Trump claims he lacked early intelligence in COVID-19 crisis in afternoon tweets
After a morning tweetstorm that thoroughly drenched social media and left a putrid, rotting smell in its wake, no one was prepared for a second deluge of equally torrential posts from Donald Trump this Sunday afternoon.
Despite over three years filled with the president’s thankfully unique form of direct communication with his eagerly gullible followers — pre-brainwashed for his convenience by right-wing media outlets in a symbiotic relationship with the White House — the outlandish claims and outright lies that Trump peddles in his Twitter posts still have the ability to astonish and outrage those who haven’t fallen victim to the pull of his deranged cult.
Picking up where he left off in the morning, the president gave a second shout out to the upscale “boaters” who wrapped their vessel with a Trump campaign ad to own the neighboring “libtards” as those affluent, conservative white folks like to call us.
Thank you very much to our beautiful “boaters.” I will never let you down! pic.twitter.com/Ot5Ffnjj9G
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2020
Trump will never let them down unless they are looking for COVID-19 tests, in which case he’s likely to refer them to their state’s governor, having washed his hands of any further federal responsibility in that arena.
The president’s constant attempts to rewrite history to his own benefit to cover up any criticism of his past actions — or, in the case of the coronavirus pandemic, his past inactions — was the entire point of his next tweet.
….Fake News got it wrong again, as always, and tens of thousands of lives were saved by my EARLY BAN of China into our Country. The people that we’re allowed were heavily scrutinized and tested U.S. citizens, and as such, I welcome them with open arms!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2020
Now that Trump has installed his own personal vassals into leadership positions in the U.S. intelligence community, it’s uncertain if what he is claiming that “Intelligence” has reported to him is true, despite prior insider leaks indicating that warnings about a possible pandemic were included in briefings as early as November and that Trump simply ignored them.
Trump’s already limited credibility is strained in this instance by his insistence that the U.S. citizens who were repatriated were ” heavily scrutinized and tested” at a time when hardly any reliable tests were available in this country due to the rejection of proffered tests from the World Health Organization and reliance on CDC-developed tests that later proved to be contaminated and inaccurate.
Trump is both dismissive of printed intelligence briefings and reportedly not very engaged with the oral reports he substitutes. Moreover, it takes a brave intelligence aide to bring the president news that he does not want to hear, so it’s likely this latest story is as fictional as Trump’s skills as a businessman.
One would think that after the Mueller report came and went without consequence for the president — and after he survived impeachment on his Ukraine quid pro quo thanks to a compliant Republican Senate majority — that Trump would let the Russian interference to benefit his 2016 election simply fade into memory.
If only! Instead, he retweets false accusations pulled from right-wing conspiracy web sites that link Obama to the supposed “Russian Hoax.”
Evidence has surfaced that indicates Barack Obama was the one running the Russian hoax. https://t.co/XeXFlWzupV
— David J Harris Jr (@DavidJHarrisJr) May 3, 2020
If the fact that the intelligence agencies conducting the investigation into Russian hacking ultimately reported into the executive branch then headed by Obama means that he was running the “Russian Hoax,” then Trump can’t rightfully say that he hasn’t been running— and doesn’t accept any responsibility for the prima facie failure that is the federal government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as his previous tweets and public statements have suggested.
Trump apparently puts greater credence in the rantings of obscure right-wing bloggers like David J. Harris Jr. than in the investigative teams of the “Fake News” media, since he proceeded to retweet three more of his posts including one with a specific reference to a moronic Q-Anon meme.
Adam Schiff hides important transcripts from the American people.https://t.co/esyYLfC5qP
— David J Harris Jr (@DavidJHarrisJr) May 3, 2020
A storm is coming…https://t.co/Ob06DTMKrc
— David J Harris Jr (@DavidJHarrisJr) May 3, 2020
States will have to give up sanctuary policies to receive a bailout, says Trump.https://t.co/UrpeprR281
— David J Harris Jr (@DavidJHarrisJr) May 3, 2020
One hesitates to even show these tweets in this article for fear of spreading such obvious — uhhm, let’s say claptrap to be polite — to any readers who might be accidentally infected with this lunatic ideology, but it’s best to be aware of what way too many of Trump’s followers are reading and taking seriously.
Perhaps the most unintentionally funny of the president’s late Sunday tweets was his last of the day so far.
Thank you Ryan. Working hard! https://t.co/ZnYgTI3Qux
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2020
Trump is such a sucker for retweeting unmitigated praise of himself, no matter how revolting its overwhelmingly saccharine wrongheadedness may be to anyone but his own admirers, that he fails to recognize the implicit contradiction in his reply of “Working hard!” after spending an entire day reading and tweeting on social media.
Hardly working is more like it.
America deserves so much better, at least those who don’t subscribe to this president’s shrinking cult, likely to soon be decimated further by the ravages of COVID-19.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
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