Trump says he wasn't joking about testing slowdown: "I don't kid"

[groundloop]

Source: CBS News

Washington — President Trump doubled down on his recent comments about ordering his administration to slow down coronavirus testing, contradicting several White House officials who defended his remarks by claiming they were made in jest.

During a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday, Mr. Trump said, "When you do testing to that extent you're going to find more people, you're going to find cases. So I said to my people, 'Slow the testing down, please.' They test and they test. We got tests for people who don't know what's going on."

A White House official argued to CBS News after the rally that Mr. Trump's comments were "in jest," and Vice President Mike Pence told the nation's governors in a call Monday that the president was making a "passing observation." White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Sunday that Mr. Trump's remarks were "tongue-in-cheek." Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told "Face the Nation" he knew of no directive from the president to slow down testing.

But when asked by CBS News' Weijia Jiang on Tuesday if he was kidding when he made those remarks, Mr. Trump replied, "I don't kid."

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-slow-down-testing-coronavirus-i-dont-kid/

[Marthe48]

1. only victim humor for the impeached traitor

n/t

[dawnie51]

2. Nio he doesn't kid...

as in "Russia, if you're listening......." etc etc.

[soothsayer]

3. Coronavirus hearing witnesses all deny he asked

...them to slow down, fwiw.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. No, he doesn't kid-- he's just a fucking moron. Too stupid to know a joke if his...

fat ass fell on one.

[dutch777]

5. He pushed testing to the governors and the hospitals will do it anyway because FEMA funds are tied..

...to it. Extra cost of treating COVID patients over and above what insurance will normally pay, is a FEMA covered expense so hospitals will stay after this for their own financial well being. That of course does not cover those who are asymptomatic and such but the real number to hammer tiny fumble fingers with is the death toll at 120,000 and still counting...more than 9/11, more than Afghanistan and Iraq and on and on

[Kid Berwyn]

6. Then arrest him for criminal dereliction of duty.

I kid you not.

[SWBTATTReg]

7. Instead of Typhoid Mary, we have Covid Don...

When will the powers that be remove this disgusting piece of humanity from office? This whole thing (the covid crisis) is not one to play politics with, and before long, all of the people living in the rural areas of the US that the corona virus is raging in now, will finally say something. Didn't Tulsa tell them something (trump and the rest of the f**king idiots that surround the so called president)?

These people wouldn't feel a thing if their own families were dying from the CV.

[bronxiteforever]

8. Kick and recommend for visibility

[bdamomma]

9. so he doesn't "kid"

arrest him then.

[bdamomma]

10. he is not well mentally at all

During a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday, Mr. Trump said, "When you do testing to that extent you're going to find more people, you're going to find cases. So I said to my people, 'Slow the testing down, please.' They test and they test. We got tests for people who don't know what's going on."

He needs to go away for a very long time.

[sop]

11. Trump's COVID-19 response has been fundamentally eugenicist.

He and his followers have been content to let thousands of people die so long as they were the "right people," not them. Problem is, the virus that began in large cities is now establishing itself in areas where these morons live.

[TygrBright]

12. We knew that. n/t

[hibbing]

13. Video thread on DU

How odd, there is a thread on the DU homepage with his communication person on CNN claiming it was a joke. You know, 120,000 dead certainly is a cause for levity. For a communication expert, he needs to work on his communication.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017589270


Peace

[keithbvadu2]

14. Stabs his own WH staff in the back... again.

Stabs his own WH staff in the back... again.

They have such loyalty - one way!

[niyad]

15. So he was lying when he said he was joking about the Lysol and the I light?

[IronLionZion]

16. People are sick of winning, not sick from COVID

[tblue37]

17. So he admits that all those times he claimed he was just joking--like when he suggested

injecting or ingesting bleach--he actually wasn't joking as he claimed, but was quite serious.

[Stuart G]

19. K and R ..no text..

[Solly Mack]

20. Oh, we know he meant it about injecting disinfectants,

sunlight, and slowing down testing.

Mister "stable genius".

Idiot.

[ProfessorGAC]

21. +1 To You & tblue

He said himself he was kidding about the disinfectant thing. Now it's "I don't kid."
So he's either lost it completely, or he really thought injecting toxic chemicals was a fine idea.
More crazy than stupid? Or, more stupid than crazy? Seems like a binary choice!!

[Solly Mack]

22. Both. He is dangerously stupid.

[Marie Marie]

23. No need to kid when you ARE the joke.

[TomCADem]

24. Coronavirus contact tracing is 'not going well,' Dr. Fauci says, U.S. still needs more testing

Talk about mixed messages. Pence goes to the podium and says everything is great and that people should follow local laws, but then when reporters ask him why the Trump rallies disregard locals laws, he points to the First Amendment, which I do not think has anything to do with wearing a mask or social distancing, but you learn something new every day.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/26/coronavirus-contact-tracing-is-not-going-well-fauci-says.html

There’s just a handful of interventions proven to curb the spread of the coronavirus. One of them is contact tracing, and “it’s not going well,” White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday.

Contact tracing occurs when trained personnel contact infected people to investigate where they might have been infected and who they might have exposed to the virus. Along with widespread testing and ability to isolate potentially infectious people, tracing is an age-old public health intervention now being ramped up at an unprecedented scale.

“It’s not going well. I have to tell you, it’s not going well,” Fauci said in an interview with CNBC’s Meg Tirrell that was aired by the Milken Institute. “What we need to do is we need to rethink, and we are right now, the idea of many more tests getting into the community and even pooling tests.”

The White House advised states not to reopen until they had built the infrastructure to conduct widespread testing and contact tracing, though the federal government did not specify what a robust tracing infrastructure would look like. Rather than developing a coordinated national tracing plan, which some countries, such as Germany, have done, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has sought instead to support local efforts.