If Donald Trump thought that restarting his daily coronavirus briefings was going to provide him a boost to his faltering re-election bid that could make up for his inability to gather large crowds of his supporters together for the massive COVID infection parties like his June Tulsa rally, he may need to start reconsidering that strategy.
Trump entered the briefing room over half an hour later than its scheduled start time, dragging one of his legs like a semi-functional appendage and with the energy level of a garden slug after a big meal.
Once he began speaking, his drone-like speaking cadence — as he mostly read from prepared remarks — obviated any need for pharmaceutical soporifics.
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Even sticking to the pre-scripted comments, Trump managed to adlib a conspiracy theory as he began his briefing with condolences to Lebanon after the massive explosion that took place today on Beirut, calling the explosion an “attack” despite no conclusive evidence of the cause of the explosion so soon after it occurred.
Trump begins by sending "America's deepest sympathies to the people of Lebanon, where reports indicate that many, many people were killed."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020
Trump didn't seem confident in calling the explosion an "attack." It seemed like an ad-lib he added at the end of his prepared remarks, and he said it kind of haltingly.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020
Trump was forced to clarify his characterization of the explosion when an astute reporter asked him the basis for his claim of sabotage as the basis for the explosion.
The President says he met with the generals and they “seem to think” what happened in Lebanon was an attack. pic.twitter.com/7CxywTB7iu
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) August 4, 2020
Add your name to demand Congress reject Trump’s dictatorial call to delay the election!
CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale added another plausible explanation for the president’s explanation of his theory.
I can’t emphasize this enough. Trump usually prefers to make things up to cover an error rather than admitting he misspoke. He could prove correct here, but extreme caution required. https://t.co/8rKTwEj5BA
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020
Trump moved on to reciting a number of economic developments meant to convince Americans that despite their own personal financial misfortunes, large mega-corporations were doing just fine, so the economy is roaring despite what your own eyes and ears may tell you.
Eventually, he got around to discussing the ostensible topic of the briefing: the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Unsurprisingly, his comments consisted of the usual false claims about the robustness of his administration’s response and twisting of the publicly available statistics.
Trump on the virus: "We're seeing indications that our strong mitigation efforts are working. Very well, actually." He adds, "The numbers are getting very good."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020
The same song as always. "We're putting out embers. We're putting out flames."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020
CNN‘s Dale conveniently posted evidence to the contrary of Trump’s pollyanna-ish assertions.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020
Once Trump went off script during the Q & A portion of the briefing, he just dug himself a deeper hole.
Trump explains that the US coronavirus numbers are actually good — if you take out the hardest hit states pic.twitter.com/qy7wm1c1fD
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 4, 2020
Yes, if you ignore the places where people actually live, we’re doing just fine! Or as Daniel Dale puts it:
Trump says that a lot of the bad US numbers were because NY and NJ had a bad time, and "when you take them out," "our numbers are among the lowest."
So aside from all the American deaths, there have been fewer American deaths.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020
Trump’s comments on what many people see as inadequate testing for the coronavirus in this country were equally duplicitous, and his verbal gaffe in referring to TikTok with the name of a breath mint inspired a few chuckles.
"I've spoken to the leaders of the world, and they'll ask me about it. No country thought it's even believable that we're able to test so much … they can't believe we're able to do it" — well, i'm convinced! pic.twitter.com/bOlRZwUUG4
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 4, 2020
Naturally, the president’s tweet from earlier in the day encouraging Floridians to vote by mail was bound to come up in the questions from the White House correspondents.
How those reporters managed to suppress guffaws when Trump called the home of the infamous “Florida man” “very well-run” was quite impressive anyway.
"I think you have to do that election over" — Trump makes completely unfounded allegations that fraud took place in a New York Democratic primary, then ends the news conference pic.twitter.com/bFSGeCS1cQ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 4, 2020
Trump may have rushed out of the briefing to avoid further questioning — amazingly no one had the chance to ask him about the disastrous Axios interview that premiered last night — but luckily CNN’s fact-checker was on the case to provide the antidote to the president’s self-serving lies.
Contrary to Trump’s claims, there’s no evidence of voter fraud, let alone mass voter fraud, in the NY Dem primaries that remain uncalled. The counting has been slow because of quantity of ballots and administrative/tech/staffing problems.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020
All in all, it was another waste of time for both Trump and anyone who bothered watching the briefing.
Nothing he said will be believed by anyone except his loyal base who are seemingly impervious to reality.
Trump seems worn down and tired. He should quit the charade that he even has a chance of winning the election without massive fraud at this point and resign immediately.
The whole nation will breathe a sigh of relief…at least if their lungs aren’t already filed with coronavirus.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
Original reporting by Daniel Dale at CNN and By Aaron Rupar at Vox.
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