In a combative interview this morning on CNN’s “State of the Union”, Meadows blurted this nugget out of his pie-hole:
"We're not going to control the pandemic, we are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigations," [Emphasis mine]
When confronted with the accelerating number of new cases of COVID infections nationwide and asked what the administration was doing about it, this popped out:
"When we look at the number of cases increasing what we have to do is make sure we fight it with therapeutics and vaccines, take proper mitigation factors in terms of social distancing and masks when we can,"
Here’s what Meadows is really saying:
“(Nine months in) we were too lazy do the easy stuff to prevent people from getting infected in the first place (like social distancing, wearing masks, using the NDAA to ramp up stocks of PPE), so now—trust us—we’re doing the hard stuff, like telling our donors (sponsors) in the Pharma industries that they’d ‘better come up with some therapeutics or you can kiss the congressional representation and K Street lobbying efforts your millions have bought over the years goodbye’“.
So, Mr. Meadows, while you guys are doing that, why not now encourage mask wearing, social distancing, and PPE stockpiling?
“Because, dimwit, if we did that the next question would be ‘What took you so long?’ It wouldn’t do to make my boss look bad, so we’re going to pretend like we’ve been doing everything the experts have been telling us to do—the easy stuff—while we string you and our supporters along by saying we’re on top of the hard stuff, like developing vaccines and therapeutics. You know, the stuff that costs real money, because if we know anything in this administration, it’s knowing where the real money is (and who gets it). Memo-to-self: call my broker for a ‘put’ on Glaxo.”
So, just to be clear, to make the boss ‘look good’ you’re today going to continue sacrificing tens of thousands of Americans to an alarming rise in infection rates nationwide, by (still) not telling Americans (including your own supporters) plainly and openly to wear a mask and practice social distancing? And all this while your DOJ is asking the SCOTUS to invalidate the ACA, which is the last line of affordable healthcare for millions? And when confronted by Leslie Stahl during a 60Minutes taping last week with “What about those with pre-existing conditions?”, the president actually thought he could just leave it with “they’ll be taken care of”? And when pressed for more detail, had the nerve to begin accusing Ms Stahl of bias and being ‘unfair’ in her questioning of him?
As evidenced by the 60Minutes outtakes released by the White House (breaking an agreement not to do so before the Sunday airing of the program) on Thursday, in addition to the entire 3.5 years of his tenure, Donald Trump only really wanted to play President. He never had any intention of actually doing the job. He doesn’t mind the campaigning and being chauffeured around the globe and being waited on hand and foot. But he draws the line on doing more than making announcements and doing photo-ops.
What? You think he actually wanted this job? He’s only been doing this much so he can make sure he can bank his cut when it’s over.
So, why’s he running for re-election? Well, you can thank Mueller and his fake Russia investigation for that.