Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker: Trump Has Caused a "Greater Number of Deaths Across the Country"

[babylonsister]

Inside the Hive
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker: Trump Has Caused a “Greater Number of Deaths Across the Country”
In a searing interview on Inside the Hive, the governor takes aim at the president for his flagrant mishandling of the pandemic: “It’s outrageous.”
By Joe Hagan
April 10, 2020


In the last week, Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois has become more open and full-throated than some of his counterparts in criticizing President Donald Trump for his failure to help them battle the coronavirus. Not surprisingly, Trump has punched back, calling Pritzker a “complainer” and passing the buck back to the states, treating them like dubious in-laws looking for a cut of the family fortune.

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive with Nick Bilton, Pritzker punched back, highlighting the consequences of Trump’s lack of action. “The failures of the White House, of the president, have visited greater illness and greater number of deaths across the country,” he said.

“They were just caught completely unprepared,” he added. “When there was any realization within his administration that this was a massive potential crisis—the president was publicly downplaying it, publicly saying that this is a hoax, or that this is just like the flu, it’ll pass right on by, no problem—when finally he was faced with the death toll and the case numbers rising rapidly, I think you saw there was one press conference finally where he came out and was reading from a script.”

As of this week, there have been 16,424 cases of coronavirus identified in Illinois and over 500 deaths—and epidemiological modeling predicts cases will peak sometime in the next two weeks.

In regular calls with fellow governors, Pritzker has heard the same thing, regardless of political affiliation: “Republicans and Democrats all acknowledge that the federal government has fallen down on the job.”

more...

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/illinois-governor-jb-pritzker-takes-aim-at-the-president

[Faux pas]

1. They all need

to sack up and call the bastard out EVERY EFFING DAY.

[dalton99a]

2. The blood in on the hands of Donald Trump and his enablers.

[SWBTATTReg]

10. All complicent and murderers. They know that they, major time, screwed up big time. There's...

not enough money in anyone's campaign budgets to hide this fact. Murderers all.

One day they'll all be asked 'where they were all at' when this hit. Like McConnell who went home despite a major bill awaiting the Senate's actions on passing the bill. Guess he ran out of bourbon or something and had to go back home.

[DENVERPOPS]

16. He had to call his wife's parents

who are Chinese Oligarchs to organize future financial investments with them......Just like the other Senators/Representatives did when they got the insider information ahead of all the rest of us.......

[MagickMuffin]

3. The federal government is now prepared to be drowned in a bathtub.

Thanks Grover and the rest of your ilk.

[rickyhall]

23. I hope Grover Nutcase dies a horrible lingering death.

[smirkymonkey]

4. He's right, and Trump knows it.

Pathetic little snowflake will never accept responsibility for anything. He's absolutely worthless.

[Hortensis]

5. How about McConnell and his gang of killers?

Trump literally couldn't have done his part without their complicity, and Trump couldn't do their part.

[mopinko]

6. well, there goes our ppe.

srsly, tho, jb is doing a great job, as is cook county. i think we will get through this pretty well.
shame that saying the truth out loud could hurt the citizens of your state, tho. all the govs would be stackin up wood for a bonfire w/o the threats.

[Freethinker65]

9. Agreed

[malaise]

7. Expect a response on Fux tonight

from the Con himself

[Takket]

8. and drumpf's response to his failures? Let's open the country back up!

[patphil]

11. Deliberate, systematic criminally negligent homicide.

You've done a Hell of a good job, Trumpy.

[gibraltar72]

12. Republican Governors need to work for the nation.

not just their citizens. They grumble but refuse to publicly tell the truth.

[Dave in VA]

13. Get the chant going!

Hey, hey, Donnie J.

How many people you killed today?!!

[DENVERPOPS]

17. Long before now

Many other nation's people would be assemblying en masse around the white house. We are talking hundreds of thousands of people.

[DFW]

14. Republicans have long been admirers of Stalin

Stalin managed to kill or starve about 20 million Soviet citizens. Maybe Trump sees himself as playing catch-up?

[ProfessorGAC]

15. Adding On

There isn't a tissue paper's depth of difference between Stalin & Mao.
Two uber communists that seemed to have profound influence on supposed anticommunists.
Socialism, bad. Mao & Stalin had the right ideas! Pretty hard to rationalize that admiration on their part.

[DFW]

19. For decades now, Republicans have been ever bolder in their opnness about being control freaks

As Stalin was reported to have said: "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." There are few who took Mao seriously when he said "Let a hundred flowers bloom. Let a hundred schools of thought contend." What Mao meant, but left out, was, "The hundred flowers can stay, but let the 99 schools of thought that aren't mine make themselves known, and then be eradicated." Indeed, pretty much a good paraphrasing of current Republican electoral strategy.

[kairos12]

18. Chump is holding back PPE for

when the Red brownshirt states get clobbered. Mafia payoffs.

[Tweedy]

21. Actually the president is out of PPE

And let's hope the states have built a supply chain that will fill the void.

[FailureToCommunicate]

20. Has Trump killed enough people on 5th Avenue to lose any of his voters?

Probably not yet.

[peggysue2]

22. We need people willing to tell the truth

Pritzker will catch hell for this but so be it. You can't lie your way through a crisis without risking the security and safety of our citizenry.

In an earlier thread, a DU poster referred to this medical fiasco as Contagion (the movie) for stupid people. Thought that comment was spot on though I would add stupid and malevolent. Trump and his enablers care about one thing and one thing only--the economy, the flagging stock market because they're convinced their political futures ride on shoring up the recession/depression-like effects of the shutdown.

That and flat-out greed, arrogance.

It's not that the economy isn't important. We all need income for the very basics as well as access to those basics. But the root cause of the economic fallout is Covid-19. Without a concerted and intelligent approach to get a handle on the infection, the economy will be in turmoil and our social cohesiveness (what we have left) will be absolutely shredded.

We can't get back to where we were or even enter a new normal without a reasonable plan. This idea that there's a simple switch to turn everything back on is as crazy as the idea 'we should ride the virus out.'

Trump and his Administration has failed miserably.

[yaesu]

24. The fascist pigs who kicked 200,000 off our Medicaid expansion are now whining that our Governor

is going too far shutting the state down, these selfish whining little handed man babies could care less about saving lives.