Talking Points Memo reports:
The President’s usual nonsense has graver implications during a pandemic crisis. Here he is from a few moments ago claiming that all people returning from Europe are being tested for Coronavirus and being quarantined if they are positive. Obviously this is completely false.
Trump claims (falsely) all Americans returning to country are being tested:”We have heavily tested. If an American coming back or anybody coming back, we have a tremendous testing set up where people coming in have to be tested … if it shows positive … We have to quarantine.” pic.twitter.com/ndGlKmSFJh
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 12, 2020
Trump’s Oval Office comments today were so thoroughly dishonest it’s hard to know which ones to lead with.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 12, 2020
Trump talks at length, again, about how nice Japan’s Olympics venues are. He adds, “It’s a shame because — really, I used to be in the real estate business, as you probably heard. I built beautiful buildings. And they built some really beautiful buildings.”
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 12, 2020
Asked about holding rallies, Trump said it doesn’t matter if Democrats do because nobody came to theirs anyway, while he has “very big” ones. He says, though, he won’t do it if it’s going to lead to people dying. He says, “I don’t want people dying. That’s what I’m all about.”
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 12, 2020
Trump then suggests people are to blame if they can’t get a test, saying, “If you go to the right agents, if you go to the right area, you get the test.” He doesn’t say who are the right agents or what are the right areas. https://t.co/VLQUeSYSoR
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 12, 2020
Asked about the Bolsonaro aide who tested positive, Trump said he doesn’t know if the aide was at Mar-a-Lago (he was, and took a picture with Trump), then added, “If he was there, he was there. But we did nothing very unusual.”
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 12, 2020
Trump on the stock market: “It’s gonna all bounce back, and it’s gonna bounce back very big at the right time.”
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 12, 2020
Trump says he had a scheduled rally in Tampa that was “all sold out” with “over 100,000 requests for tickets.” His campaign never officially announced that rally or allowed people to request tickets, as far as I can tell (as @maggieNYT noted). Please correct me if I’m wrong.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 12, 2020
Asked about European countries being blindsided, Trump invokes EU tariffs. He says: “When they raise taxes on us, they don’t consult us. And I think that’s probably one and the same. They’ve done things — European Union, has done some very big tax raises…not so much with me.”
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 12, 2020
Trump said in the Oval Office that oil prices have plummeted to a level he would have “dreamed about.” He said, “With gasoline prices coming down, that’s like a tax cut. Frankly that’s like a big tax cut, not a little tax cut…So there’s something about that that I like.”
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 12, 2020