I will agree that many were not wearing masks, so strike that. But I'm not believing he flip flopped on GA because "a couple unknown sources at the WH" leaked it to the media. We've been down that road before... Russia, Ukraine, dossier, cough cough.
Lots of people only get their "news" from garbage like this on FB, Twitter, SNL, etc. Its sad. Yeah Fox pushes some BS too. One channel out of the entire TV lineup though. On cable. And I have no problem if they get called out when they get called out with facts.
Like you I've found I need diverse news sources to piece together an accurate and informative picture of what's going on. We'll disagree on several issues... I think the Ukraine thing was a bald faced attempt to leverage his position as president to strong-arm an investigation into his political rival and I think he his impeachment should have led to removal from office. But that's the rear view mirror.
Back to the "declared victory" thing. This is where understanding different viewpoints comes into play. Fortunately for him, he didn't state "we won" or, "mission accomplished." He learned enough from GWB on that score. But his April 16 address was interpreted as being pretty much that. Roll the tape. Here's the statement that much of the country considers his de facto victory declaration:
"We’re starting our life again,” Trump said during his daily press briefing. “We’re starting rejuvenation of our economy again.”
At a time when we were coming up on our first peak, with of 2200 Americans dying each day he's crowing about guidelines to open the economy, which then most governors largely ignored, particularly (but not only) the republican ones. Anyone on the liberal wing and many middle of the road people considered this a form of a victory speech.
Trump's initial approval of the Georgia plan is a matter of record. It's well documented, not fake news. Here's a Time article about it. This was heavily fact checked, much through AP, and is not fake news in any way.
The about-face demonstrates the political risk for governors in following the president's guidance
time.com
Here's a quote from right after the plan was announced. I've watched the video of this though I don't have the link handy:
When asked Tuesday about Kemp’s decision, Trump supported the governor, saying “He’s a very capable man. He knows what he’s doing. He’s done a very good job as governor.”
Frankly, what I think happened is that Trump didn't bother to read the briefing on the opening and his initial support was probably knee jerk, then over time his staffers showed him how nutty it was with tattoo parlors and spas and stuff. Then he backtracked. Just my speculation, of course.
Anyway, states are opening, some faster than others, and all the models predict we'll gradually start to have increased deaths again, probably peaking between 2000- 3000 deaths per day again. Summer effect of the warm weather is currently unknown. But even now, if you look at "The US minus New York" deaths have been increasing pretty steadily. The NY epicenter is cooling off with nowhere near the close to 1000 deaths per day (100-200 these days), but most days the US as a whole is still over 1500. Of course weekend periodicity in the data is seen, so really looking at weekly averages is the way to go.
Let's see how it goes. I know my positions may be unpopular here but I call 'em as I see 'em. I am very open to changing my views based on data... and in the meantime I wish you guys well. Back to work for the rest of the day though, so you won't hear much from me today!
