Here is the story:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/3...

Holy schiff, GaryL, I'm also 68 and agree 100%!!!

Excellent, The Real Bill. Thank you for taking the time to put this together in one post.

He said something to that effect during a campaign rally. Althrough, he did backtrack on the comment and changed his behavior, but the point is even on Fed 28, he wasn't taking the COVID-19 threat very seriously. You do well to acknowledge Trump's failures than tried to define his response to the pandemic.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tru...
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02...

"He out bid them on supplies. He had the federal government steal our supplies as what happened to Massachusetts. Worst, he had the federal supplies and was not clear on what he was doing with them.." All false assumptions. No President, including this one, is personally involved in the acquisition, bidding, or distribution of any supplies. However, if you've been paying closer attention you'd know that the President or Vice President has been having personal conference calls with all the governors to make sure all the needs are being met as best as possible with the supplies at hand (supplies were more scarce in the beginning and then became more plentiful as additional sources were identified and production ramped up). Even I-Hate-Trump governors HAD to admit all their requests were met asap meaning any potholes in the road identified by the states were quickly filled in by the Trump administration.

Now with that said, obviously your sources have failed to address an interesting question and that has to do with bidding for supplies. That question is why, especially when dealing with foreign (mainly Chinese) suppliers, are the States getting involved in the bidding process? Keep in mind most bidding for resources from suppliers is blind with the highest bidder getting the goods. "Blind" means the bidders don't know who the other bidders are. In many cases it is illegal for suppliers to divulge who the bidders are while the bidding process is going on. Therefore, when Massachusetts bids and Texas bids and Illinois bids and the Federal government bids, the only thing the states do is drive up the cost of the goods. The federal government, of course, has sworn to acquire and supply goods for the states in this emergency, so damn the cost. The winners are the Chinese manufacturers and they are laughing all the way to the Bank Of China. The losers are American taxpayers. The clueless whiners are the democrats blaming what they don't really understand on Trump - and they will NEVER understand it as long as they waste their time on frivolous blame games.

👍 Thanks for doing the research and compiling this.

It isn't just NYC, most covid19 related deaths are from nursing homes and the elderly because that is who is at the highest risk: elderly with existing conditions. The nursing home environment is a microcosm of NYC in the sense that matters for viral infections.

" Instead, he calmed that it was a liberal plot, which was unhelpful, don't you agree?"

let me introduce you to snopes.com. They are a hard left outlet that goes out of their way to twist things said by non-hard-lefties into looking bad. They declared your claim there false. Trump never claimed the virus was a "liberal plot". Even "fact-checkers" rated those claims as false.


" But you know you can call me a Trump Hater but that does not prove me wrong"

Correct, it merely explains why you're spreading lies. The rest of your lies have been shown to be such in another post so no need to repeat that here.

"The president has the most responsibility in responding to the pandemic. "

Incorrect. The POTUS has zero responsibility, and zero authority.

" When the pandemic did hit the us, he provide no leadership in how the states should respond. "

You don't know the timeline or you would not make such a claim with honesty. Let us examine that timeline to demonstrate your claim is invalid.

Jan 1: China was reporting they had dozens of cases of a new virus. Who is ready to panic at that point? This happens often and usually doesn't become a pandemic. No need for action at this point.

Jan 11: First known death. Again, not a cause for any other country to be doing anything about it.

Jan 20: First U.S case, along with other countries. Again, no cause for pandemic action because there is no pandemic at this point. For a pandemic to exist there are criteria that involve community spread in multiple countries simultaneously in multiple WHO regions. This has not yet happened. It is not that uncommon for things to reach this stage and never progress to a pandemic. China states the virus can now transmit between humans, a key requirement.

Jan 23: Wuhan cut off by Chinese government. Well, for internal travel anyway. At this point there were 17 deaths and under 600 known cases. Not a pandemic. These numbers include cases in 6 countries, with zero community spread outside of Wuhan.

Jan 28: And advisor at the VA medical dept. openly asks why the WHO and the CDC are "downplaying" the virus. They aren't based on what was known at the time, but for some they see more. Sometimes they are right, but in the vast majority of cases the feared scenario never comes to fruition.

Jan 29: Trump administration forms the corona virus task force.

Jan 30: Who declares "public health emergency of international concern" due to thousands of cases in Wuhan. Still, not a pandemic and no clear threat to the U.S. China extends their travel restrictions to include the province Wuhan is in.

Jan 31: Trump administration restricts travel from China - gets called racist and xenophobic by Democrats, accusing him of fear mongering. Note: still no pandemic. Still no community spread. Still no deaths outside of China. Most of the public still has no idea this is even going on. Meanwhile the Democrats in charge of various states and cities, including NY and NYC, not only dismiss the actions of the administration but actively tell people to go congregate in Chinatown. Also, Trump's committee declares a national health emergency over it - retroactively to the 27th.

Feb 2: First death outside of China.
Now think really hard about the events of Jan 31 compared to Feb 2. Trump's committee he formed (personally) has already declared a public health emergency, yet only now, two days later, has there been a death outside of China, and a pittance of cases outside of China.

Feb 5: The first cruise ship gets quarantined by Japan. Impeachment sham finally ends.
Feb 7: U.S. announces it has sent/donated 18m tons of medical supplies to China. Nobody complains we need those.
Feb 11: The disease caused by the virus gets its acronym name of COVID-19.
Feb 14: A memo for Trump on potential measures for isolation and quarantine is prepared but not given to him.
Feb 21: said task force runs a mock response scenario and concludes we will likely need significant social distancing
Feb 23: Europe becomes the first significant outbreak outside of mainland China - in Italy. By "significant" in this case it is >150 cases. However, the community spread is extant but minor as almost all cases were either travel or close continuous contact with those who did. Still no pandemic.
Feb 25: Army medical raises the pandemic chance level to "within 30d", report makes to to the Chiefs in a couple of days. Again, not yet a pandemic but Army medical thinks it will become one. This is the first solid assertion that it will do so.
Feb 29: First U.S. death, Trump puts additional restrictions on travel, gets slammed again over it, and again accused of trying to scare Americans for election reasons. Fauci tells the public the risk is low and not a significant concern.

March 3: CDC announces removal of restrictions on testing
March 9: About 10 states have declared a state of emergency. This will be explained below.
March 11: Trump extends travel restrictions to Europe. Still being accused of panicking and xenophobia.WHO declares it a pandemic.
March 13: Trump declares national emergency.
March 15: CDC recommends no gatherings >50
March 16: Trump says to cut gatherings to <10,NYC closes schools.
March 17: France goes on lockdown, EU blocks outside travel.
March 21: Hawaii orders mandatory quarantine of 2 weeks for inbound travellers.
March 23: Britain lockdown
March 24: India lockdown, no Olympics
March 28: CDC issues travel advisories for the NY region
March 30: Most states do some form of lockdown.

"When the pandemic did hit the us, he provide no leadership in how the states should respond" as shown, this is not true - even if we accept it is the POTUS' responsibility to do so.

"New York state has no authority to prevent international flights."

Actually, yes they do. Limited and requires specific causes but a state does have the authority to stop flights coming into it. Whether it should or not, it does. Note that by the time we had a pandemic, Trump had already been blocking flights and getting roasted over it.

"For example, deos NY state have the authority to order there own lockdowns, force businesses to close down, and so on? "

Wrong question. Does the the office of POTUS have that authority? The answer to that is an unequivocal "no, it does not". There is limited authority under declared states of emergency for States, Cities, and Counties to do so, but there is zero authority for the POTUS. The states of emergency are what allow both the state to do things it ordinarily can not, and triggers and opens actions by the federal government - actions it is prohibited by law from doing until that event.

To give you an idea of how important this is, by March 9th the federal government had already quarantined people over the virus - for the first time in more than fifty years. And it was getting pushback by the states telling it that isn't legal - it is the State's job and authority.

You're claiming Trump did nothing, yet the record shows that not only is that false, he was getting roasted by Democrats, Media, and the State agencies for the actions you claim he never initiated or took.

This is why they have pivoted to "well he didn't say this and said that" games because the hard reality is they were attacking him over his actions that are now being claimed never happened. Its called gaslighting, and it shouldn't be happening, especially here.

Cuomo had the authority to declare a health emergency early on. But that would have put the State health department in charge of the response rather than himself. New York's actions didn't start until the first week or so of March - more than a month after Trump declared a national health emergency.

March 5th Cuomo and deBlasio were on talk shows confirming cases and community spread. Now lets get into the naughty bits. On that same day De Blasio said people should go ahead and keep riding the subway and going about normal lives - then took a subway ride to prove to NYers that they are fine. Think about that and explain to me how you can blame Trump for "not leading" by blocking travel and declaring a national health emergency, not to mention the response team, almost six weeks before the mayor of NYC does this, and somehow claim "NY had to do something" and had no leadership. The leadership in NY was playing politics.

Then it gets worse. The next day suddenly DeBlasio blames the federal government for not giving them PPE already - and the article came out the day he finally placed an order.

March 7 Cuomo declares a state of emergency. Not a health one, mind you. Here is the delcaration: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/no-2... notice in there it acknowledges the declarations and existence of the Pence team and state of national health emergency. Kind of hard to do that if it hadn't happened.

"Even now, Trump has provide nothing more than guidelines for states to reopen thier economies. "

Compared to what? The administration did not put the lockdowns in place, and lacks the authority to do so. Likewise, Trump can't make them get rid of them either. That requires court action by citizens to force the constitutionality and other problems with them. It is possible the DoJ could sue the states to force them to abide by the constitution but we know where that would go: the SCOTUS - the states in question are already fighting the administration on what they can and can't do to each other.

Despite what the Progressives want, Trump isn't a dictator and doesn't have the authority to be one. Do you seriously think NY would pay attention to him now, when they not only didn't before they mocked and opposed him on it? Look at the various state vs. county problems we've seen. California govt. said go ahead and open things up a bit and counties and cities said "don't do that".

In Texas Abbot countered that when he announced our easing by saying his rules override and and all local ones on those subjects. Why? Because we've seen that in other states fail when lacking that assertion.

Your entire screed here is baseless and demonstrably false. Further, and more disturbingly, you are essentially arguing for the office of the POTUS to have Mussolini level control; just as FDR did and Obama lamented that he didn't have.

If NY wants to secede, let them. If California does, let them. Demcorats won't let that happen though. They will block it because that ensures Republican control of the United States for quite some time and because enough of them know CA would crash hard thus making the failure of Democrat rule obvious to the world.

Note that none of the above talks about the assumption that it is the responsibility of the POTUS to tell you how to avoid an illness. I actually trust the masses to judge that on their own better than government. And the data backs me up, as the data shows people had started distancing at higher levels about 2-3 weeks before the states told them they had to. That is something most pundits aren't taking into account in the growing resistance to being forced to - we've been at it longer than the imperial decrees.

Any politician in NY is an idiot in my book. I dont watch or listen to any of them.

Cuomo is dumber than my dead mother! At around 12 years old when all the kids had Chickenpox and I didn't Mom took me to get the infection. Now I have Shingles. Thanks Mom!
Send the infected elderly to the nursing homes so we can do a little planned genocide of all those old and useless citizens. Then we can blame it all on Trump and win the election with a bigger idiot who can't remember his name and everything will be just as they planned. Pelosi looks like the Botox is coming out of her eyelid and effecting her lips but Trump is the problem and cause of the China virus. Eric Holder is on the march and it's all Trump's fault as the hidden files are coming to light. The liberals are fully Puckered and don't have a clue where all of this is going while the rest of us are patiently awaiting the Perp Walks once that "Traitor" AG Bill Barr rounds up all the bad actors. Over in Russia Putin is laughing and in China XI is building up his military while our own Fake News is hammering away on the one man who can handle all this crap. We are living in the strangest of times in my 68 years and all I can hope is I get to see the democrat house of cards come tumbling down.

The President banned travel from China in late January, and Biden called him a racist for doing it. Nancy Pelosi was encouraging people to visit Chinatown at the same time (two dings for that, as her remark was both racist and stupid). While he put out recommended guidelines he did not try to force a one size fits all decree on the states. He was intelligent enough to recognize that not all states had the same conditions, and gave them support, expecting the governors to know their unique issues and how to use the funds and equipment made available. We are a republic, not a monarchy or dictatorship. If some states suffered from having incompetent governors, they can evict them at the next election.

Obama had depleted the national supply of PPE, and failed to replenish them. Was it Trump's fault he didn't know that intuitively, as I'm sure the Obama team didn't tell his incoming staff?

Democrats in the House were too busy with impeachment to even recognize the pandemic, at a time when the White House was working to address national efforts to control it. If anyone should be blamed for disregarding the crisis, it's the Democrat party, across the board.

I find it very entertaining that you get your entertainment from the likes of CNN, MSNBC and the other Fake News outlets. I do understand your disappointment and hope you are prepared to be disappointed for another 4.5 years.

And Cuomo tried to open a federal case against FL to force them to allow travel from NYC...

Involuntary servitude. Actions of one that compel another to the consequences. I believe that was Milton Friedman's term for it. Excellent concept.

This sort of thing should play well in November.

I can't begin to tell you just how wrong you are! I live in NY and just 80 miles NW from NYC, the epicenter. International travel to major NYC airports brought the virus here from China and all over the world. We have very little virus here in Sullivan county right now however as the nice weather approaches all the NYC dwellers who have second homes and camps up here will certainly bring the disease with them and we will soon be overrun.
President Trump has nothing to do with it but Governor Cuomo and my local officials do. Many of the most highly infected NYC residents that come here are of the Orthodox Jewish faith. They are a major voting block in NY politics. Most of the local year round residents don't want them coming here during this pandemic and it has absolutely nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the health and safety yet we get labeled as anti semitic.
Our hospitals are tiny compared to those in NYC and so too are our stores and we already have empty shelves. If our population here doubles or triples in the next month we will be the latest epicenter. If you insist upon blaming Trump then add China and the previous administration to your list of ill prepared officials. We here already know our foolish Governor is more interested in votes than he is in the health of our area and he will not keep this disease contained in NYC. He already forced nursing homes to accept infected persons and over 30% of the deaths in this state are in those homes and a direct result of his orders. Hating Trump will do nothing but make you feel better!

Aren't these the guys who sent Covid positive patients to nursing homes? A huge portion of NYC deaths came from nursing homes.

Mistakes were made at all levels of government. Information about the virus has been lacking and still is lacking for making rational decisions. The lack of scientifically valid data available to the public may be intentional.
I disagree that the federal government is responsible for the health of Americans. In fact, the federal government has made very few rational actions that are constitutionally valid in the past 60 years including most of the actions taken in response to the virus. The people and their state governments do have the authority to protect themselves. (See US Constitution 10th Amendment.)
In addition, I completely disagree that Trump is most responsible. This is not an absolute monarchy or a dictatorship regardless of how many times the media attempt to portray Trump as such.
Could Trump have made better decisions? Yes, if he was omniscient he might have. The media will assure that Trump is blamed regardless of the facts. Nothing is clearer than the media's obvious bias against Trump for political reasons.

I am conflicted by all of this.
First it is an example of the problems of living in these urban shitholes piled upon one another. Secondly, if everyone decided to leave these shitholes, they would likely move into my neighborhood......damned if I do and damned if I don't. These shitholes are the result of the Agenda21 plan of the UN to save the open spaces for the privileged few and push all others into a controlled space to be controlled.

“We can really keep this thing contained,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference about virus preparations in late February.

That tone continued even after the first positive case was announced on March 1.

“Everybody is doing exactly what we need to do,” said Mr. Cuomo, seated with Mr. de Blasio, at a news conference on March 2. “We have been ahead of this from Day 1.”

Then the scumbags repeatedly blamed Trump for their own incompetence.