What did Donald Trump do today?

He walked back a plan to exempt cities he doesn't like from FEMA aid the same day he got caught with it.

On Friday, in a statement governing disaster relief aid, the Department of Homeland Security posted rules requiring states and cities to rewrite their own internal policies to conform with Trump's anti-immigrant policies, attacks on gender and minority equality, and foreign policies. Failure to do so would, according to the DHS, render any such location ineligible for disaster relief.

States enjoy sovereignty under the United States Constitution and are not required to govern their own internal affairs according to the president's whims.

Reuters reported on the language this morning, and on its obvious consequence: Trump could simply refuse to provide urgent disaster relief for any place he wanted to punish for political reasons. This is something he's explicitly threatened to do before—and he has, at times, carried out that threat. 

Within hours, Homeland Security walked back the new policy. 

It is possible that Trump himself didn't specifically know about the details of the plan. In fact, it is possible that Trump doesn't know that "he" backed down the moment there was reporting about it, either. Even more so than in Trump's first term, he seems content to delegate much of his actual responsibility to political attack dogs, cronies, or anyone willing to put money in his pocket.

But many of the people Trump put in charge of the executive branch were affiliated with Project 2025, a blueprint for radically reshaping American government so politically toxic that Trump denounced it on the campaign trail and swore he had nothing to do with its "bad ideas." Project 2025 calls for gutting FEMA and other forms of disaster aid.

Why does this matter?

• Political litmus tests to decide whether Americans' lives are worthy of being saved in an emergency is evil even by Trump standards. 

• It is not "discrimination" to disagree with Donald Trump about anything. 

• Policy that can't survive a single day exposed to the light is bad policy. 

• No matter how much he wishes he was, Donald Trump is not a king.
•  

What did Donald Trump do today?

He threatened to exile an American citizen for criticizing him.

Last Sunday, as she frequently does, the actor Rosie O'Donnell posted a video to TikTok. She mused about the weather in Ireland, where she currently lives, and about her upcoming projects, and TV shows she'd binged recently. She also said this: 

What a horror story in Texas. The flash floods in Texas, the Guadalupe River. Fifty-one dead, more missing. [The death toll currently stands at 129, with 160 more missing.] Children, at a camp. 

And you know, when the president guts all of the early warning systems and the weather forecasting abilities of the government, these are the results that we're going to start to see on a daily basis, because he's put this country in so much danger by his horrible, horrible decisions and this ridiculously immoral bill that he just signed into law, as Republicans cheered. People will die as a result and they've started already. Shame on him. Shame on every GOP sycophant who's listening and following the disastrous decisions of this mentally incapacitated POTUS. 

Hard to believe. Some people on this Tiktok and on Instagram, say "Well you moved, why do you care?" I moved so that I wouldn't have a nervous breakdown. I moved so that I could be away from it and have some type of shield from the intimacy of it, because I don't do well in world crises. I don't, starting with the Vietnam War, when I was a small child. I don't do well, I know myself enough to know, when he got re-elected, it was time to go. And all that you needed to propel your movement, was reading Project 2025, and sadly, not many Americans did that. And if they did, they didn't believe it. Why? Because the president was lying, saying he knew nothing about it, and he wasn't going to follow it. And he's followed every single thing that they said he was going to do. 

In response, Trump threatened to revoke her citizenship. This isn't something he has any legal power to do, but given the tactics that he has encouraged ICE to use against citizens and immigrants alike here in the United States, it still carries weight. 

He made a similar threat against Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York, and against native-born Americans whose parents were not citizens but whose own citizenship is guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment. (Four of Trump's five known children were born to mothers whose citizenship could be revoked under Trump's policies.) He's also enthusiastically mused about sending Americans to foreign prisons, something he also has no legal authority to do.

Why does this matter?

• The Constitution and the laws of the United States say who is a citizen, not Donald Trump. 

• It's only a crime to criticize the leader's failures in a dictatorship.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He said the families of flood victims were "evil" if they questioned whether anything could have been done to prevent their deaths.

The death toll from the flooding of the Guadalupe River last week in Texas has risen to 121, and that number is likely to reach almost 300 with at least 173 people still listed as missing. 

Today, Trump toured some of the damage, and had this exchange with a local reporter:

REPORTER: Several of the families we've heard from are obviously upset because they say that those warnings, those alerts didn't go out in time, and they also say that people could have been saved. What do you say to those families?

TRUMP: Well, I think everyone did an incredible job, under the circumstances, this was, I guess [Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi [Noem] said a one-in-500, one-in-a-thousand-years, and, uh, I just have admiration for the job that everybody did. Uh, there's this admiration, uh, the, uh—only a—bad person would ask a question like that, to be honest with you, I don't know who you are, but only a very, uh, evil person would ask a question like that, I think this has been—heroism, I think this has been incredible, really, the job you've all done, it's easy to sit back and say "Oh, what could have happened here, there, you know." Maybe we could have done something differently. This was a, a thing that says, uh, [unintelligible] says never happened before.

 Among the question that many "evil" residents and survivors of the flood have been asking are:

• Why was an emergency alert not issued immediately after local first responders specifically asked for one?  

• Why did local officials not act on an urgent flood warning for over three hours?
  
  
• How much did Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's insistence on personally approving all expenses over $100,000—virtually nothing in the case of an emergency like this—delay relief and rescue efforts?
  
  
• Why has the director of FEMA been completely absent, before and during the crisis?
  
  
• Why did Texas state officials deny requests and funds to build a siren warning system for the area known as "Flash Flood Alley," even though everyone was aware of the dangers due to deadly floods in the recent past?
  
  
• Why did Trump wait until two days after the floods to declare a disaster, which would have made more rescue and relief resources available if it had come sooner?
  
  
• Why does Trump say FEMA is unnecessary and should be phased out if he thinks it was so helpful here, and is that still his plan?
  
  
• How much did the massive staff cuts at regional National Weather Service offices impact the accuracy and timeliness of the forecast, and how well it was communicated to local officials?
  
  
• Why were there not enough resources at FEMA to pay for more than one day of the call centers that are normally contracted to deal with disaster relief inquiries?
  
  
• Why does Trump always describe each new flood, hurricane, tornado, wildfire, or other climate-related disaster as some completely unpredictable thing that "nobody's ever seen before," instead of working to prevent or prepare for them?

Trump immediately switched to questions from friendly partisan media, but did not address any of the questions above. He did, however, use some of his time at the disaster relief press conference to complain that people were still upset with him about the price of eggs.

Why does this matter?

• There are more important things here than Donald Trump's political exposure.  

• Americans have a right to ask critical questions of their government. 

• Only cults and dictatorships call people who question the leader "evil."

What did Donald Trump do today?

He whistled past the graveyard of his budget cuts to weather and emergency services.

At least 50 people, many of them children attending summer camps, have died in flash floods in Texas. A massive search-and-rescue effort is underway, but the death toll is expected to rise. 

In response, Trump released a civil, if slightly showy statement of support for the victims, promising to work with state and local officials. This is, in and of itself, newsworthy: it's not uncommon for him to lash out at victims, as he did when he called the survivors of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico "politically motivated ingrates." He also routinely uses the disasters themselves as a political cudgel against politicians he doesn't like, even when the events themselves were unavoidable and his own explanation for how he could have done better ridiculous.

Nor is it a given that Trump will approve states' request for emergency funding or support to help manage disasters. These appeals are normally granted automatically, because the federal government has much greater capacity than individual states. Trump has rejected them in at least four cases since returning to office where the states had met all of the official criteria for aid, without offering any explanation or new guidelines.

On returning to office, Trump slashed the staff and frozen the legally allocated budgets of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and federal agencies dealing with weather and climate change. It has already begun to affect hurricane preparedness, with forecasters expected to make do with drastically reduced satellite imagery to track storms.

State and local officials in Texas were vocally furious with what they saw as a late and underwhelming warning from the National Weather Service, one of the agencies that was already showing clear signs of inability to perform its mission due to the Trump cuts. Less than a month ago, its offices in Texas warned that they were working with only 56% of their normal staffing. 

With the crisis in Texas not yet over, it's not clear whether or how much the weakened NWS presence played a factor, given how urgently state officials rely on its forecasts and alerts. Given the literally unprecedented intensity of the flooding—the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet in 45 minutes—it may not have been possible to entirely avoid loss of life even with federal weather and emergency services operating at full capacity. But this kind of extreme weather event is becoming more common as the climate changes, particularly in Texas, where so-called "500-year floods" are now almost an annual event.

Trump's official position is that he believes climate change is a "Chinese hoax," and his policies reflect that: he recently claimed the authority to "discipline" and rewrite the findings of federal climate scientists whose results he doesn't like. As a private citizen, Trump applies for government funds to help mitigate the effects of climate change on his golf courses.

Why does this matter?

• Slashing the budgets for weather forecasting and emergency preparedness isn't such a great idea when there are weather emergencies that forecasting could have helped you avoid. 

• Disaster victims deserve federal support whether or not Trump likes their governor. 

• The lives of Americans impacted by climate change are more important than Donald Trump's inability to gracefully back away from a false talking point.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He said that the COVID-19 pandemic never happened.

Today, Trump's Department of Health and Human Services stopped nearly $12 billion in grants to the states for disease prevention and control. Much of the money was being used to track, prevent, and control infectious diseases—such as the measles outbreak that started in Texas and is now spreading nationwide. (The Texas Health and Human Services Department is among the agencies affected.)

A statement from the department referenced the COVID-19 pandemic, a sensitive subject for Trump, and said that "HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago."

More than 1,200,000 Americans died as a result of the "non-existent" COVID-19 pandemic in just the first two years. Trump himself nearly died from it. Studies estimate that 40% of those deaths were avoidable but for Trump's policies, which treated it as a political crisis rather than a deadly infectious disease.

Trump also cut funds for state health programs that, at least in theory, he has no specific political agenda against, like mental health and substance abuse treatment. The official rationale is cost-cutting—that is, that the cost per American death or illness avoided by medical care is too high.

Trump's cuts to the IRS, also done in the name of cutting costs, are now expected to cost half a trillion dollars per year, mostly from extremely wealthy individuals and companies avoiding paying their share. That is about 42 times more than the cost of the medical services being cut today.

Why does this matter?

• Pretending that politically inconvenient infectious diseases don't exist was a bad strategy in 2020, and it is a bad strategy in 2025.

• Enabling tax cheats is a bad idea even when the president hasn't been repeatedly caught doing it himself.

• It is not a waste of money to keep Americans from getting sick.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He bragged about wasting billions of gallons of water hundreds of miles from any fire in California.

Trump attended the National Prayer breakfast today. Wandering away from his prepared remarks, he said this about the recent fires in the Los Angeles era: 

The water comes down from the northwest parts of Canada, I guess, but the Pacific Northwest. And it comes down by millions and millions of barrels a day and uh, I opened it up. It wasn't that easy to do. But I opened it up and it's pouring down and it's, it's a beautiful thing, and uh it shoulda happened, I told them to do— it in my last term, they didn't do it, but now we just did it, they didn't want to do it but we did it.

Earlier this month, Trump rattled off a series of inflammatory lies about how California officials were refusing to release water from elsewhere in the state to fight them. After taking office, Trump continued to insist that "pumps and valves" existed that could have brought water from northern California straight into the mountains around Los Angeles for firefighting. 

To prove the point, Trump ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to open the spillways on reservoirs in the Sierra Nevadas. This released enormous amounts water into local rivers—meaning that it was unavailable for use by farmers, and more importantly, won't be there during the dry season when it's most needed. (Local farmers, who were an island of strong support for Trump in heavily Democratic California, were dismayed and frustrated.)

The water lost was also unavailable for firefighting. There are several mountain ranges between the Central Valley, where the water was lost, and Los Angeles. It did, however, threaten to cause floods and erode levees.

All told, 2.2 billion gallons were pumped out and, for the most part, lost into the water table. Southern California is in the midst of a severe drought.

Water from the "northwest parts of Canada"—or the northwest parts of the United States, for that matter—has even less to do with southern California, and in spite of Trump's claims today, his emptying of reservoirs didn't involve water from those places at all. As quite a few people noted online today, Trump's Canada water theory only makes sense if he assumes that water naturally flows "downhill" from north to south.

Why does this matter?

• We shouldn't have to wonder whether the president understands geography as well as a third-grader.

• Wasting billions of gallons during a drought to score political points is stupid.

• Making up meandering, factually inaccurate stories is called "confabulation" and it is not a sign of good mental health.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He lied about an ongoing fire disaster to score political points.

Yesterday, fires broke out in several locations in the Los Angeles area. Fueled by years-long drought and high winds and temperatures, they quickly became major disasters that have already claimed lives and are expected to result in many billions of dollars in damages.

The Palisades fire on Wednesday. (Karen Ballard, CNN)

This morning, Trump tried to put the blame for this on his political enemies, President Biden and California governor Gavin Newsom. In the process, he spread dangerous lies about the cause of the fires and the reasons that they hadn't been contained yet.

As Newsom's office immediately pointed out, none of this is true. There was never any such thing as a "water restoration declaration." Even with the drought, there is no shortage of water available to fight fires with. The reason that some hydrants are empty is that they are fed by water lines that have been destroyed by the fires themselves.

Trump seems to be saying that he thinks water flows from mountains in Northern California into reservoirs in southern California, and then uphill without human intervention into the mountains that surround Los Angeles, where the fires are currently burning.

This would not be the first time Trump has been dangerously confused about how fire works. In 2018, as president, he claimed that the reason California had devastating forest fires and Finland did not is that Finland "raked" their forests clean. (California is hot and dry; Finland, which is smaller, is cold and wet.) Finland's president had to publicly deny that he had told Trump any such thing.

The question now is whether Trump will use the opportunity to punish Americans living in California by withholding disaster relief aid once he takes office. He has done this many times before, forcing Americans to endure uncertainty about whether their government would help them rebuild simply because they lived in states with Democratic governors, or shutting down relief to Puerto Rico because its leaders criticized his administration's botched response to Hurricane Maria. But he also slow-walked disaster responses in Republican-dominated states like Georgia and Utah because their governors refused to go along with his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

In fact, Trump specifically threatened California and Newsom on the campaign trail, saying in October 2024 that if Newsom refused to go along with Trump's proposed agricultural policies, “We’ll force it down his throat, and we’ll say, ‘Gavin, if you don’t do it, we’re not giving you any of that fire money that we send you all the time for all the forest fires that you have.’”

Trump, a climate-change denier, blamed California wildfires that happened during his watch on "exploding trees."
 

Why does this matter?

• Past a certain point in a crisis, it doesn't matter if someone is stupid or lying.

• Undermining faith in the basic competence of government and making people dependent on the leader's whim for help is what dictators do.cli

• None of this was about Trump and he didn't need to make it about him.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He found a public health official who will never contradict him.

Today, Trump announced that he would nominate Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health. The NIH is the country's biomedical and public health research agency. It plays a major role in setting public health policy, communicating about health issues to the public, and responding to disease outbreaks.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump was repeatedly infuriated by his own public health officials' unwillingness to simply agree that the pandemic was no threat, or that it would go away on its own, or—once Americans had already started dying by the tens of thousands—that miracle cures were somehow already available. 

In particular, Anthony Fauci—at the time, Director of the NIAID and so a key part of any disease outbreak response—seemed to enrage Trump with his unwillingness to let COVID misinformation go unchallenged, even if it had just come directly from Trump himself. As this site noted in May of 2020:

Fauci has been forced to publicly contradict Trump a number of times. In response, Trump has tried to limit Fauci's public appearances outside of the White House briefings. He's also sidelined Fauci from certain briefings where reporters were likely to ask questions where Fauci's answers would embarrass him. For example, Fauci was kept away from most of the briefings in the immediate aftermath of the debacle where Trump wondered aloud if injecting household disinfectants might cure the virus. Trump has even jumped in front of the White House podium to physically prevent Fauci from answering questions that would require him to contradict Trump.

As a result, Trump encouraged his political supporters to attack Fauci and other public health officials even while they were still fighting the outbreak—and, in the case of unpopular but necessary control measures like school closures, while the Trump administration was still following their advice.

Bhattacharya was one of a number of figures who rose to prominence as "COVID skeptics," gaining traction within the Trump political movement through a willingness to attack Fauci and other public health officials. His résumé is scant—he's never practiced as a physician and he has no experience managing even a small organization, much less an agency with a $48 billion budget—but the fact that he was saying along with Trump even in the first stages of the outbreak that no real response was necessary seems to have endeared him.

In particular, Bhattacharya said in March 2020 that he expected COVID would only kill 20,000 Americans—comparable to a flu season—and that the much grimmer forecasts were off by "orders of magnitude." He then embarked on a years-long campaign to discredit Fauci and other federal public health officials. His preferred strategy, which Trump endorsed too, was "herd immunity"—in essence, allowing the disease to run completely unchecked until enough of the survivors had immunity that it could spread no further.

COVID has killed 1.2 million Americans.

Why does this matter?

• The job of public health officials is to protect the public health, not the president's feelings.

• Any job where American lives are at stake is too important to give to an unqualified political crony.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He accused people who risk their lives to treat COVID-19 patients of lying for money.

At a Michigan campaign event today, Trump said doctors were falsifying the cause of death for their patients in order to get money earmarked for COVID-19 care from the government. 

Our doctors get more money if someone dies from COVID. You know that, right? I mean our doctors are very smart people. So what they do is they say "I'm sorry but everybody dies of COVID."

...In Germany and other places, if you have a heart attack, or if you have cancer, you're terminally ill, you catch COVID, they say you die of cancer, you died of heart attack. With us, when in doubt choose COVID. It's true, no, it's true. Now they'll say 'oh that's terrible what he said,' but that's true. It's like $2,000 more so you get more money.

Every part of this is a lie.

It can often be difficult to tell when Trump genuinely believes a conspiracy theory, or is simply lying because he thinks his audience will approve of it. But in this case, Trump's genuine—and very legitimate—fears about dying from COVID-19 are well known. He told reporter Bob Woodward in February how serious he understood the disease was, although he then lied to the American public about it. 

And when Trump became seriously ill himself, he immediately became anxious and begged aides for reassurance. "Am I going out like Stan Chera?" he asked, referring to an acquaintance who had died from it in April.

Trump's slim hopes of re-election hinge on convincing voters that 230,000 Americans haven't really died due to his handling of the U.S. outbreak. (Actually, that number misses a great many deaths. 300,000 more Americans have died this year than would be expected statistically.) 

Selling that position has led him to tell crowds—at rallies that are themselves disease vectors— that COVID-19 "affects virtually nobody."

An estimated 1,700 health care workers have died from COVID-19 themselves.

So what?

• Even by Trump's standards, this is a breathtakingly shitty thing to say.

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What did Donald Trump do today?

He shared some thoughts about the coronavirus.

Trump and his White House today shared three dramatically different versions of the COVID-19 epidemic that remains completely uncontrolled within the United States.

"We have the vaccines, we have everything."

There is no vaccine for COVID-19, and in spite of Trump's threats to the FDA about retribution if one weren't approved in time for the election, there will not be one any time soon. Even if a safe and effective vaccine existed today, it couldn't be produced in large quantities for the better part of a year at the soonest.

Trump either forgot that, or decided it didn't matter, when he told a rally crowd today, "We are coming around, we’re rounding the turn, we have the vaccines, we have everything."

The campaign is what is "essential."

Another COVID-19 cluster has erupted in the White House, this time centered on Vice-President Mike Pence's office. At least five of Pence's aides have tested positive, including his "body man," a close aide in Pence's presence throughout the day.

By every set of health guidelines published by the Trump administration or any other government in the world, Pence should now self-quarantine for at least 14 days. But with only nine days left until an election that has already become a referendum on Trump's handling of COVID-19, the White House is asserting Pence is an "essential worker" and therefore allowed to go to campaign events.

As a constitutional officer, Pence might be an essential part of the government, but even "essential workers" in the more usual sense of the word—like police, health care workers, and people involved in food distribution—don't break quarantine to go to political rallies.

"We are not going to control the pandemic."

Trump himself may have decided that there is a cure, or a vaccine, or some other kind of magical solution to the U.S. outbreak, but his administration is signaling defeat. "We are not going to control the pandemic," Trump's latest chief of staff, Mark Meadows, told CNN this morning. Instead, he said, the Trump administration would continue to monitor possible therapies. That only leaves social distancing and public health measures, which are non-starters for Meadows's boss. Trump has encouraged people to disobey local shutdown orders and mocked people who wear masks to prevent the spread of the virus.

Why does this matter?

• Three bad strategies on a crisis of this magnitude are worse than one bad strategy.

• If there were a plan other than giving up, we probably would have heard about it by now.

• The health and safety of the American people is more important than Donald Trump's need to be re-elected.

EARLY VOTING IS NOW UNDERWAY IN ALL STATES THAT ALLOW IT, except for New York and parts of Florida (begins Oct. 24), Maryland (Oct. 26), Washington D.C. (Oct. 27), and Oklahoma (Oct. 29).

What did Donald Trump do today?

He rounded another corner.

Today, Trump told a crowd of senior citizens at The Villages, a Florida retirement community, that the United States was "rounding the corner beautifully" on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Also today, the United States shattered its previous daily record for new cases, with more than 83,000 Americans testing positive.

Trump also used his speech at the Villages to accuse Joe Biden of using the pandemic to scare people. COVID-19 is known to have killed almost 230,000 Americans, and that total is expected to rise to nearly 400,000 by the end of Trump's term. 

Why should this matter to me?

• Ignoring a crisis with a six-figure death toll doesn't make it go away.

• A president this indifferent to a disaster this big is unfit for office, if not psychotic.

EARLY VOTING IS NOW UNDERWAY IN THESE STATES: Arizona, California, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming EARLY VOTING BEGINNING THIS WEEK:  WEDNESDAY, OCT. 14 in Kansas, Rhode Island, and Tennessee, THURSDAY, OCT. 15 in North Carolina FRIDAY, OCT. 16 in Washington SATURDAY, OCT. 17 in Massachusetts and Nevada

What did Donald Trump do today?

Epidemiology, as only he can.

At a rally today in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Trump bragged several times about his "immunity" to COVID-19, and said that members of the audience who had survived the disease were likewise "immune."

Who has had it here? Who’s had it? I know a lot of people, a lot of people. We are the people I want to say hello to because you are right now immune. You’re right now immune.

On one level, Trump's constant references to "immunity" might look like an attempt to portray himself as strong, after an emergency hospitalization and extended convalescence that he clearly found personally humiliating. 

But it's more likely that Trump is trying to put a positive spin on the only COVID-19 strategy he seems willing or able to pursue: letting enough people sicken and die from it that the virus runs out of new hosts. This is called "herd immunity," and it would cost at least a million American lives, if it worked at all.

A White House source, speaking on background, confirmed what has been an open secret: Trump sees letting COVID-19 spread completely unchecked as the best strategy, because it would mean that there was no need for any kind of social distancing or business closures.

When it can be accomplished through harmless vaccines, herd immunity is the best-case scenario. But since letting most or all of a population become sick with a potentially deadly disease is the worst imaginable outcome, what Trump is proposing has never been deliberately tried at any point in human history.

There's another problem with Trump's plan: unlike with some viruses, where lifelong immunity is essentially guaranteed, reinfection with COVID-19 is possible.

Why is this a bad thing?

• There is no situation where letting a million Americans die unnecessarily is the right choice.

• Anyone who finds it too difficult or unpleasant to actually do something about a massive threat to American lives shouldn't be president.

EARLY VOTING IS NOW UNDERWAY IN THESE STATES: Arizona, California, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming EARLY VOTING BEGINNING THIS WEEK:  MONDAY, OCT. 12 in Georgia  TUESDAY, OCT. 13 in Kentucky and Texas WEDNESDAY, OCT. 14 in Kansas, Rhode Island, and Tennessee, THURSDAY, OCT. 15 in North Carolina FRIDAY, OCT. 16 in Washington SATURDAY, OCT. 17 in Massachusetts and Nevada

What did Donald Trump do today?

He forgot which version of his COVID-19 relief story he was on.

Trump told a cable news host today that another relief package to combat the damage done by the uncontrolled COVID-19 package was a done deal, and the only hangup was that he "can't get Nancy Pelosi to sign the document."

Of course, it's presidents who sign bills into law—not members of the House. But if what Trump means is that he hasn't yet managed to strike a deal with Congress, that's correct. Other than a temporary loan in the form of a payroll tax deferral that most private employers have refused to take part in, Trump hasn't shown much interest in economic stimulus since the CARES act passed in March.

Since then, the House has passed the HEROES Act, another broad relief package. It contains industry-specific aid that Trump wants, a direct payment to households he goes back and forth on, and extended unemployment for the tens of millions Americans out of work that he has shown no interest in at all.

Trump, on the other hand, has had enormous difficulty deciding what he wants. In the space of about a week, he's proposed or demanded all of the following:

• routine negotiations with Democrats in Congress over the total size of the package

• an absolute end to any talks until January, after "I win."

• the politically popular $1,200 relief checks and specific industry bailouts but nothing else

• a compromise $1.8 trillion bill, slightly less than the $2.2 trillion bill proposed by the House, and

• an unspecified "bigger" bill than the House had passed.

In other words, Trump has come out in favor of no bill, a small bill, a medium-sized bill, a bill almost exactly like the one passed weeks ago in the House, and a bigger bill.

It's not clear which of these "documents" Trump thought he couldn't get Speaker Pelosi to sign.

Why does this matter?

• It's bad if the president has no idea what his policy is from day to day.

• The economic recovery of the United States is more important than Donald Trump's short-term political needs.

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What did Donald Trump do today?

He held 60% of a rally and broke 100% of a federal law.

Trump spent much of the last few days gradually walking back an overly-ambitious claim that he'd hold a rally in Florida today. Instead, what he held was a White House event at which he addressed a crowd from a balcony at the White House.

The audience wasn't required to wear masks, and were tightly packed in to the available space—although not nearly as tightly as they might have been. 2,000 were invited; about 400 showed up. 

Most of those who did attend were compensated for being there by Candace Owens, the event organizer. Owens is an opportunistic media figure—that's a diplomatic way of putting it—whose income stream mostly relies on stirring up controversy. Before abruptly switching to supporting Trump, after he was elected, she'd attacked the "bat-shit-crazy antics of the Republican Tea Party" that gave rise to his candidacy, and mocked Trump's penis size. Last year, she defended Hitler by saying he wanted to "make Germany great."

Trump's speech was scheduled for 30 minutes. Normally he goes well over his allotted time at rallies. Today, he only lasted 18 minutes.

Trump's use of the White House for an explicitly political event is flatly illegal under the Hatch Act, which prevents executive branch employees from using federal buildings for campaigning. It's the latest in a very long list of actions where Trump has essentially forced White House staff to campaign for him on the taxpayer dime. 

Why should I care about this?

• Presidents aren't above the law.

• It's bad if a president either doesn't know or doesn't care that he's helping a con artist who praised Hitler.

• Not being able to get through half an hour of standing and talking isn't exactly projecting strength.

EARLY VOTING IS NOW UNDERWAY IN THESE STATES: Arizona, California, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming

What did Donald Trump do today?

He performed a play about his health.

Trump appeared in a sort of mock tele-health appointment tonight on Tucker Carlson's evening show on Fox News. In the pre-taped and edited performance, Trump and physician Marc Siegel discussed his COVID-19 illness. 

Siegel and Trump have a history. He "remotely diagnosed" Hillary Clinton with a variety of incapacitating illnesses on Fox programs in the 2016 election season. He wrote a book in 2006 warning about a deadly future influenza pandemic—which fits neatly with Trump's baffling attempts to make the 2009 global swine flu outbreak look worse than the COVID-19 pandemic. (Almost twenty times more Americans have already died from COVID-19, with the outbreak still raging.) And most notably, Siegel was the interviewer who produced Trump's now-famous "person, woman, man, camera, TV" boast about passing a dementia screening.

Siegel asked Trump if he'd been tested for COVID-19 since being hospitalized. Trump's answer was vague, but he seemed to be claiming that he had a low or zero viral load. The White House has refused to provide any evidence of this.

In fact, the White House—which routinely reported on his negative tests in the past—is absolutely refusing to give any details whatsoever on when he last tested negative before his diagnosis. Trump showed up late to the debate venue last Tuesday, where he was supposed to be tested before taking the stage. He gave a noticeably short rally speech the following day, and aides said he seemed out of sorts. All this would be consistent with Trump having contracted COVID-19 at or before the "superspreader" Rose Garden event on Saturday, September 26th. 

If true, that would mean that Trump evading his testing not only endangered the lives of dozens of people in his own inner circle, to say nothing of staff at the venues he traveled to during that period, but also Joe Biden and his family. One of the people in the Trump cluster, former Gov. Chris Christie, has been hospitalized for over a week, and suggesting he is seriously ill.

Asked about other symptoms, Trump replied, "I didn't feel strong, I didn't have a problem with breathing, which a lot of people seem to have. I had none of that." This is obviously a lie; Trump needed oxygen at least twice, and visibly struggled to breathe during a photo op on his return from the hospital. He was also breathing heavily and coughing during a radio interview this morning, during which he claimed he was "cured."

Trump claimed he was no longer taking the mood-altering steroid dexamethasone—again, Trump's doctors have refused to provide any details. He also claimed he'd felt no effect from it, which may be true, but altered patients often don't know they're altered. Trump's own children were among those who took note of behavior that seemed erratic even by his standards.

Trump's actual doctors have not been made available to the public since Monday.

Why should I care about this?

• There's less shame in admitting to being seriously ill than there is in lying about it.

• The only possible reason the White House wouldn't immediately release Trump's negative test results is that it was so long ago that he would look negligent and stupid.

EARLY VOTING IS NOW UNDERWAY IN THESE STATES: Arizona, California, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming

What did Donald Trump do today?

He called COVID-19 a "blessing from God."

In a five-minute video released today, Trump called his serious bout with COVID-19 a "blessing from God." He also proclaimed himself "cured."

It's possible Trump's condition will continue to improve without any further setbacks, but at this stage—no more than a week into the infection, if his own timeline is to be believed—he is contagious, not cured. Over the objections of his own staff, Trump broke quarantine and made his way into the Oval Office this afternoon for a short time. He then immediately alerted the media that he had done so. 

Occasionally breathless and heavily made up, Trump claimed credit for the idea of administering an antibody cocktail in early clinical trials to himself. He also promised the treatment—which won't be available for widespread use for years, if it proves safe and effective—would be free, although needless to say he provided no details.

Specifically, Trump said, "I want everyone to be given the same treatment as your president." Trump receives free taxpayer-funded health care, including the home nursing care and physician visits he's gotten since returning from the hospital. But where other people are concerned, he's generally opposed to socialized medicine.

More than 216,000 Americans are known to have died from the "blessing" that hospitalized Trump.

Why does this matter?

• Even by Trump's standards, this was a bizarre thing to say.

• Health care is a fundamental right that presidents should be working to bring to all Americans even if it's for illnesses they haven't personally contracted.

• Trying this hard to look "strong" has the opposite effect.

EARLY VOTING IS NOW UNDERWAY IN THESE STATES: Arizona, California, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming

What did Donald Trump do today?

He had some highs and lows.

Trump spent the portion of the day that he was awake tweeting and retweeting conspiracy theories, insults, and COVID-19 misinformation. (Twitter covered up his completely false claim that the flu is more deadly the coronavirus, which is a bit strange given that he also claims that two million Americans would be dead from COVID-19 if not for his leadership.)

That much was a normal day in the the coronavirus-decimated Trump White House, but one tweet stood out. In an out-of-the-blue announcement, Trump declared he was totally giving up on desperately-needed pandemic relief until "after I win."

Nancy Pelosi is asking for $2.4 Trillion Dollars to bailout poorly run, high crime, Democrat States, money that is in no way related to COVID-19. We made a very generous offer of $1.6 Trillion Dollars and, as usual, she is not negotiating in good faith. I am rejecting their......request, and looking to the future of our Country. I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business. I have asked......@senatemajldr Mitch McConnell not to delay, but to instead focus full time on approving my outstanding nominee to the United States Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett. Our Economy is doing very well. The Stock Market is at record levels, JOBS and unemployment......also coming back in record numbers. We are leading the World in Economic Recovery, and THE BEST IS YET TO COME!

Actually, the stock markets aren't at record levels—and they reacted immediately, and badly, to Trump's refusal to shut down the main economic lifeline for the remaining portions of the economy.

Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve and a Trump appointee, had just gotten done with an urgent plea for more economic stimulus when Trump tweeted his intentions. Members of Congress reacted with bipartisan horror at his announcement, particularly Republicans in close re-election fights. 

There was even speculation—bolstered by the 63 other manic tweets Trump fired off today—that Trump's fit of pique was the result of the confusion and mood swings known to be caused by the powerful steroid he's on.

If so, Trump's crash came later in the evening—or, alternatively, he was convinced of the political damage he was doing to himself. He fired off another series of tweets, completely unwinding his previous declaration, and demanding that Congressional Democrats send him legislation that would provide taxpayers with $1,200 stimulus checks.

That just happens to be the centerpiece of the Democrats' HEROES Act, which has already passed the House, and which was the subject of the negotiations Trump had torpedoed six hours earlier.

None of Trump's threats—either the ones to end pandemic relief, or the one to give Democrats what they'd been proposing all along—specified what would happen if he didn't win the election. He trails Joe Biden by as much as 16% in recent polls.

What's the problem?

• Drug-induced or not, this isn't something a president can afford to be this confused or emotional about.

• The economic health of the country is more important than Donald Trump's re-election campaign.

EARLY VOTING IS NOW UNDERWAY IN THESE STATES: California, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming EARLY VOTING WILL BEGIN ON WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7 IN: Arizona.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He made absolutely sure everyone heard him repeat a lot of COVID-19 misinformation.

Trump left Walter Reed hospital shortly after 6:30 PM tonight. On landing in front of the White House, he climbed a short flight of exterior stairs. He then removed his mask, and paused for several minutes, visibly struggling to breathe—which is normal for an elderly COVID-19 patient who required hospitalization.

As TV cameras rolled from a distance, Trump then filmed a brief video—although at almost 90 seconds, with no apparent editing to cut out coughing fits, it's the longest he's been able to manage since being taken to Walter Reed. This is the annotated text of it:

I just left Walter Reed medical center, and it's really something special, the doctors, the nurses, the first responders, and I learned so much about coronavirus, and one thing that's for certain, don't let it dominate you. Don't be afraid of it.

"Fear" is a politically charged word, but there is every reason to treat it as dangerous. Trump himself was afraid he would die, early on: he mentioned an acquaintance who had succumbed to it and asked aides if he would "go out" in the same way. 

You're going to beat it.

At least 215,000 Americans have died of the disease, including about 3,600 since Trump entered the hospital.

We have the best medical equipment. We have the best medicines. All developed recently.

Trump has the best medicines. He is in a club of fewer than 300 people who have been allowed to take an antibody cocktail in the early stages of testing, made by a company whose CEO is a friend of his. He's also on remdesivir, a drug that is being rationed for other Americans. 

All treatments for COVID-19 has been developed recently, because the virus has existed only recently.

And you're going to beat it. I went, and I didn't feel so good, and two days ago—I could have left two days ago—two days ago I felt great, like better than I have in a long time, I said just recently, "better than twenty years ago." 

Trump is probably telling the truth when he said he felt good by Sunday, his third day of hospitalization. By then he was on dexamethasone, a steroid that can cause mania and delusions, and his 103° fever had been brought under control by antipyretic drugs.

Don't let it dominate. Don't let it take over your lives. Don't let that happen. 

Trump's refusal to let COVID-19 "take over" his life is why there is a rampant outbreak in the White House, which previously had a pretty good testing regimen for people who came in contact with him. Trump himself is the obvious link between the dozens of people in his political inner circle who have contracted the disease at the same time. (He previously blamed military and law enforcement personnel giving "hugs and kisses" to his aide, Hope Hicks, for the spread of the disease.)

We have the greatest country in the world. We're going back, we're going back to work, we're going to be out front.

About 13 million Americans are not going back to work yet.

As your leader I had to do that. I knew there's danger to it, but I had to do it. I stood out front, I led. Nobody that's a leader would not do what I did. And I know there's a risk, there's a danger, but that's okay.

As strange as it sounds, Trump appears to be saying that he caught COVID-19 on purpose.

And now I'm better.

He is not, according to his own doctors.

And maybe I'm immune, and I don't know. But don't let it dominate your life. Get out there.

Trump is not so much immune as contagious at this stage of the illness. Immunity means the body can fight off re-infection more easily; Trump's body is still fighting the original virus, and likely will be for weeks.

Be careful.

This is good advice.

We have the best medicines in the world, and it all happened very shortly, and they're all getting approved.

Trump is repeating himself here, but again, he received experimental antibody therapy that was not yet approved by the FDA. 

And the vaccines are coming momentarily.

They most certainly are not, but vaccines will not help people who get sick in the meantime. (Trump has gotten confused about the difference between vaccines and medicine before.)

Why should I care about this?

• It's wrong to give people bad information about something that can kill them.

EARLY VOTING IS NOW UNDERWAY IN THESE STATES: California, Iowa, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming EARLY VOTING WILL BEGIN ON TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6 IN THESE STATES: Indiana, New Mexico, and Ohio

What did Donald Trump do today?

He went for a little ride.

Trump has spent much of his time in the hospital—or at least the parts he's been conscious and alert for—trying to convince voters that he feels fine and is "working." For example, on Friday, the White House released photos of Trump in two different rooms wearing two different sets of clothes, creating the appearance that he had spent the whole first day in the hospital doing paperwork. But metadata embedded in the photos suggests the pictures were taken only ten minutes apart.

The photos released by the WH tonight of the president working at Walter Reed were taken 10 minutes apart at 5:25:59 pm and 5:35:40 pm ET Saturday, according to the EXIF data embedded in both @AP wire postings that were shared by the White House this evening. pic.twitter.com/EzeqIkGdf7

— Jon Ostrower (@jonostrower) October 4, 2020

Trump released another very short video today in which he claimed he now "gets it," having experienced COVID firsthand and "learned a lot."

Then, moments after the video was posted (it's not clear when it was recorded), he went for a ride in his motorcade around the outside of the hospital complex. Video of the event shows Trump able to at least wave to the crowds of supporters and protestors gathered outside. There were a number of people, presumably Secret Service agents, in the car with Trump.

The heavily armored vehicles used to transport presidents are, for practical purposes, airtight. Masks or no, continually breathing in air exhaled in such a small space by an actively ill COVID-19 patient is very risky. When medical staff treats a COVID-19 positive patient in much larger rooms with negative airflow, they wear medical-grade personal protective equipment—assuming they have any left.

Needless to say, the trip went against CDC guidelines and all medical good sense. Most of the 210,000 Americans who have died of COVID-19 were no less contagious than Trump, but could not be joined by loved ones for fear of spreading the virus.

Reaction to Trump's exposing his protective detail followed immediately from former Secret Service agents, medical experts (including one who works at Walter Reed), and the general public. It was harsh.

In a break with protocol not seen even during 9/11, the designated White House press pool reporter was not notified. Trump's staff seemed largely out of the loop, too. 

Trump's sudden and apparently impulsive decision to go for a ride raised questions about whether his judgment was being affected. Trump's doctors acknowledged today that he has been put on dexamethasone, a powerful steroid given exclusively to COVID-19 patients in severe respiratory distress. High doses of steroids can lead to behavior changes, including manic behavior and delirium. 

Low blood oxygenation levels can also affect mood and judgment. Trump's doctors today acknowledged two sudden drops in his blood oxygen level, but evaded questions about how low it had gotten, except to deny that it had gotten as low as the "low 80s." A blood oxygen level below 90 would be more than enough to affect Trump's cognitive function.

Why is this a problem?

• Nothing gives the president the right to needlessly endanger the people who protect him.

• It's wrong for the president to mislead voters about his health.

• A president who is on mood-altering drugs and struggling to breathe is in no condition to discharge the powers of the office.

• Past a certain point, trying too hard to project strength only advertises weakness.