So the White House made the explicit decision that it was a better political call to let people die in the blue states and blame the governors then try to fix the testing situation. https://t.co/1fKA5vhfWa — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 30, 2020 pic.twitter.com/lK8d0iWpiF — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 30, 2020 This excellent read has been …
Countries that have successfully contained their outbreaks have empowered scientists to lead the response. But when Jared Kushner set out in March to solve the diagnostic-testing crisis, his efforts began not with public health experts but with bankers and billionaires. They saw themselves as the “A-team of people who get shit done,” as one participant proclaimed in a March Politico article…
The group’s collective lack of relevant experience was far from the only challenge it faced. The obstacles arrayed against any effective national testing effort included: limited laboratory capacity, supply shortages, huge discrepancies in employers’ abilities to cover testing costs for their employees, an enormous number of uninsured Americans, and a fragmented diagnostic-testing marketplace…
By early April, some who worked on the plan were given the strong impression that it would soon be shared with President Trump and announced by the White House. The plan, though imperfect, was a starting point. Simply working together as a nation on it “would have put us in a fundamentally different place,” said the participant.
But the effort ran headlong into shifting sentiment at the White House. Trusting his vaunted political instincts, President Trump had been downplaying concerns about the virus and spreading misinformation about it—efforts that were soon amplified by Republican elected officials and right-wing media figures. Worried about the stock market and his reelection prospects, Trump also feared that more testing would only lead to higher case counts and more bad publicity. Meanwhile, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, was reportedly sharing models with senior staff that optimistically—and erroneously, it would turn out—predicted the virus would soon fade away.
Against that background, the prospect of launching a large-scale national plan was losing favor, said one public health expert in frequent contact with the White House’s official coronavirus task force.
Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.
That logic may have swayed Kushner. “It was very clear that Jared was ultimately the decision maker as to what [plan] was going to come out,” the expert said…
The gamble that son-in-law real estate developers, or Morgan Stanley bankers liaising with billionaires, could effectively stand in for a well-coordinated federal response has proven to be dead wrong. Even the smallest of Jared Kushner’s solutions to the pandemic have entangled government agencies in confusion and raised concerns about illegality…
Ms. Spiers was the editor of the NY Observer when Prince Jared decided to buy, and destroy, it:
Can confirm that Jared is both malicious and stupid. https://t.co/ePjGQrXnsq
— Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) July 31, 2020
If you're surprised by Jared Kushner's callousness re: people in blue states dying of covid-19, you should know it's not an aberration. Here's what I wrote in early May: https://t.co/Djmd6qF0SX pic.twitter.com/SBad1kaIts
— Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) July 31, 2020
I think people underestimate the extent to which both Jared and Trump are angry at blue state elites for never really accepting them. They both have massive inferiority complexes, even with all of their wealth and privilege. So of course they're happy to let, say, NYC die. https://t.co/U19DkzxPqR
— Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) July 31, 2020
They want validation from competent, smart people too, and the only way to get that is to be competent and smart themselves. Which would take work, and humility, neither of which they're up for. So not getting approval from those quarters makes them angry, too.
— Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) July 31, 2020
maggie, who works at the new york times, did not consider it newsworthy that her friend (the authoritarian president) was intentionally murdering her state https://t.co/08oL1nG85J
— etaoin shrdlu (@Theophite) August 1, 2020
she uncritically covered trumps claims of wealth when she was at the ny post and politico and i think she still essentially sees him as a clownish, harmless, self-aggrandizing NYC real estate guy instead of 'what if a cable news channel had nuclear codes'
— le loup garou (@turdducken) August 1, 2020
they’re job shopping for the next era
— kilgore trout, new tone haver (@KT_So_It_Goes) July 30, 2020