democracynow--2020-04-13--What Trump Knew & When He Knew It: NYT on How Trump Ignored COVID-19 Warnings Until It Was Too Late

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The Quarantine Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman .
As the United States surpasses the death toll of any country in the world with more than 22,000 COVID-19 deaths , we begin today ’ s show looking at what led us to this point .
In a minute , we ’ ll be joined by the lead author of an explosive exposé in The New York Times headlined “ He Could Have Seen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Failure on the Virus.
” But first we go to this video , which is called “ Trump ’ s Coronavirus Calendar.
” It was produced by The Recount , capturing the months of downplaying and denial before Trump pivoted to coronavirus crisis mode .
It starts on January 22nd .
AMY GOODMAN : That montage of President Trump was produced by The Recount .
This is how The New York Times began its investigation into Trump ’ s failure to respond to the threat of the coronavirus : quote , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this is going to be bad , ’ a senior medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs , Dr. Carter Mecher , wrote on the night of Jan. 28 , in an email to a group of public health experts scattered around the government and universities .
[ He goes on , ] 'The projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe [ unquote ] . '
“ A week after the first coronavirus case had been identified in the United States , and six long weeks before President Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ danger the nation was facing — a pandemic that is now forecast to take tens of thousands of American lives — Dr. Mecher was urging the upper ranks of the nation ’ s public health bureaucracy to wake up and prepare for the possibility of far more drastic action .
“ [ quote ] 'You guys made fun of me screaming to close the schools , ' he wrote to the group , which called itself 'Red Dawn , ' an inside joke based on the 1984 movie about a band of Americans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ foreign invasion .
[ Mecher goes on , ] 'Now I 'm screaming , close the colleges and universities [ unquote ] .
’ “ His was hardly a lone voice .
Throughout January , as Mr. Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and focused on other issues , an array of figures inside his government — from top White House advisers to experts deep in the cabinet departments and intelligence agencies — identified the threat , sounded alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action.
” Those are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exposé in The New York Times .
For more on how Trump was slow to absorb the scale of the risk and to act accordingly , we ’ re joined by the lead author of that exposé , Eric Lipton , Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist , investigative reporter for The New York Times .
Together with a number of other Times reporters , he wrote this in-depth piece , headlined “ He Could Have Seen What Was Coming : Behind Trump ’ s Failure on the Virus.
” His follow-up piece , “ The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Exchanges on the Faltering Response to the Coronavirus.
” Eric Lipton , welcome back to Democracy Now !
It ’ s great to have you with us .
So , take us back to that time , and then we ’ ll talk about why this is so significant today , I mean , reflected in the fact that as we speak today , the U.S. has surpassed any country ’ s death toll in the world .
Take us back to those warnings , those first early warnings that scientists and members @ @ @ @ @ @ @ LIPTON : Actually , I think you need to go back way before January of 2020 , and you go back to — way back to 2006 , believe it or not , and you go back to the Bush administration , when it was during the Bush administration , of George W. Bush , that there were key advisers to President Bush who realized that it was only a matter of time before a significant infectious disease came to the United States , like it happened , you know , shortly after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going to cause widespread illnesses and deaths , and that the United States was not properly prepared for it .
And so , it was in 2006 that the United States designed a comprehensive pandemic plan , which has two essential stages , and the stages are containment and mitigation .
And the first stage is containment , in which you attempt to — essentially , like the word sounds , you attempt to contain the infection and prevent it from spreading .
And you do that by preventing people who are ill @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it , you know , or if someone is ill , you do what ’ s called contact tracing , in which you identify anyone that ’ s had contact with that individual , and you isolate them until they become better , so that you — just like happened in China after the number of cases began to explode .
So that ’ s containment .
But at a certain point , it becomes — there ’ s community spread .
And once you have community spread , then you need to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take steps to — there is no vaccine .
And it ’ s called — actually , another term for mitigation is nonpharmaceutical interventions — NPIs , they call it .
And the biggest issue here was , on day one , in January of 2020 , Carter Mecher , who is a physician , a doctor that works at the Veterans Administration , was already — when he ’ s talking about closing colleges and universities , he ’ s talking about NPIs , these nonpharmaceutical interventions , or mitigation .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going to be necessary .
And that ’ s the most important thing that we have to look back on in the United States right now , is that : When did they move from containment to mitigation , and did they move soon enough ?
And the answer is , they did not move soon enough to mitigation .
And the result is that more people are dying , and there are more illnesses , than would have been necessary if they had shifted to mitigation sooner .
And that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in January of 2020 , was we need to be prepared to move to mitigation as soon as there is sufficient evidence that community spread has started .
And if you want to understand the biggest failure that is consequential in the United States , it was the slowness with which we moved to mitigation .
AMY GOODMAN : So , let ’ s go to the so-called Red Dawn string of emails , in which infectious disease specialists shared their concerns about the coronavirus very early on .
Actually , this one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Presidents Bush and Obama , infectious disease specialist James Lawler — I think he was at the University of Nebraska — wrote , quote , ” CDC is really missing the mark here .
By the time you have substantial … transmission , it is too late .
It ’ s like ignoring the smoke detector and waiting ” for your whole house to be on fire before you call the fire department .
If you can comment ?
And go back even further , because his own people , Trump ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like Azar , were warning , sounding the alarms in January .
In fact , intelligence agencies were saying a pandemic is about to explode on the global scene .
ERIC LIPTON : Right .
Well , again , it ’ s like , the thing about mitigation , or nonpharmaceutical interventions , is it ’ s a very simplistic — you know , it ’ s like you would think we ’ re such a — we ’ re so modern , we ’ re so advanced in our science , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like closing of schools and businesses and social distancing , which seems so crude , because you would think there would be some treatment or some scientific method .
But unfortunately , the reality is , with viruses which the population has no resistance to and that there ’ s no treatment for , going back to the Plague , there really is no solution other than forced-upon isolation .
And so , again , when Dr. James Lawler from University of Nebraska , who was on the National Security Council during the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ participated in the drafting of that 2006 pandemic plan and then became an adviser to President Obama on pandemic preparations — what he , again , was upset about with the CDC was when the CDC , in March , said that it questioned the effectiveness of shutting down schools in the United States .
That made these pandemic experts so frustrated and so angry , because , again , the fire alarm was going off .
They have a very scientific method , these pandemic infectious disease doctors , where they have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when the first death occurs .
From the date that the first death occurs , you have a certain amount of time to institute mitigation , nonpharmaceutical interventions .
If you don ’ t do that in that small window , the number of deaths that are going to occur — and basically it ’ s an equation .
You can show how many deaths will happen if you don ’ t pull the switch on mitigation by a certain date .
And they knew what that date was .
Now , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to do national mitigation all at once .
You didn ’ t .
You need to do it by hot spot .
When you had the first death in a community or certain number of infectious cases , then you needed to say , “ Boom !
Time to institute NPIs , social distancing.
” And the problem is that the — what these doctors told me when I interviewed them is that the governors , who really have the power to do that , the governors are — you know , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get out in front when there ’ s one death in a state the size of Washington state or Oregon or California , when there ’ s a single death or a handful of infections .
It ’ s very hard for the governor to tell the citizens of his or her state that we need to shut down the economy on our own .
It needs a federal official to come out and say this must happen .
You know , now , they don ’ t actually have the power to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ surgeon general or the head of the CDC — but they have kind of the platform to call for such a step .
And that ’ s what had to happen .
And that ’ s what HHS , the Health and Human Services , wanted the president to do in February .
And the president was not willing to do that , and so it sat for several weeks .
And then it was up to the governors , one at a time , to make the move .
And some of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and did it early .
New York did it later , because they didn ’ t have the federal guidance and kind of backing to say , “ Now move .
Do it.
” AMY GOODMAN : When you look at the numbers — the U.S. said it had its first coronavirus case around the same time as South Korea .
Now the U.S. has 50 times more cases , hundred times the fatalities .
Look at the population of the U.S. and the world : 4.25 % of the world ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than 5 % of the world ’ s population — 30 % of the confirmed cases and 20 % of the deaths in the world .
So let ’ s go back to those Red Dawn email chain that you ’ ve exposed .
In an email at the end of January , Dr. James Lawler , the infectious disease doc , wrote , quote , “ Great Understatements in History : Napoleon ’ s retreat from Moscow — 'just a little scroll gone bad ' Pompeii — ' a bit of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bad summer heatwave ' AND Wuhan — 'just a bad flu season . '
” So these docs were sounding the alarm , but so were President Trump ’ s most trusted advisers .
Talk about what Azar had to say , head of Health and Human Services .
Talk about what Navarro was saying , saying that this was going to be serious .
And talk about who was countering them .
It ’ s not that President Trump didn ’ t know .
I mean , he no longer had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Security Council , which would have been sounding the alarm .
He had that disbanded back in 2018 .
But he also had countering forces , like Mnuchin , deeply concerned about the economy and shutting anything down , in fact canceling a doctors ’ meeting , you write about , when one of the doctors said , you know , “ We have to do something about this.
” ERIC LIPTON : I think that what the context that this happened is it ’ s the impeachment in January in the Senate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thing is just getting underway in terms of its first infections coming to the United States .
And not only that , but it ’ s now an election year in January 2020 , and the president is really focused on his reelection , and the single , by far , theme that is going to define his reelection campaign is “ Look at the stock market .
Look at the incredible rise , the record stock market numbers .
Look at the economic growth in the United States.
” And also , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ midst of finalizing negotiations with China on what they called Phase 1 , that was going to try to remove — he was going to try to remove some of the tariffs in the trade war that was going on .
That was going to be signed on January 15th , and so , you know — and the ability to reach an agreement with China was central to the stock markets continuing to rise and economic growth recovering , and the farmers being happy because soybeans would be bought by China again @ @ @ @ @ @ @ balance for Trump .
So , if he was seriously considering taking steps to shut down businesses , schools , and force social distancing by urging governors to take such steps , he was going to essentially be undermining the economy that was going to be the central theme of his campaign .
And that was the last thing that he wanted to do .
But what he didn ’ t realize is that if they allow this infection to bloom in the United States , and then potentially hundreds of thousands of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mitigation , that the economy would have been shut down by the force of the virus itself in an even more devastating way , because the number of deaths would have been in the hundreds of thousands .
And it goes back to the fact that this is an administration that you had an acting chief of staff for over a year who had very little clout across the White House .
You had lots of turnover among the top people in the various agencies , acting head of homeland security , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ national security advisers .
And you had lots of infighting among these different advisers .
You had a secretary of health and human services , Azar , who was not respected by the president , whose voice did not carry much weight in the White House .
You had Peter Navarro , who was — ERIC LIPTON : Yes .
You had Peter Navarro , who was a trade adviser , who was one of the earliest voices of concern .
People said , “ Oh , it ’ s crazy .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t want to listen to him in the White House.
” And so — and then you have a lacking functional process of policymaking , in which the chief of staff is supposed to be the person that considers all these debates and then brings to the president his recommendation , but then Mulvaney , since he had his comments late last year in October that , oh , it was a quid pro quo , was so on the outs that no one was really listening to him , and was about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which ultimately he was , in the middle of this .
So you had a dysfunctional White House that was unable to make the right policy choice and bring it to the president , and then a president who was so fixated on his reelection that he wasn ’ t in a position to listen to people who were warning that this was a pandemic of historic proportions that was coming at us and that we had a small window of an opportunity to act decisively to limit the number of deaths .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in late February , when all of his advisers , all of his medical advisers , from Health and Human Services , CDC , from the Veterans Affairs , had concluded that the United States needed to announce that it was time to shift to mitigation and social distancing , that the moment had come when it was up to the president to endorse this — and that ’ s when he got angry , when someone from the CDC said that was something that was going to have to happen .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by several weeks .
Those several weeks were the difference between — there are many people that will have died because of that delay , particularly in New York state , of mitigation .
AMY GOODMAN : I wanted to go to — I mean , you have — Navarro had also recommended the ban on China .
And when you talk about travel ban , President Trump ’ s ears perk up .
So he did do the travel ban on China , but it was , to say the least , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would do Europe .
But at the same time , every time he says , “ Look , I did that early , ” since he understood the significance of what was taking place early — that was the beginning of what ?
February .
Is that right ?
If he had started ramping up the testing and the supply chain to ensure that there were PPEs — right ?
— the personal protective equipment , that doctors and nurses and the janitors in hospitals so severely lack right now , if it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — they didn ’ t even close the country there .
But here , this has led to this absolute catastrophe .
The most significant part of it is the massive loss of life .
ERIC LIPTON : Well , I mean , a couple of points you make there .
The first was about the , again , two phases here : containment and mitigation .
So , relative to the containment phase , the president , in late January , announces the limitation on flights in China .
But , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problematic implementation , in quite a number of ways .
And perhaps among them is that there were approximately 400,000 people that came to the United States from China , as my colleague Steve Eder reported recently , that — from the time that we know that the virus was spreading in China to most recently .
And 45,000 of them , approximately , came in the period after the president limited flights .
And the problem was that it was not really a — in the world today , it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people entirely .
And you can ’ t ban American citizens from coming back to the United States .
And so American citizens and naturalized citizens were coming into the United States , tens of thousands of them , even after he adopted this limitation .
And they weren ’ t , actually , in many cases , doing sufficient testing of those people or requiring isolation of those people for two weeks to ensure that they weren ’ t infected .
So , if you were really going to do a , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you needed to have mandatory quarantines , unfortunately , which is a civil liberties issue .
You needed to have mandatory quarantines for those people , and you needed to have sufficient testing to make sure that they were not actually bringing the virus in .
Neither of those happened .
Those people were bringing in many cases of infections .
And so , the first stage , containment , containment was a failure .
OK ?
So , the second stage , then , even during containment , you needed to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that it ’ s going to spread anyway .
The question is : How much will you have ?
So , during containment , you need to be ramping up all of your preparations , you know , Plan B .
You need to have the PPEs .
You need to have the ventilators .
You need to have the hospitals .
You need to have the hospital personnel .
But what we learned was that it was — I was working on a story with my colleague Zolan , who covers the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ York Times , and Department of Homeland Security .
It was March 17th , and we asked the Army Corps of Engineers , “ Have you been given any assignments yet to help the United States respond to the pandemic ?
” And at that point , you know , New York City had had — ERIC LIPTON : Oh , OK .
The Army Corps of Engineers had not been given an assignment as of March 17th , which was extraordinary .
So they had not shifted to Plan B until way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I want to thank you so much for being with us and and end with Dr. Fauci .
On Sunday , CNN ’ s Jake Tapper questioned Dr. Anthony Fauci about your New York Times piece .
AMY GOODMAN : So , that was Dr. Anthony Fauci speaking yesterday on Jake Tapper ’ s show on CNN .
In response , President Trump retweeted a tweet that ended with “ fire Fauci.
” Eric Lipton , I want to thank you so much for being with us , Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
When we come back , we go to Detroit , the site of the first major U.S. study into whether or not the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine could help prevent the spread of coronavirus , this coming after weeks of President Trump promoting the drug despite warnings from medical experts .
And this latest breaking news : George Stephanopoulos of ABC News has just tested positive for the coronavirus .
Stay with us .
AMY GOODMAN : “ Amazing Grace , ” sung by Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli as he stood on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ final song in a concert called “ Music for Hope , ” the cathedral in the region of Italy that ’ s been hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman. As the United States surpasses the death toll of any country in the world with more than 22,000 COVID-19 deaths, we begin today’s show looking at what led us to this point. In a minute, we’ll be joined by the lead author of an explosive exposé in The New York Times headlined “He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus.” But first we go to this video, which is called “Trump’s Coronavirus Calendar.” It was produced by The Recount, capturing the months of downplaying and denial before Trump pivoted to coronavirus crisis mode. It starts on January 22nd.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. … We think we have it very well under control. …
We pretty much shut it down, coming in from China. … You know, in April, supposedly it dies, with the hotter weather. … When it gets warm, historically, that has been able to kill the virus. … The people are getting better. They’re all getting better. … And the 15, within a couple of days, is going to be down to close to zero. … It’s going to disappear one day. It’s like a miracle. It will disappear. … And you’ll be fine. …
Now, they’re going to have vaccines, I think, relatively soon. … Not only the vaccines, but the therapies. Therapies is sort of another word for cure. … We’re talking about very small numbers in the United States. … Our numbers are lower than just about anybody. … It’s really working out, and a lot of good things are going to happen. … And we are responding with great speed and professionalism. … It’s going to go away. … Yeah, no, I don’t take responsibility at all. … We’re going to all be great. We’re going to be so good. …
This came up. It — we came up so suddenly. … This is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. All you had to do was look at other countries. …
The coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. This is their new hoax. We have 15 people in this massive country. And because of the fact that we went early — we went early. We could have had a lot more than that. We’re doing great. Our country is doing so great.
AMY GOODMAN: That montage of President Trump was produced by The Recount.
This is how The New York Times began its investigation into Trump’s failure to respond to the threat of the coronavirus: quote, “’Any way you cut it, this is going to be bad,’ a senior medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Carter Mecher, wrote on the night of Jan. 28, in an email to a group of public health experts scattered around the government and universities. [He goes on,] 'The projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe [unquote].'
“A week after the first coronavirus case had been identified in the United States, and six long weeks before President Trump finally took aggressive action to confront the danger the nation was facing — a pandemic that is now forecast to take tens of thousands of American lives — Dr. Mecher was urging the upper ranks of the nation’s public health bureaucracy to wake up and prepare for the possibility of far more drastic action.
“[quote] 'You guys made fun of me screaming to close the schools,' he wrote to the group, which called itself 'Red Dawn,' an inside joke based on the 1984 movie about a band of Americans trying to save the country after a foreign invasion. [Mecher goes on,] 'Now I'm screaming, close the colleges and universities [unquote].’
“His was hardly a lone voice. Throughout January, as Mr. Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and focused on other issues, an array of figures inside his government — from top White House advisers to experts deep in the cabinet departments and intelligence agencies — identified the threat, sounded alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action.”
Those are the first few paragraphs of this remarkable exposé in The New York Times.
For more on how Trump was slow to absorb the scale of the risk and to act accordingly, we’re joined by the lead author of that exposé, Eric Lipton, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, investigative reporter for The New York Times. Together with a number of other Times reporters, he wrote this in-depth piece, headlined “He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus.” His follow-up piece, “The 'Red Dawn' Emails: 8 Key Exchanges on the Faltering Response to the Coronavirus.”
Eric Lipton, welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. So, take us back to that time, and then we’ll talk about why this is so significant today, I mean, reflected in the fact that as we speak today, the U.S. has surpassed any country’s death toll in the world. Take us back to those warnings, those first early warnings that scientists and members of his government were issuing.
ERIC LIPTON: Actually, I think you need to go back way before January of 2020, and you go back to — way back to 2006, believe it or not, and you go back to the Bush administration, when it was during the Bush administration, of George W. Bush, that there were key advisers to President Bush who realized that it was only a matter of time before a significant infectious disease came to the United States, like it happened, you know, shortly after World War I, and it was going to cause widespread illnesses and deaths, and that the United States was not properly prepared for it. And so, it was in 2006 that the United States designed a comprehensive pandemic plan, which has two essential stages, and the stages are containment and mitigation.
And the first stage is containment, in which you attempt to — essentially, like the word sounds, you attempt to contain the infection and prevent it from spreading. And you do that by preventing people who are ill from coming to the United States with it, you know, or if someone is ill, you do what’s called contact tracing, in which you identify anyone that’s had contact with that individual, and you isolate them until they become better, so that you — just like happened in China after the number of cases began to explode. So that’s containment.
But at a certain point, it becomes — there’s community spread. And once you have community spread, then you need to switch to mitigation, in which you take steps to — there is no vaccine. And it’s called — actually, another term for mitigation is nonpharmaceutical interventions — NPIs, they call it. And the biggest issue here was, on day one, in January of 2020, Carter Mecher, who is a physician, a doctor that works at the Veterans Administration, was already — when he’s talking about closing colleges and universities, he’s talking about NPIs, these nonpharmaceutical interventions, or mitigation. He’s already anticipating that this is going to be necessary.
And that’s the most important thing that we have to look back on in the United States right now, is that: When did they move from containment to mitigation, and did they move soon enough? And the answer is, they did not move soon enough to mitigation. And the result is that more people are dying, and there are more illnesses, than would have been necessary if they had shifted to mitigation sooner. And that’s the point that Dr. Mecher was making in January of 2020, was we need to be prepared to move to mitigation as soon as there is sufficient evidence that community spread has started. And if you want to understand the biggest failure that is consequential in the United States, it was the slowness with which we moved to mitigation.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s go to the so-called Red Dawn string of emails, in which infectious disease specialists shared their concerns about the coronavirus very early on. Actually, this one was March 13th. The former adviser to Presidents Bush and Obama, infectious disease specialist James Lawler — I think he was at the University of Nebraska — wrote, quote, ”CDC is really missing the mark here. By the time you have substantial … transmission, it is too late. It’s like ignoring the smoke detector and waiting” for your whole house to be on fire before you call the fire department. If you can comment? And go back even further, because his own people, Trump’s own people, like Navarro, like Azar, were warning, sounding the alarms in January. In fact, intelligence agencies were saying a pandemic is about to explode on the global scene.
ERIC LIPTON: Right. Well, again, it’s like, the thing about mitigation, or nonpharmaceutical interventions, is it’s a very simplistic — you know, it’s like you would think we’re such a — we’re so modern, we’re so advanced in our science, that we would have to resort to things like closing of schools and businesses and social distancing, which seems so crude, because you would think there would be some treatment or some scientific method. But unfortunately, the reality is, with viruses which the population has no resistance to and that there’s no treatment for, going back to the Plague, there really is no solution other than forced-upon isolation.
And so, again, when Dr. James Lawler from University of Nebraska, who was on the National Security Council during the Bush administration, as well, and participated in the drafting of that 2006 pandemic plan and then became an adviser to President Obama on pandemic preparations — what he, again, was upset about with the CDC was when the CDC, in March, said that it questioned the effectiveness of shutting down schools in the United States. That made these pandemic experts so frustrated and so angry, because, again, the fire alarm was going off.
They have a very scientific method, these pandemic infectious disease doctors, where they have — there’s like a moment when the first death occurs. From the date that the first death occurs, you have a certain amount of time to institute mitigation, nonpharmaceutical interventions. If you don’t do that in that small window, the number of deaths that are going to occur — and basically it’s an equation. You can show how many deaths will happen if you don’t pull the switch on mitigation by a certain date. And they knew what that date was.
Now, it’s not as if you needed to do national mitigation all at once. You didn’t. You need to do it by hot spot. When you had the first death in a community or certain number of infectious cases, then you needed to say, “Boom! Time to institute NPIs, social distancing.”
And the problem is that the — what these doctors told me when I interviewed them is that the governors, who really have the power to do that, the governors are — you know, it’s hard for a governor to get out in front when there’s one death in a state the size of Washington state or Oregon or California, when there’s a single death or a handful of infections. It’s very hard for the governor to tell the citizens of his or her state that we need to shut down the economy on our own. It needs a federal official to come out and say this must happen. You know, now, they don’t actually have the power to do that — the president or the surgeon general or the head of the CDC — but they have kind of the platform to call for such a step. And that’s what had to happen.
And that’s what HHS, the Health and Human Services, wanted the president to do in February. And the president was not willing to do that, and so it sat for several weeks. And then it was up to the governors, one at a time, to make the move. And some of them did it early, like California, and did it early. New York did it later, because they didn’t have the federal guidance and kind of backing to say, “Now move. Do it.”
AMY GOODMAN: When you look at the numbers — the U.S. said it had its first coronavirus case around the same time as South Korea. Now the U.S. has 50 times more cases, hundred times the fatalities. Look at the population of the U.S. and the world: 4.25% of the world’s population — that’s less than 5% of the world’s population — 30% of the confirmed cases and 20% of the deaths in the world.
So let’s go back to those Red Dawn email chain that you’ve exposed. In an email at the end of January, Dr. James Lawler, the infectious disease doc, wrote, quote, “Great Understatements in History: Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow — 'just a little scroll gone bad' Pompeii — 'a bit of a dust storm' — Hiroshima — 'a bad summer heatwave' AND Wuhan — 'just a bad flu season.'”
So these docs were sounding the alarm, but so were President Trump’s most trusted advisers. Talk about what Azar had to say, head of Health and Human Services. Talk about what Navarro was saying, saying that this was going to be serious. And talk about who was countering them. It’s not that President Trump didn’t know. I mean, he no longer had his pandemic task force within the National Security Council, which would have been sounding the alarm. He had that disbanded back in 2018. But he also had countering forces, like Mnuchin, deeply concerned about the economy and shutting anything down, in fact canceling a doctors’ meeting, you write about, when one of the doctors said, you know, “We have to do something about this.”
ERIC LIPTON: I think that what the context that this happened is it’s the impeachment in January in the Senate is going on, and as this thing is just getting underway in terms of its first infections coming to the United States. And not only that, but it’s now an election year in January 2020, and the president is really focused on his reelection, and the single, by far, theme that is going to define his reelection campaign is “Look at the stock market. Look at the incredible rise, the record stock market numbers. Look at the economic growth in the United States.”
And also, in January, he was in the midst of finalizing negotiations with China on what they called Phase 1, that was going to try to remove — he was going to try to remove some of the tariffs in the trade war that was going on. That was going to be signed on January 15th, and so, you know — and the ability to reach an agreement with China was central to the stock markets continuing to rise and economic growth recovering, and the farmers being happy because soybeans would be bought by China again.
All of this was in the balance for Trump. So, if he was seriously considering taking steps to shut down businesses, schools, and force social distancing by urging governors to take such steps, he was going to essentially be undermining the economy that was going to be the central theme of his campaign. And that was the last thing that he wanted to do.
But what he didn’t realize is that if they allow this infection to bloom in the United States, and then potentially hundreds of thousands of deaths to occur because they never did mitigation, that the economy would have been shut down by the force of the virus itself in an even more devastating way, because the number of deaths would have been in the hundreds of thousands.
And it goes back to the fact that this is an administration that you had an acting chief of staff for over a year who had very little clout across the White House. You had lots of turnover among the top people in the various agencies, acting head of homeland security, I mean, different DOD secretaries, different national security advisers. And you had lots of infighting among these different advisers. You had a secretary of health and human services, Azar, who was not respected by the president, whose voice did not carry much weight in the White House. You had Peter Navarro, who was —
AMY GOODMAN: They called him alarmist?
ERIC LIPTON: Yes. You had Peter Navarro, who was a trade adviser, who was one of the earliest voices of concern. People said, “Oh, it’s crazy. He’s crazy. We don’t want to listen to him in the White House.” And so — and then you have a lacking functional process of policymaking, in which the chief of staff is supposed to be the person that considers all these debates and then brings to the president his recommendation, but then Mulvaney, since he had his comments late last year in October that, oh, it was a quid pro quo, was so on the outs that no one was really listening to him, and was about to be fired from his job, which ultimately he was, in the middle of this.
So you had a dysfunctional White House that was unable to make the right policy choice and bring it to the president, and then a president who was so fixated on his reelection that he wasn’t in a position to listen to people who were warning that this was a pandemic of historic proportions that was coming at us and that we had a small window of an opportunity to act decisively to limit the number of deaths.
And then, that result was that in late February, when all of his advisers, all of his medical advisers, from Health and Human Services, CDC, from the Veterans Affairs, had concluded that the United States needed to announce that it was time to shift to mitigation and social distancing, that the moment had come when it was up to the president to endorse this — and that’s when he got angry, when someone from the CDC said that was something that was going to have to happen. And the announcement on that was put off by several weeks. Those several weeks were the difference between — there are many people that will have died because of that delay, particularly in New York state, of mitigation.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to — I mean, you have — Navarro had also recommended the ban on China. And when you talk about travel ban, President Trump’s ears perk up. So he did do the travel ban on China, but it was, to say the least, filled with loopholes. Eventually, he would do Europe. But at the same time, every time he says, “Look, I did that early,” since he understood the significance of what was taking place early — that was the beginning of what? February. Is that right? If he had started ramping up the testing and the supply chain to ensure that there were PPEs — right? — the personal protective equipment, that doctors and nurses and the janitors in hospitals so severely lack right now, if it had started like it started in Taiwan — they didn’t even close the country there. But here, this has led to this absolute catastrophe. The most significant part of it is the massive loss of life.
ERIC LIPTON: Well, I mean, a couple of points you make there. The first was about the, again, two phases here: containment and mitigation. So, relative to the containment phase, the president, in late January, announces the limitation on flights in China. But, as you say, there was a very problematic implementation, in quite a number of ways. And perhaps among them is that there were approximately 400,000 people that came to the United States from China, as my colleague Steve Eder reported recently, that — from the time that we know that the virus was spreading in China to most recently. And 45,000 of them, approximately, came in the period after the president limited flights.
And the problem was that it was not really a — in the world today, it’s next to impossible to stop movements of people entirely. And you can’t ban American citizens from coming back to the United States. And so American citizens and naturalized citizens were coming into the United States, tens of thousands of them, even after he adopted this limitation. And they weren’t, actually, in many cases, doing sufficient testing of those people or requiring isolation of those people for two weeks to ensure that they weren’t infected.
So, if you were really going to do a, quote, “travel ban,” you needed to have mandatory quarantines, unfortunately, which is a civil liberties issue. You needed to have mandatory quarantines for those people, and you needed to have sufficient testing to make sure that they were not actually bringing the virus in. Neither of those happened. Those people were bringing in many cases of infections. And so, the first stage, containment, containment was a failure. OK?
So, the second stage, then, even during containment, you needed to be working on mitigation, because you know that it’s going to spread anyway. The question is: How much will you have? So, during containment, you need to be ramping up all of your preparations, you know, Plan B. You need to have the PPEs. You need to have the ventilators. You need to have the hospitals. You need to have the hospital personnel. But what we learned was that it was — I was working on a story with my colleague Zolan, who covers the Federal Emergency Management Agency in The New York Times, and Department of Homeland Security. It was March 17th, and we asked the Army Corps of Engineers, “Have you been given any assignments yet to help the United States respond to the pandemic?” And at that point, you know, New York City had had —
AMY GOODMAN: We have 30 seconds, Eric.
ERIC LIPTON: Oh, OK. The Army Corps of Engineers had not been given an assignment as of March 17th, which was extraordinary. So they had not shifted to Plan B until way too late.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you so much for being with us and and end with Dr. Fauci. On Sunday, CNN’s Jake Tapper questioned Dr. Anthony Fauci about your New York Times piece.
JAKE TAPPER: Do you think lives could have been saved if social distancing, physical distancing, stay-at-home measures had started third week of February instead of mid-March?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: You know, Jake, again, it’s the what would have, what could have. It’s very difficult to go back and say that. I mean, obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. Obviously no one is going to deny that.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Dr. Anthony Fauci speaking yesterday on Jake Tapper’s show on CNN. In response, President Trump retweeted a tweet that ended with “fire Fauci.” Eric Lipton, I want to thank you so much for being with us, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, investigative reporter for The New York Times.
When we come back, we go to Detroit, the site of the first major U.S. study into whether or not the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine could help prevent the spread of coronavirus, this coming after weeks of President Trump promoting the drug despite warnings from medical experts.
And this latest breaking news: George Stephanopoulos of ABC News has just tested positive for the coronavirus. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Amazing Grace,” sung by Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli as he stood on the steps outside the Duomo cathedral, the final song in a concert called “Music for Hope,” the cathedral in the region of Italy that’s been hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic.


democracynow--2020-04-13--Headlines for April 13, 2020

Headlines for April 13, 2020

The United States has the highest recorded COVID-19 death toll in the world , topping 22,000 , after it surpassed Italy ’ s death toll on Saturday .
All 50 states now have a disaster declaration in place for the first time in history .
Over half a million cases have been identified nationwide , but testing remains limited , making the true number of cases unknown .
Worldwide , there are over 1.8 million confirmed cases and over 115,000 deaths .
Over Easter weekend in the U.S. , many churches and families held virtual celebrations , though some pastors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gatherings .
President Trump appeared to boast about the nationwide disaster declaration Sunday , tweeting , “ For the first time in history there is a fully signed Presidential Disaster Declaration for all 50 States .
We are winning , and will win , the war on the Invisible Enemy !
” Meanwhile , a grim picture is emerging of the coronavirus ’ s impact on nursing homes , where over 2,200 deaths have been reported , though the true number is also expected to be much higher since many states either do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases do not even track it .
Here in New York City , nearly 6,000 new cases over the past day has put the city ’ s total number of coronavirus infections at over 104,000 , with over 9,300 deaths .
Sunday was the sixth straight day in which more than 700 deaths were reported , though Governor Andrew Cuomo noted hospitalizations were down .
On Sunday , Trump reposted a tweet calling for the firing of White House coronavirus task force scientist Dr. Anthony Fauci after he acknowledged in an interview on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could have saved lives .
Dr. Anthony Fauci : “ Obviously , you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier , you could have saved lives .
Obviously no one is going to deny that .
But what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated .
But you ’ re right .
I mean , obviously , if we had , right from the very beginning , shut everything down , it may have been a little bit different .
But there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ things down back then.
” On Friday , President Trump suggested he could order the reopening of the country as early as May 1 .
He pointed to his head .
The World Health Organization has warned against prematurely easing restrictions .
Meanwhile , dozens of tornadoes and severe storms have left a trail of damage in states including Texas , Louisiana , Mississippi and Georgia , as the southern United States grapples with the coronavirus outbreak .
At least 14 people have been killed by the extreme weather .

The United States has the highest recorded COVID-19 death toll in the world, topping 22,000, after it surpassed Italy’s death toll on Saturday. All 50 states now have a disaster declaration in place for the first time in history. Over half a million cases have been identified nationwide, but testing remains limited, making the true number of cases unknown. Worldwide, there are over 1.8 million confirmed cases and over 115,000 deaths.
Over Easter weekend in the U.S., many churches and families held virtual celebrations, though some pastors defied social distancing guidelines to hold in-person gatherings.
President Trump appeared to boast about the nationwide disaster declaration Sunday, tweeting, “For the first time in history there is a fully signed Presidential Disaster Declaration for all 50 States. We are winning, and will win, the war on the Invisible Enemy!”
Meanwhile, a grim picture is emerging of the coronavirus’s impact on nursing homes, where over 2,200 deaths have been reported, though the true number is also expected to be much higher since many states either do not report this data or in some cases do not even track it.
Here in New York City, nearly 6,000 new cases over the past day has put the city’s total number of coronavirus infections at over 104,000, with over 9,300 deaths. Sunday was the sixth straight day in which more than 700 deaths were reported, though Governor Andrew Cuomo noted hospitalizations were down.
On Sunday, Trump reposted a tweet calling for the firing of White House coronavirus task force scientist Dr. Anthony Fauci after he acknowledged in an interview on CNN that adopting lockdown measures earlier on could have saved lives.
Dr. Anthony Fauci: “Obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. Obviously no one is going to deny that. But what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated. But you’re right. I mean, obviously, if we had, right from the very beginning, shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different. But there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then.”
On Friday, President Trump suggested he could order the reopening of the country as early as May 1.
President Donald Trump: “I will say this: I want to get it open as soon as we can. We have to get our country open, Jeff.”
Jeff Mason: “Will you say, sir, what metrics you will use to make that decision?”
President Donald Trump: “The metrics right here.”
He pointed to his head. The World Health Organization has warned against prematurely easing restrictions.
Meanwhile, dozens of tornadoes and severe storms have left a trail of damage in states including Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia, as the southern United States grapples with the coronavirus outbreak. At least 14 people have been killed by the extreme weather.


democracynow--2020-04-10--Noam Chomsky on Trump's Disastrous Coronavirus Response, Bernie Sanders & What Gives Him Hope

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : We ’ re broadcasting from New York City , the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic .
The U.S. itself is now the worldwide epicenter , with one person dying of COVID-19 every 47 seconds .
Nearly 16,700 coronavirus deaths have been recorded in the United States , with the number of confirmed cases approaching half a million — more than Italy , Spain and France combined .
Of course , the true rate of infections is far , far higher due to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comes as the Labor Department said Thursday over 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits over the past week , as the pace and scale of U.S. job losses is set to rival the Great Depression .
Well , for more on the political implications of this unprecedented moment , we turn today to Noam Chomsky for the hour , the world-renowned political dissident , linguist and author , laureate professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona , Tucson , professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years .
His recent books include Global Discontents : Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy , Who Rules the World ?
and Requiem for the American Dream : The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power .
Noam Chomsky joined us for a conversation Wednesday from his home in Tucson , Arizona , where he is sheltering in place with his wife Valeria .
This was just before Senator Bernie Sanders announced he ’ s suspending his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination , making former Vice President Joe Biden the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the November election .
I began by asking Professor Chomsky about what ’ s happening right now in the context of the 2020 elections , and what he sees happening in November .
AMY GOODMAN : “ Ave Maria , ” performed today , Good Friday , inside the burned-out shell of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris .
It was live-streamed .
This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The Quarantine Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , as we continue my interview with Noam Chomsky .
I asked him how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the world , has become the epicenter of the pandemic .
AMY GOODMAN : Noam , you mention Peter Navarro , the trade representative , sending a memo — it just came out in The New York Times — in late January warning of the coronavirus , saying that , I think , something like up to a million people could die .
And Trump took from that setting a travel ban on China , but not doing a corollary , which was ensuring that the United States had the proper tests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protective personal equipment , that doctors , that nurses , that the custodial staff in hospitals needed to stay alive , to treat patients , to help them stay alive .
And the intelligence agencies , it came out , at this time , even before Navarro , they were all warning Trump .
If you could go back to even two years ago , when he disbanded his pandemic unit within the National Security Council , said that when he ’ s at the table in China talking about spending money on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re not saying , “ Sir , you also have to look at what ’ s happening here ” ?
And that unit , pandemic unit , not only is about how we deal in the United States , but also ensuring , as the CDC does and other agencies of the U.S. government , that scientists are sent out to other countries , like China , to investigate and to help other countries , because when it comes to a pandemic , we ’ re all in this together .
So , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ warnings and why testing and this personal — protective personal equipment is so important ?
AMY GOODMAN : Professor Noam Chomsky , world-renowned linguist , political dissident .
Back with him in 30 seconds .
AMY GOODMAN : “ Here Comes the Sun ” by The Beatles .
At a hospital in Long Island , it became so overwhelming every time a patient coded , the staff decided to counter it by playing “ Here Comes the Sun ” on the PA system every time a patient was released .
This is Democracy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ m Amy Goodman , as we return to my interview with professor , linguist , world-renowned political dissident Noam Chomsky .
AMY GOODMAN : So , this is a clip , Noam , of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah called “ Saluting the Heroes of the Coronavirus Pandumbic.
” It ’ s extended , the three-minute video , highlighting members of the right-wing media , like Sean Hannity , Rush Limbaugh , Tomi Lahren and others , as well as Republican members of Congress and the Trump administration , downplaying or mocking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ February 24th and ends with Donald Trump claiming March 17th and Hannity saying March 18th that they had always taken the pandemic seriously .
This is “ Saluting the Heroes of the Coronavirus Pandumbic.
” SEAN HANNITY : Tonight I can report the sky is absolutely falling .
We are all doomed .
The end is near .
The apocalypse is imminent , and you ’ re going to all die .
Or at least that ’ s what the media mob would like you to think .
RUSH LIMBAUGH : Yeah , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The coronavirus is the common cold , folks .
The hype of this thing as a pandemic , as the Andromeda Strain , as “ oh my god , if you get it , you ’ re dead.
” PETE HEGSETH : This is one of those cases where the more I learn about coronavirus , the less concerned I am .
There ’ s a lot of hyperbole .
LOU DOBBS : The national left-wing media playing up fears of the coronavirus .
TOMI LAHREN : The sky is falling because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus on a cruise ship ?
I am far more concerned with stepping on a used heroin needle than I am getting the coronavirus .
But maybe that ’ s just me .
JEANINE PIRRO : It ’ s a virus like the flu .
All the talk about coronavirus being so much more deadly doesn ’ t reflect reality .
DR. MARC SIEGEL : This virus should be compared to the flu , because at worst — at worst , worst-case scenario — it could be the flu .
GERALDO RIVERA : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ threat right now is not the coronavirus , it ’ s this — it ’ s the ordinary , old flu .
People are dying right now .
STEVE DOOCY : The flu is here , everywhere .
GERALDO RIVERA : Nobody has died yet in the United States , as far as we know , from this disease .
LAURA INGRAHAM : And the facts are actually pretty reassuring .
But you ’ d never know it , watching all this stuff .
JESSE WATTERS : You want to know how I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
If I get it , I ’ ll beat it .
I ’ m not afraid of the coronavirus , and no one else should be that afraid , either .
MATT SCHLAPP : It is very , very difficult to contract this virus .
DR. DREW PINSKY : It ’ s milder than we thought .
The fatality rate is going to drop .
ED HENRY : When you hear the context , it ’ s not quite as scary .
AINSLEY EARHARDT : It ’ s actually the safest time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s flying right now , terminals are pretty much dead .
And then the planes — remember back in the day when you had a seat next to you possibly empty ?
You could stretch out a little more ?
It ’ s like that on every flight now .
REP. DEVIN NUNES : One of the things you can do , if you ’ re healthy , you and your family , it ’ s a great time to just go out , go to a local restaurant .
REP. DEVIN @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in , get in easily .
NEWS ANCHOR : Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz mocked concerns about the spread of the virus by wearing a gas mask on Capitol Hill .
JOHN KING : [ reading ] “ When a reporter in the Capitol asked Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma , 85 , what precautions he was taking … [ he ] extended his arm with confidence : ' Wan na shake hands ? '
” VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE : In our line of work , you shake hands .
I expect the president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ll continue to do it .
LARRY KUDLOW : We have contained this .
We have contained this — I won ’ t say airtight , but pretty close to airtight .
KELLYANNE CONWAY : It is being contained .
And do you not think it ’ s being contained ?
SEAN HANNITY : Zero people in the United States of America have died from the coronavirus .
Zero .
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP : This is a flu .
This is like a flu .
It ’ s going to disappear one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ miracle .
It will disappear .
… I have felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic .
I took it very seriously .
SEAN HANNITY : By the way , this program has always taken the coronavirus seriously .
That does it for our show .
Amidst the pandemic , we still want to wish a very safe and healthy birthday to Democracy Now !
's David Prude , Anna Özbek and María Taracena .
Democracy Now !
is working with as few people on site as possible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is working from home .
Thanks to all .
I 'm Amy Goodman .
Be safe .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from New York City, the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. itself is now the worldwide epicenter, with one person dying of COVID-19 every 47 seconds. Nearly 16,700 coronavirus deaths have been recorded in the United States, with the number of confirmed cases approaching half a million — more than Italy, Spain and France combined. Of course, the true rate of infections is far, far higher due to a critical lack of testing. This comes as the Labor Department said Thursday over 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits over the past week, as the pace and scale of U.S. job losses is set to rival the Great Depression.
Well, for more on the political implications of this unprecedented moment, we turn today to Noam Chomsky for the hour, the world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author, laureate professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona, Tucson, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught for more than 50 years. His recent books include Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy, Who Rules the World? and Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power.
Noam Chomsky joined us for a conversation Wednesday from his home in Tucson, Arizona, where he is sheltering in place with his wife Valeria. This was just before Senator Bernie Sanders announced he’s suspending his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, making former Vice President Joe Biden the presumptive nominee to face Donald Trump in the November election. I began by asking Professor Chomsky about what’s happening right now in the context of the 2020 elections, and what he sees happening in November.
NOAM CHOMSKY: If Trump is reelected, it’s a indescribable disaster. It means that the policies of the past four years, which have been extremely destructive to the American population, to the world, will be continued and probably accelerated. What this is going to mean for health is bad enough. I just mentioned the Lancet figures. It will get worse. What this means for the environment or the threat of nuclear war, which no one is talking about but is extremely serious, is indescribable.
Suppose Biden is elected. I would anticipate it would be essentially a continuation of Obama — nothing very great, but at least not totally destructive, and opportunities for an organized public to change what is being done, to impose pressures.
It’s common to say now that the Sanders campaign failed. I think that’s a mistake. I think it was an extraordinary success, completely shifted the arena of debate and discussion. Issues that were unthinkable a couple years ago are now right in the middle of attention.
The worst crime he committed, in the eyes of the establishment, is not the policy he’s proposing; it’s the fact that he was able to inspire popular movements, which had already been developing — Occupy, Black Lives Matter, many others — and turn them into an activist movement, which doesn’t just show up every couple years to push a lever and then go home, but applies constant pressure, constant activism and so on. That could affect a Biden administration. It could also — even if it’s just a holding action, it means there’s time to deal with the major crises.
Take Medicare for All or, the other major plank in Sanders’s program, free college education. Across the whole mainstream spectrum, all the way to what’s called the left in the mainstream, this is condemned as too radical for Americans. Just think what that means. That’s an attack on American culture and society, which you would expect from some hostile enemy. What it’s saying is it’s too radical to say that we should rise to the level of comparable countries. They all have some form of national healthcare. Most of them have free higher education — the best-performing countries nationally, like Finland, free; Germany, free; right to our south, Mexico, a poor country, high-quality higher education, free. So, to say we should rise to the level of the rest of the world is considered too radical for Americans. It’s an astonishing comment. As I say, it’s a critique of America that you’d expect from some super hostile enemy.
That’s the left of the spectrum. Tells you that we have really deep problems. It’s not just Trump. He’s made it much worse, but the problems go much deeper, just like, say, the ventilator catastrophe, which I described, just based on good capitalist logic with the extra hammer blow of making the government ineffectual to deal with things. This is much deeper than Trump. And we have to face those facts. Some do. I’m sure you reported — I don’t remember — you probably reported the setting of the Doomsday Clock in January. OK?
AMY GOODMAN: Yes.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Notice what happened. All through Trump’s term, the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock, the best general assessment we have of the state of the world, moved closer to midnight — termination — reached the highest point ever. This January, it exceeded it. The analysts gave up minutes, moved to seconds: a hundred seconds to midnight, thanks to Donald Trump.
And the Republican Party, which is just monstrous, no longer qualifies as a political party. It simply sheepishly echoes everything the master says. Zero integrity. It’s just amazing to watch. He’s surrounded himself by a collection of sycophants who just repeat worshipfully everything he says. Real major attack on democracy, alongside the attack on “the survival of humanity,” to quote JPMorgan Chase again — the nuclear war, raising the threat of nuclear war, dismantling the arms control system, which has, to some extent, protected us from total disaster. It’s astonishing to watch.
The same memo that I quoted about how the policies we’re following are risking the survival of humanity ended by arguing that the banks should cut back its fossil fuel support, in part because of the reputational consequences. Their reputation is being harmed. What does that mean? That means that activists are putting pressure on them, and they have to maintain some kind of reputation. Now, that’s a good lesson.
And it works. We’ve seen some very striking examples. Take, say, the Green New Deal. A couple of years ago, that was an object of ridicule, if it was mentioned at all. Some form of Green New Deal is essential for the survival of humanity. Now it’s part of the general agenda. Why? Activist engagement. Especially Sunrise Movement, a group of young people, acted significantly, up to the point of sitting in in congressional offices. They received support from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other young legislators who came into office as part of the Sanders-inspired popular wave — another great success. Ed Markey, senator from Massachusetts joined in. Now it’s a part of the legislative agenda. The next step is to force it through in some viable form. And there are very good ideas as to how to do that. Well, that’s the way things can change.
With a Biden presidency, there would be, if not a strongly sympathetic administration, at least one that can be reached, can be pressured. And that’s very important. If you look over the very good labor historian — I’m sure you know Erik Loomis, who has studied the efforts by working people to institute changes in the society, sometimes for themselves, sometimes for the society generally. And he’s pointed out — made an interesting point. These efforts succeeded when there was a tolerant or sympathetic administration, not when there wasn’t. That’s a big — one of many enormous differences between Trump, the sociopath, and Biden, who’s kind of a pretty empty — you can push him one way or another. This is the most crucial election in human history, literally. Another four years of Trump, and we’re in deep trouble.
AMY GOODMAN: Back with professor Noam Chomsky in 30 seconds.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Ave Maria,” performed today, Good Friday, inside the burned-out shell of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. It was live-streamed. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue my interview with Noam Chomsky. I asked him how the United States, the wealthiest country in the world, has become the epicenter of the pandemic.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, the United States is — I mean, countries have reacted to this in many ways, some very successfully, some more or less successfully. One is at the bottom of the barrel. That’s us. The United States is the only major country that cannot even provide data to the World Health Organization, because it’s so dysfunctional.
There’s a background. Part of the background is the scandalous healthcare system, which simply is not ready for anything that’s out of the normal. It simply doesn’t work. This is exacerbated by the strange collection of gangsters in Washington, who have — it’s almost as if they systematically took every possible step to make it as bad as possible. Through Trump’s term, the last four years, he has been systematically cutting back on all of the health-related aspects of the government. Pentagon goes up. Building his wall goes up. But anything — actually, anything that might benefit the general population goes down, particularly health.
Some of it is almost surreal. So, in October, for example, just very exquisite timing, he canceled completely a USAID project — Predict, it was called — that was working in Third World countries, also in China, to try to detect new viruses that might turn into the anticipated pandemic. And in fact it was anticipated since — at least since the SARS epidemic in 2003. So we have a kind of combination of factors, some of them specific to the United States.
If we want to ensure or at least hope to avoid new pandemics, which are very likely to come, more serious than this one, in part because of the enormous rising threat of global warming, we have to look at the sources of this one. And it’s very important to think them through. So, just roughly to go back, pandemics have been predicted by scientists for years. The SARS epidemic was quite serious. It was contained, but vaccines were — there was the beginning of development of vaccines. They never proceeded to the testing phase. It was clear at that time that something more was going to happen, and several epidemics did.
But it’s not enough to know that. Somebody has to pick up the ball and run with it. Who can do it? Well, the drug companies are the obvious place, but they have no interest in it. They follow good capitalist logic: You look at market signals, and there’s no profit to be made in preparing for a predicted and anticipated catastrophe. So they weren’t interested.
At that point, another possibility is the government could step in. I’m old enough to remember the terror of polio was ended by a government-initiated and -funded project that finally led to the Salk vaccine, which was free, no intellectual property rights. Jonas Salk said it should be as free as the sun. OK, that ended the polio terror, measles terror, others. But the government couldn’t step in, because there’s another particular aspect of the modern era: the neoliberal plague. Now, you remember Ronald Reagan’s sunny smile and his little maxim about how government is the problem, not the solution. So the government can’t enter.
There were some efforts, nevertheless, to try to prepare for this. Right now in New York and other places, doctors and nurses are forced to make agonizing decisions about who to kill — not a nice decision to make — because they simply don’t have equipment. And the main lack is ventilators, huge shortage of ventilators. Well, the Obama administration did make an effort to try to prepare for this. And this kind of dramatically reveals the kind of factors that are leading to catastrophe. They contracted with a small company that was producing high-quality, low-cost ventilators. The company was bought up by a larger one, Covidien, which makes fancy, expensive ventilators. And they shelved the project. Presumably, they didn’t want competition with their own costly ones. Shortly after that, they turned to the government and said they wanted the contract ended. The reason was it was not profitable enough, so therefore no ventilators.
We have the same thing in hospitals. Hospitals, under the neoliberal programs, are supposed to be efficient, meaning no spare capacity, just enough beds to get by. And in fact, plenty of people, me included, can testify that even the best hospitals caused great pain and suffering to patients even before this broke out, because of this just-on-time efficiency concept that was guiding our privatized, for-profit healthcare system. When anything hits out of the normal, it’s just tough luck. And this runs across the system.
So we have a combination of capitalist logic, which is lethal but could be controlled, but it can’t be controlled under the neoliberal programs, which also say the government can’t step in to pick up the ball when the private sector doesn’t.
On top of that — now, this becomes specific to the United States — we have a freak show in Washington, a totally dysfunctional government, which is causing enormous problems. And it’s not that nothing was known. A pandemic was anticipated all through Trump’s term, even before. His reaction was to cut back preparation for it. Astonishingly, this continued even after the pandemic hit.
So, on February 10th, when it was already serious, Trump released his budget for the coming year. Take a look at it. The budget continues the defunding of the Center for Disease Control and other government institutions responsible for health, continues to defund them. It increases funding for some things, like fossil fuel production, gives new subsidies to the fossil fuel industries. I mean, it’s as if the country is simply — maybe not “as if” — the country is simply run by sociopaths.
And the result, so, we cut back on the efforts to deal with the pandemic that’s taking shape, and we increase the efforts to destroy the environment, in which — the efforts in which the United States, under Trump, is in the lead in racing to the abyss. Now, bear in mind that that’s — I don’t have to tell you — is a far more serious threat than the coronavirus. Now, this is bad and serious, particularly in the United States, but we’ll recover somehow, at severe cost. We’re not going to recover from the melting of the polar ice sheets, which is leading to a feedback effect, well known, that increases — as they melt, there’s less reflective surface, more absorption in the dark seas. The warming that’s melting increases. That’s just one of the factors that’s leading to destruction, unless we do something about it.
And it’s not a secret. Just recently, for example, couple of weeks ago, there was a very interesting leak, a memo from JPMorgan Chase, America’s biggest bank, which warned that, in their words, “the survival of humanity” is at risk if we continue on our present course, which included the funding of fossil fuel industries by the bank itself, said we’re endangering the survival of humanity. Everyone who’s got eyes open in the Trump administration is very well aware of this. It’s difficult to find words for this.
I should say, other countries have — first of all, it was not a secret. I mean, it’s become convenient now. Trump is desperately seeking some scapegoat that he can blame for his astonishing failures and incompetence. The most recent one is the World Health Organization, the China bashing. Somebody else is responsible.
But it’s simply — the facts are very clear. China very quickly informed the World Health Organization last December that they were finding patients with pneumonia-like symptoms with unknown etiology. Didn’t know what it was. About a week later, January 7th, they made public the fact to the World Health Organization, the general scientific community in the world, that Chinese scientists had found out what the source was: a coronavirus resembling the SARS virus. They had identified the sequence, the genome. They were providing the information to the world.
U.S. intelligence was well aware of it. They spent January and February trying to get somebody in the White House to pay attention to the fact that there’s a major pandemic. Just nobody could listen. Trump was off playing golf or maybe listening — checking his TV ratings. Yesterday, we learned that one very high-level official, very close to the administration, Peter Navarro, in late January had sent a very strong message to the White House saying this is a real danger. But even he couldn’t break through.
AMY GOODMAN: Noam, you mention Peter Navarro, the trade representative, sending a memo — it just came out in The New York Times — in late January warning of the coronavirus, saying that, I think, something like up to a million people could die. And Trump took from that setting a travel ban on China, but not doing a corollary, which was ensuring that the United States had the proper tests and also had the PPE, the protective personal equipment, that doctors, that nurses, that the custodial staff in hospitals needed to stay alive, to treat patients, to help them stay alive. And the intelligence agencies, it came out, at this time, even before Navarro, they were all warning Trump. If you could go back to even two years ago, when he disbanded his pandemic unit within the National Security Council, said that when he’s at the table in China talking about spending money on bombs or a wall, they’re not saying, “Sir, you also have to look at what’s happening here”? And that unit, pandemic unit, not only is about how we deal in the United States, but also ensuring, as the CDC does and other agencies of the U.S. government, that scientists are sent out to other countries, like China, to investigate and to help other countries, because when it comes to a pandemic, we’re all in this together. So, if you could talk about these early warnings and why testing and this personal — protective personal equipment is so important?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, remember that it continued even after the pandemic was already in force. Now, the budget proposal is astonishing. This is February 10th, well into the pandemic. Trump cuts further the health-related components of the government, continuing the hit. They were under the ax, just as they were throughout his term.
Actually, the clips that you played before are part of a very clever strategy. Whether this is consciously planned or just intuitive, I don’t know. But the pattern of simply making one statement today, contradicting it tomorrow, coming out with something else the next day is really brilliant. It means he’s going to be vindicated. Whatever happens, he’ll have said it. You shoot arrows at random, some of them are going to hit the target. And his technique with the Fox echo chamber and the worshipful base simply tuned to Fox, Limbaugh, etc., they’re just going to pick whatever happened to be right, and say, “Look, our wonderful president, the greatest president we’ve ever had, our savior, knew it all along, and here was his statement.” Can’t miss.
It’s very much like the technique of producing constant lies. You know, I don’t even have to go through it. The assiduous fact-checkers tot them up. I think it’s maybe 20,000 by now or something. And he’s laughing all the way. This is perfect. You tell constant lies, what happens is the concept of truth just disappears.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Noam Chomsky, world-renowned linguist, political dissident. Back with him in 30 seconds.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles. At a hospital in Long Island, it became so overwhelming every time a patient coded, the staff decided to counter it by playing “Here Comes the Sun” on the PA system every time a patient was released. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, as we return to my interview with professor, linguist, world-renowned political dissident Noam Chomsky.
AMY GOODMAN: So, this is a clip, Noam, of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah called “Saluting the Heroes of the Coronavirus Pandumbic.” It’s extended, the three-minute video, highlighting members of the right-wing media, like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Tomi Lahren and others, as well as Republican members of Congress and the Trump administration, downplaying or mocking the coronavirus pandemic. It starts on February 24th and ends with Donald Trump claiming March 17th and Hannity saying March 18th that they had always taken the pandemic seriously. This is “Saluting the Heroes of the Coronavirus Pandumbic.” SEAN HANNITY: Tonight I can report the sky is absolutely falling. We are all doomed. The end is near. The apocalypse is imminent, and you’re going to all die. Or at least that’s what the media mob would like you to think. RUSH LIMBAUGH: Yeah, I’m dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold, folks. The hype of this thing as a pandemic, as the Andromeda Strain, as “oh my god, if you get it, you’re dead.” PETE HEGSETH: This is one of those cases where the more I learn about coronavirus, the less concerned I am. There’s a lot of hyperbole. LOU DOBBS: The national left-wing media playing up fears of the coronavirus. TOMI LAHREN: The sky is falling because we have a few dozen cases of coronavirus on a cruise ship? I am far more concerned with stepping on a used heroin needle than I am getting the coronavirus. But maybe that’s just me. JEANINE PIRRO: It’s a virus like the flu. All the talk about coronavirus being so much more deadly doesn’t reflect reality. DR. MARC SIEGEL: This virus should be compared to the flu, because at worst — at worst, worst-case scenario — it could be the flu. GERALDO RIVERA: The far more deadly, more lethal threat right now is not the coronavirus, it’s this — it’s the ordinary, old flu. People are dying right now. STEVE DOOCY: The flu is here, everywhere. GERALDO RIVERA: Nobody has died yet in the United States, as far as we know, from this disease. STEVE DOOCY: That’s right. LAURA INGRAHAM: And the facts are actually pretty reassuring. But you’d never know it, watching all this stuff. JESSE WATTERS: You want to know how I really feel about the coronavirus, Juan? If I get it, I’ll beat it. I’m not afraid of the coronavirus, and no one else should be that afraid, either. MATT SCHLAPP: It is very, very difficult to contract this virus. DR. DREW PINSKY: It’s milder than we thought. The fatality rate is going to drop. ED HENRY: When you hear the context, it’s not quite as scary. AINSLEY EARHARDT: It’s actually the safest time to fly. Everyone I know that’s flying right now, terminals are pretty much dead. And then the planes — remember back in the day when you had a seat next to you possibly empty? You could stretch out a little more? It’s like that on every flight now. REP. DEVIN NUNES: One of the things you can do, if you’re healthy, you and your family, it’s a great time to just go out, go to a local restaurant. MARIA BARTIROMO: Yeah. REP. DEVIN NUNES: Likely, you can get in, get in easily. NEWS ANCHOR: Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz mocked concerns about the spread of the virus by wearing a gas mask on Capitol Hill. JOHN KING: [reading] “When a reporter in the Capitol asked Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma, 85, what precautions he was taking … [he] extended his arm with confidence: 'Wanna shake hands?'” VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: In our line of work, you shake hands. I expect the president will continue to do that. I’ll continue to do it. LARRY KUDLOW: We have contained this. We have contained this — I won’t say airtight, but pretty close to airtight. KELLYANNE CONWAY: It is being contained. And do you not think it’s being contained? SEAN HANNITY: Zero people in the United States of America have died from the coronavirus. Zero. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This is a flu. This is like a flu. It’s going to disappear one day. It’s like a miracle. It will disappear. … I have felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. I took it very seriously. SEAN HANNITY: By the way, this program has always taken the coronavirus seriously.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Sean Hannity and Donald Trump, right before that, on March 17th and 18th, saying, “We have always taken the coronavirus pandemic seriously.” “Saluting the Heroes of the Coronavirus Pandumbic” from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, who is now doing his show each night from home to protect against community spread. So, Noam Chomsky, world-renowned political dissident, well-known linguist, author, activist, as you listen to the Fox News — this is not just a channel; these are the people that President Trump channels. These are perhaps his senior advisers, as they continually played this down. Do you hold President Trump responsible? Would you say he has blood on his hands?
NOAM CHOMSKY: There’s no question. Trump makes some crazy statement. It’s then amplified by the Fox News echo chamber. The next day, he says the opposite. That’s echoed; the echo chamber amplifies that. Notice that the tone — the tone of the reporting is interesting. It’s all with perfect confidence, not what any sane, rational person would say — “We really don’t know. There’s a lot of uncertainty. This is the way things look today.” There’s nothing like that. Absolute confidence. No matter what the dear leader says, we amplify it. And it’s an interesting dialogue. They amplify what he says. Sean Hannity can say, “This is the greatest move that was ever made in the history of the world.” And the next morning, Trump tunes in to Fox & Friends, listens to whatever is said. That becomes his thought for the day. It’s an interaction, Murdoch and Trump moving literally to try to destroy the country and destroy the world, because in the background, we should never forget, is a far greater threat that is coming closer and closer while Trump is leading the way to destruction.
He has some assistance. So, down on the southern part of the hemisphere, there’s another madman, i.e. Jair Bolsonaro, who’s trying to vie with Trump to see who can be the worst criminal on the planet. He’s telling the Brazilians, “It’s nothing. It’s just a cold. Brazilians don’t get viruses. We’re immune to them.” His health minister and other officials are trying to butt in and say, “Look, this is really serious.” The governors, many of them, fortunately, are ignoring what he says. But Brazil is facing a terrible crisis. It’s actually gotten to the point where in the favelas, you know, these miserable slums, in Rio, where the government does nothing for the people, others have intervened to try to impose sensible restrictions, insofar as it’s possible under those miserable conditions. Who? The crime gangs. The crime gangs, that torture the population, have moved in to try to impose health standards. The indigenous population is facing a virtual genocide, which won’t bother Bolsonaro. He doesn’t think they should be there anyway. Meanwhile, while all this is going on, scientific papers are coming out warning that in 15 years the Amazon is going to shift from being a net carbon sink to a net CO2 emitter. That’s devastating for Brazil — in fact, for the whole world.
So, we have the Colossus of the North, as it’s called, in the hands of sociopaths, who are doing whatever they can to harm the country and the world. And the Colossus of the South, as it’s been called, is, in its own way, doing the same thing. I’m able to follow this pretty closely because my wife Valeria is Brazilian and keeps me up to date with the news that’s coming out in Brazil. And it’s simply shocking to see.
But meanwhile, other countries are reacting sensibly. So, as soon as the news started coming out from China — and there was plenty of news right away, contrary to what is being claimed — the countries on the Chinese periphery began to react — Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore — quite effectively. Some of them have it basically under control. New Zealand has apparently quashed the coronavirus, maybe almost completely, with a lockdown right away, an immediate lockdown for a couple of weeks, and seems to have come close to ending it. You look into Europe, and most of Europe just dithered, but some countries, the better-organized countries, did act right away. It’s very striking. It would be very useful for Americans to compare Trump’s ravings, of the kind you illustrated, with Angela Merkel’s, German chancellor, her sober, factual account and talk to the German people, describing exactly what’s happening and what has to be done.
AMY GOODMAN: Noam, we only have a minute, but I wanted to ask you, as we speak to you at your home in Tucson, Arizona, where you are sheltering at home, where you are staying at home because we are in the midst of this pandemic, to prevent community spread and to protect yourself and your family: What gives you hope?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, I should say that I’m following a strict regimen, because my wife Valeria is taking charge, and I follow her orders. So Valeria and I are in isolation.
But what gives me hope is the actions that popular groups are taking all over the world, many of them. Some of them are — there are some things happening that are truly inspiring. Take the doctors and the nurses who are working overtime under extremely dangerous conditions, lacking — especially in the United States, lacking even minimal support, being compelled to make these agonizing decisions about who to kill tomorrow. But they’re doing it. It’s just a — it’s an inspiring tribute to the resources of the human spirit, a model of what can be done, along with the popular actions, the moves to create a Progressive International. These are all very positive signs.
But you look back in recent history, there have been times where things looked really hopeless and desperate. I can go back to my early childhood, the late '30s, early ’40s. It looked as though the rise of the Nazi plague was inexorable, victory after victory. It looked like you couldn't stop it. It was the most horrible development in human history. Well, turns out — I didn’t know that at the time — that U.S. planners were expecting that the post-war world would be divided between a U.S.-controlled world and a German-controlled world, including all of Eurasia — a horrifying idea. Well, it was overcome. There have been other serious — the civil rights movement, Young Freedom Riders going out into Alabama to try to encourage black farmers to go to vote, despite the threat, serious threat, of being murdered, and being murdered themselves. These were some — this is examples of what humans can do and have done. And we see many signs of it today, and that’s the basis for hope.
AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author, speaking to us from Tucson, where he is now sheltering at home, laureate professor at University of Arizona, taught for more than half a century.
That does it for our show. Amidst the pandemic, we still want to wish a very safe and healthy birthday to Democracy Now!'s David Prude, Anna Özbek and María Taracena. Democracy Now! is working with as few people on site as possible. The majority of our amazing team is working from home. Thanks to all. I'm Amy Goodman. Be safe.


democracynow--2020-04-10--Headlines for April 10, 2020

Headlines for April 10, 2020

The Labor Department said Thursday over 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits over the past week , as the @ @ @ @ @ job losses is set to rival the Great Depression .
Officially , 17 million Americans @ @ @ @ @ the U.S. workforce — have filed for unemployment benefit in just three weeks , though @ @ @ @ @ count immigrant workers or millions more who ’ ve tried and failed to file claims @ @ @ @ @ under a tsunami of paperwork .
Around the U.S. , food pantries are reporting record @ @ @ @ @ fallen precipitously .
One pop-up pantry in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles Thursday @ @ @ @ @ cars .
On Capitol Hill , senators failed to agree Thursday on a new round @ @ @ @ @ objected to a Republican effort to increase funding for a small business loan program by @ @ @ @ @ ’ re instead demanding a more expansive stimulus bill , with federal aid for hospitals @ @ @ @ @ and local governments .

The Labor Department said Thursday over 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits over the past week, as the pace and scale of U.S. job losses is set to rival the Great Depression. Officially, 17 million Americans — or 10% of the U.S. workforce — have filed for unemployment benefit in just three weeks, though that statistic doesn’t count immigrant workers or millions more who’ve tried and failed to file claims while state labor departments buckle under a tsunami of paperwork.
Around the U.S., food pantries are reporting record demand even as donations have fallen precipitously. One pop-up pantry in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles Thursday drew a mile-long line of cars.
On Capitol Hill, senators failed to agree Thursday on a new round of coronavirus relief. Democrats objected to a Republican effort to increase funding for a small business loan program by a quarter-trillion dollars. They’re instead demanding a more expansive stimulus bill, with federal aid for hospitals and more assistance for state and local governments.