peak, 1 or 2 out of every 2,000 Americans might be hospitalized, and that patients requiring mechanical ventilation could reach 10 to 25 per 100,000 population, requiring 50 to 100 percent or more of the total ICU capacity available in the United States and placing great stress on a system that normally operates at 80 percent of capacity.

More recently, Trump reportedly ignored increasingly alarming updates from the U.S. intelligence community about the danger and spread of Covid-19.

Trumps falsehoods about coronavirus preparedness arent confined to his contention that nobody has ever heard of a thing like this, of course. He has also claimed that automakers including Ford, GM, and Tesla are lending a hand to produce ventilators fast to make up the shortfall. It just isnt true. And ventilators are just the start. Trump has responded similarly to criticism about the alarming shortage of specialized N95 masks needed by health care workers on the front lines of the pandemic.

When asked how doctors in a country as wealthy and powerful as the United States could be left without crucial masks, he resorted to his go-to defense: This is unprecedented or just about unprecedented. As time goes by, were seeing its really at a level that nobody wouldve believed. We started with very few masks. And now were making tens of millions of masks and other things.

But the need for large stockpiles of masks, like the need for ventilators, has been no secret. As occurred during the SARS outbreak in Canada, hospitals would especially need N95 particulate respirators to protect medical staff against infection, according to the 2006 CBO report. Widely adopted just-in-time practices leave too small an inventory margin to accommodate the increased demand for supplies that would accompany an influenza pandemic.

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Trump's Claim That Ventilator Shortage Was Unforeseen Is False - The Intercept

President Donald Trump says something about the spread of the coronavirus on Tuesday.

Samuel Corum/Getty Images

My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with the markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings, Donald Trump said in a 2007 deposition for a lawsuit he filed against journalist Tim OBrien for reporting that Trump was not a billionaire. Let me just understand that a little, said OBriens lawyer. Your net worth goes up and down based upon your own feelings? Yes, Trump said, even my own feelings, as to where the world is, where the world is going, and that can change rapidly from day to day.

Im surfacing that exchange now because its a useful window into our present moment. The president of the United States has long believed three things: The first is that reality isnt real, theres only narrative. The second is that he controls that narrative in accordance with his feelings (and Fox News). The third is that only his feelings are real or worth considering. Tempting though it may be to dismiss these as the ravings of a solipsist, its to Trumps credit that he has gotten a surprisingly large number of people to subscribe to these three tenets. Much of the apparatus of the executive branch is now led by people who bow to his whims and go to shocking lengths to make the things he says at least seem true. His attorney general has waved away investigations into the corruption he denies. The National Weather Service formally instructed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration not to correct the presidents Sharpie modification of Hurricane Dorians path, even if it meant giving Americans in danger the wrong information. The director of national intelligence is refusing to brief Congress on electoral interference, reportedly over concerns he might say things Trump would find upsetting.

Now Trump is trying to force-of-will a pandemic into not being a pandemic at all. Its going to disappear. One day its like a miracle, it will disappear, Trump said at the White House on Feb. 28. On March 4, he said he had a hunch the mortality rate was a fraction of 1 percent. When it became a scandal that the United States simply didnt have enough tests to screen peopleand that an early version of the test was faultyTrump said that the tests are all perfect. Like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Its a telling comparison: His slow coronavirus response and his extortion of Ukraine are linked together in his mind as two things he needs to narrate as the opposite of what they are.

Hes also trying it on the economy. Stock Market starting to look very good to me! he tweeted Feb. 24 after the Dow dropped over 1,000 points. Good for the consumer, gasoline prices coming down! he tweeted Monday, as stocks plunged so quickly they triggered a pause in trading. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on, he said as conferences were canceled all over the country, universities moved to online classes, and the numbers of infected people crept up. But investors didnt seem to believe him. The man has spent so long successfully outshouting facts that its clear he knows no other way.

For a time, it seemed to be working. This is their new hoax, Trump told a crowd at a rally on Feb. 28, turning criticism of his coronavirus response into a battle cry. He has dismissively compared COVID-19 to the flu (which has a much lower mortality rate). And, as ever, hes found enablers. Rep. Matt Gaetz wore a gas mask to the floor of the House to mock lawmakers whod wanted to appropriate funds for the pandemic. (Hes now in self-quarantine after being exposed to a coronavirus carrier at CPAC.) Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity downplayed the threat of the virus to their elderly (and vulnerable) Fox News viewers and blamed Democrats for weaponizing it. Trish Regan gave a halting, sinister speech to Fox Business viewers Monday night about the coronavirus impeachment hoax, implying that concern over a pandemic that has all but brought China and Italy to a halt and started an international price war over oil is the dark work of Democrats trying to make the president look bad. If the virus is threatening Trumps image, then either the virus must be dismissed as no big deal or Democrats must be blamed.

And yet the virus keeps spreading, and the stock market keeps roiling.

That has Trump trying to do two things at once: Hes trying to reassure Americans that everything is fine when its visibly not while overpraising himself for work he didnt do to prepare. If the effect is bizarre and confusing, the result is that Americans are flying blind into a pandemic. The unforgivable shortage of testsand the hoops doctors have to jump through before they can get patients testedhas created a situation where no one knows how many people are actually infected. Medical professionals have complained in frustration that CDC guidance is almost useless. Because the administration is built on sycophancy, the officials who should be spending their time and energy on the publics health are instead wasting valuable effort on strenuously maintaining Trumps fiction. The surgeon generalwho is in his mid-40ssaid on Sunday, absurdly, that Trump sleeps less than I do and hes healthier than what I am. The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield, began his remarks to the American people by praising Trump for his decisive leadership. I think thats the most important thing I want to say, he said. Trump nodded.

This Trump-pleasing weakness in government isnt just superficial lip serviceits having real effects. We now know that health officials at the CDC wanted to recommend that elderly and physically fragile Americans avoid flying on commercial airlines. The White House ordered that the air travel recommendation be removed, endangering the very people the virus is likely to affect most severely. CDC officials couldnt explain why they refused to use the World Health Organizations coronavirus test and instead tried to develop one that failed. Trump himself has been quite forthright about wanting to cultivate ignorance on the number of infected Americans: Not knowing the real number is as good as the number not existing.

There is a silver lining herenot because its good news but because its useful to have clarity in alarming and confusing times, when different sources are saying different things. Its this: The least trustworthy president in recent memory should be understood as a film negative during this crisis. The truth is an almost perfect inversion of what he says. He told the country it was OK to go to work with coronavirus. His economic adviser Larry Kudlow claimed on Friday that the virus was contained. White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway told Fox News viewers the virus was contained, and all thanks to Trumps quick action, too!

Its possible the coronavirus has become too big to spin. Even the GOP has been forcedby literal infectionsto recognize its severity. At CPAC, several lawmakers were exposed to a carrier who shook their hands. In the meantime, Redfield, HHS Secretary Alex Azar, and coronavirus czar Mike Pence have all contradicted Trump in one way or another over the past week. Azar corrected Trump when he said there would be a vaccine within months. You wont have a vaccine, Azar said. Youll have a vaccine to go into testing. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, threw cold water on Trumps theory that the virus might just disappear when the weather gets warmer: We have no guarantee at all that this is going to happen with this virus. These are some signs that Trumps efforts to mash the coronavirus into the story he wants to tell is failing, but thats hardly reassuring. It is bad for Americans when the vice president and the HHS secretary, both charged with communicating the governments plans to the public, cant even agree with each other. We dont have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward, Pence told reporters last Thursday. There is no testing kit shortage, nor has there ever been, Azar told reporters the next daya lie so blatant one cant help but wonder whether hed been pressured by a certain disgruntled figure in the White House and succumbed.

Trumps handling of other disasterslike Hurricane Maria in Puerto Ricohas worked to the extent that his response has not been treated as the national scandal it is. We still dont know the death toll in Puerto Rico; thats how slow and bad the government response was. Thousands of Americans died, parts of the island were without electricity for 11 months, and yet its rarely mentioned as a major failure of Trumps presidency. I think we did a fantastic job in Puerto Rico, Trump said. To the extent that this line worked, its because the people suffering were brown Americans with no electoral power, whose plight virtually everyone has subsequently ignored.

The coronavirus, however, is very much on the mainland, and it has populations with power in its sights. Its already affecting the well-offcruise ship passengers, international travelers, conference attendees, stock market investors. Its even capable of affecting old white men who spend a lot of time in a dense places like D.C. Those are realities Trump has a much harder time denying. And its impact is expanding over time, rather than taking place in one fell swoopand across two planes, one medical, one economic. Trump can propose an insufficient payroll tax break and say that reports of fear and uncertainty are fake news, but the alarms being raised by cities and schools and businesses show that few are buying what hes selling. Americans are facing drastic disruptions to their lives. Every day that this continues, Trump will wake up facing an ever-widening choice between the facts on the ground and the story he prefers to tell. We know which one hell choose. In the meantime, Americans are responding to this crisis as best they canby operating on the assumption that what the president says isnt true.

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Why Donald Trump Cant Just Tweet Through the Coronavirus - Slate

In the two months since Covid-19 was first diagnosed in China, the Trump administrations response has been incompetent, short-sighted, and disastrous, and it may have increased the number of lives lost and the scale of the economic disruption caused by the disease.

Trump has, from the beginning of this crisis, consistently sought to minimize the impact of the coronavirus by not preparing for it.

His administration initially failed to set up a program for mass testing and allowed infected Americans to fly home on a commercial flight, which almost certainly caused more Americans to contract the virus. When his health officials suggested telling the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, lung disease, and diabetes, to avoid air travel, Trump overruled them. He even suggested that he wanted passengers stuck on a cruise ship to remain offshore because if they stepped foot on American soil it would increase the number of Americans stricken by the coronavirus and thus make him look bad. Going back further Trump, two years ago, closed down the office on the National Security Council tasked to deal with potential pandemics leaving the nation woefully unprepared for exactly the scenario unfolding right now.

Most disturbing, however, have been his public statements that have misstated the threat from the coronavirus and played down its potential impact on public health.

Trump has claimed that the virus is contained (its not). He said that the number of cases in the United States was going to be down to close to zero (they werent). He suggested that warm weather would wipe out the virus, even though its unknown at this point. In fact in Australia, where its summer, there are 100 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and three deaths as of Tuesday. Trump also claimed that anyone who wants a coronavirus test can get one (they cant). He even said that he is such an expert on the coronavirus that every one of these doctors said, how do you know so much about this? Maybe I have a natural ability."

Trumps rationale for saying things manifestly untrue is born of an apparent belief that he can prevent economic disruption and in particular a market sell-off by convincing Americans that the coronavirus is no big deal. This decision has, to put it mildly, backfired. If anything, Trump has made the economic downturn that is probably coming exponentially worse. Yet, the president doesnt see things that way.

According to NBC News, Trump has been advised by some close to him to let public health officials, rather than the politicians, take a more forward-facing role, according to a person familiar with the conversation. But a person close to the White House said Trump thinks it helps him politically to keep doing what he has been doing.

Spoiler alert it doesnt.

Indeed, with the stock market in free fall and businesses and consumers facing the possibility of serious economic disruption, Trumps chances of reelection may have taken an insurmountable hit.

Trump has been a historically unpopular president whose ability to keep his head above political water is a direct result of an extraordinarily strong economy. Without low unemployment and strong economic growth rate, Trump would probably be far more unpopular and this is a hypothesis that will be tested in the weeks to come. But for Trump to not take a political hit for a potentially severe economic disruption would be unprecedented.

Thats not even taking into account the possibility that many Americans blame Trump for the botched response to the coronavirus. There may be enough true Trump believers out there that the presidents numbers wont completely crater, but even a loss of support from a small segment of the electorate could be enough to doom his chances of a second term.

What is truly remarkable, however, is that this is even in question. The presidents response to the coronavirus is unmatched evidence of how woefully unprepared he is to deal with a major crisis. Trump is unable to look past his own ego to consider what is best for the American people. He ignores evidence, spreads lies, and makes clearly self-interested and heartless arguments. Last weekend, in the midst of a growing crisis, he was playing golf. His actions to date have undercut the US response to the pandemic and may have done direct economic and personal harm to Americans. How could he not pay a political price for the mess hes created?

After three years of watching Trumps poll numbers remain steady even in the face of unspeakable incompetence, cruelty, and mismanagement, I no longer make any assumptions about public opinion. But at some point there needs to be a reckoning for Trump. If he is not held responsible by Americans for his coronavirus failures, if they cannot see how completely over his head he is and that means even his supporters then we have more problems than just an emerging pandemic.

Have a point of view about this? Write a letter to the editor; well publish a select few. (Were experimenting with alternatives to the comment section for creating online conversation at Globe Opinion over the next month; you can let us know what you think of our experiments here.)

Michael A. Cohens column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him on Twitter @speechboy71.

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Will the coronavirus topple Donald Trump? - The Boston Globe