February 28
On This Day In 2020
As the novel coronavirus was starting to draw the attention of Americans, Trump’s Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told our citizens to…ignore it. “I’m like, ‘Really what I might do today [to] calm the markets is tell people turn their televisions off for 24 hours.’”
OTDI 2020, a mere two weeks before the country went into lockdown, Mulvaney framed the coronavirus as just a plot to hurt Trump: “The reason you’re seeing so much attention to [the coronavirus] today is that [the press] think[s] this is going to be what brings down the president. That’s what this is all about.”
Trump had his own theories, as reported by Politico: “‘The Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus.’” he said. ‘They don’t have any clue…One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia.’ That did not work out too well. They could not do it. They tried the impeachment hoax.’ Then Trump called the coronavirus (hype) ‘their new hoax.’”
Too little, too late: As we’ll see in the July 13th OTDI, Mulvaney later admitted the Administration’s response was “inexcusable.”
Sources/Links for further reading
CNBC has the quotes
And Politico tells more
Summary: Trump Administration tells us to ignore coronavirus