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The latest news on President Donald Trump, Americas flipflop-in-chief, is that he had a good conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping. They agreed to battle Covid-19 together and Trump swore off referring to the Chinese virus from then on.

Of course, Trump has had a history of alternately praising and blasting China for the way it has dealt with the virus. Thus it remains to be seen as to how long his flip will last before he flops again.

Trumps liar-in-chief and top diplomat, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, has not yet pulled up his reins but continues to attack China and insist that Beijing has covered up the reality of the coronavirus crisis. He has singlehandedly blocked any attempt at forming international solidarity to fight the contagion by insisting on naming the Wuhan virus as the cause of the pandemic.

Pompeo has also been the point man for the Trump administration on driving the assertion that the US has been victimized by Chinas coverup of the outbreak. Whether China actually covered up anything has become an increasingly harsh bone of contention between China and the US.

As I reported last week, Nature published a timeline of events related to the outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan and left no gaps that could have been the source of a communication blackout. There was perhaps a week to 10 days in early December when local officials wrestled to understand the sort of contagion they were facing and did not immediately file a report to Beijing.

Had health officials in Wuhan known then what they learned later, the short interval of silence could have made a difference, but that pales in comparison with the months that followed. The entire world came to know about the looming pandemic, yet the Trump team sat on their hands and just worked on an orchestrated blame game.

This week, Asia-Review posted an even more detailed timeline. It said that on December 27, 2019, Dr Zhang Jixian, an ICU (intensive-care unit) doctor at Hubei Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, filed a report to the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission describing patients suffering from pneumonia of an unknown cause.

Three more patients entered the hospital the next day showing similar symptoms, and that set in motion the events reported in Nature and Asia-Review. Asia Review concluded: Chinas response to the outbreak of Covid-19 has been exceedingly transparent, swift, effective and life-saving.

However, the narrative has been hijacked by a few Western media outlets to propagate a coverup using nitpicked events that were twisted to fit their narrative.

China set about doing the genetic sequencing of the novel coronavirus on January 9 and shared its finding of the genetic sequence with an international database on January 11. Hardly the action of a coverup.

The New York Times et al seem to base their accusations of Chinas lack of transparency on the first half of December when nothing was said, but at that time the medical workers in Wuhan did not know what they had on their hands.

Then the West lionized Dr Li Wenliang as the heroic whistleblower unfairly suppressed by the Chinese authorities. What actually happened was that the trained ophthalmologist thought he had observed cases of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and shared his concern with his chat group. Wuhan police called him in on December 31 and gave him a cautionary reprimand, and Dr Li went back to work the same day. The Wuhan authorities subsequently and posthumously apologized to Lis family.

A companion posting by Asia-Review appears to have hit the nail of this controversy on its head. The headline says it all, How the US used Chinese virus as a distraction from their own incompetence.

Consistency has never been a virtue with Trump but his views on how he is controlling Covid-19 are surprisingly unwavering. On January 22, he said, We have it totally under control. A month later on February 25, Trump said, I think thats a problem thats going to go away. In fact, were very close to a vaccine. On March 8, We have a perfectly coordinated and fine-tuned plan at the White House for our attack on Coronavirus.

But despite Trumps optimism, cases of infection in the US suddenly surged to the top of the world, exceeding even Italy and China. As the situation grew dire, it became clear that his fine-tuned plan did not include having stockpiles of ventilators or masks and personal protective equipment. He has endangered Americas health and safety.

On the one hand, Trump continues to disparage and question the needs of the state governors. Since he cant meet their needs, thats all he can do. On the other hand, he sees that China has become a generous and active provider of masks, ventilators, test kits, protective suits and other medical equipment to many countries in need.

Trump is no dummy. He sees that making nice with China is definitely in his interest. Now.

Just last week, Trump finally used the Defense Production Act to compel General Motors to make ventilators. He could have done so many weeks earlier but apparently had hoped to coax GM without invoking the act. To invoke the act was to admit that the epidemic was slipping out of his control, a major flipflop of embarrassing proportions.

On Friday, Trump announced the appointment of Peter Navarro, heretofore his disastrous China trade adviser, as the national Defense Production Act policy coordinator. Trump didnt say much about Navarros duties but presumably getting GM to deliver ventilators in quantity and in a timely manner will be part of his mandate.

Navarro is known for his strong anti-China feelings and played a significant role in erecting the tariff barriers between the two countries. He is not known for success either as a politician or for management experience in the private sector. He is merely one of many Trump appointees without requisite qualifications.

This appears to be Navarros windfall dream job. He loves national TV exposure, any time he can get it. A day before his appointment, CNN had him on to explain the shortfall in ventilators. He started by praising Trumps leadership to high heaven. Then he worked hard to cast blame on China. Finally, the exasperated CNN anchor cut him off by saying, Peter, you are not answering the questions and wasting time.

Despite the rude rebuff Navarro did not act offended but pleaded that he be given the time to talk and explain. His last-gasp remark before fading from the screen was that he would be pleased to come back any time to talk to CNN.

When governors of New York, California, Texas and other states begin screaming for ventilators not delivered, Peter will get a lot of airtime to squirm under the national limelight.

Trump is either unable or unwilling to face the explosion of the epidemic to come. He wants the country to go back to work, fill the subways, trains and buses, reopen the restaurants and forget about social distancing and lets not forget, regular church services by Easter. He thinks he is exempt from the laws of nature.

He will regret his decision to put the economy ahead of bringing the disease under control. He may understand the leverage of real-estate financing and the enhanced return by avoiding paying taxes, but he wont have any place to turn when the exponential growth of infections overwhelms the hospitals.

When the number of the seriously ill exceeds the number of ventilators and beds in a hospital, the doctors will be forced to decide who gets to live and who will die.

The American public will demand answers and Trump will be ready: Hes brilliant and capable and its not his fault.

Not enough ventilators? Navarro will be the first to walk the plank. National public health in shambles? Vice-President Mike Pence must have screwed up. International prestige at a new low? Need to inject new blood as the secretary of state.

The pandemic will test Trumps skill in spreading the blame. He is really good at it. Even his predecessor Barack Obama gets his share for not anticipating the coronavirus during his time in office. If Trump can sell that to the American voters, he will get four more years in the White House.

Dr George Koo recently retired from a global advisory services firm where he advised clients on their China strategies and business operations. Educated at MIT, Stevens Institute and Santa Clara University, he is the founder and former managing director of International Strategic Alliances. He is currently a board member of Freschfields, a novel green building platform.

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Donald Trump flipflops through the pandemic - Asia Times

In an abrupt about-face, Donald Trump rage-tweeted at General Motors with a desperate plea for ventilators on Friday.

Hours earlier, the president was sticking to his assertion that hospitals pleas for more ventilators were dramatic and overdone.

But Mr. Trump was clearly rattled when he called out both GM and Ford for not making ventilators to aid in the countrys battle against coronavirus.

As the number of known coronavirus cases in the U.S. surpassed that of any other nation, Donald Trump appeared unfazed.

He balked at health advisors warnings and even teased a plan that would evaluate the coronavirus risk level on a county-by-county basis.

When asked about the mounting crisis in New York, where the healthcare system is overwhelmed, Trump argued that the hospitals were overstating their needs.

I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than theyre going to be. I dont believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You go into major hospitals sometimes, and theyll have two ventilators. And now all of a sudden theyre saying, Can we order 30,000 ventilators?

He initially pushed the blame onto local lawmakers, saying the U.S. federal government isnt responsible for states failure to cope with rising coronavirus cases.

Were really a second line of attack.The first line of attack is supposed to be the hospitals and the local government and the states themselves.

Now hes shifting the blame onto corporate America, calling GM stupid for not making ventilators sooner.

But GM, Ford, and other U.S. businesses could be forgiven for not understanding the severity of the coronavirus crisis. After all, the president at the nations helm long dismissed the whole thing as a media ploy to damage him.

Trump compared the virus to the flu, and Republicans even suggested the elderly suck it up and die for the U.S. economy.

And yet the president is demanding U.S. automakers produce more ventilators (in all caps, no less). His tweet reeks of desperation, something the rest of the world might pity if it werent so clear how shortsighted hes been all along.

Hes been focused on one thing throughout the coronavirus epidemic reelection.

First, he blamed the media for tanking the stock market and striking fear into the economy. Next came China, followed by state governors and the hospitals they desperately tried to support.

It was only a matter of time before Trump turned on U.S. corporations.

Unfortunately, his panic is misdirected. Demanding that Ford and GM help out may get a few thousand much-needed ventilators to New York and New Jersey. It may even save a few lives.

But as long as the U.S. carries on with unrestricted movement and a hodgepodge of social distancing measures that differ from state to state, the U.S. will continue to suffer the brunt of the coronavirus. And Trump will have no one left to blame but himself.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of CCN.com.

This article was edited by Josiah Wilmoth.

More:
Donald Trump Mashes the Panic Button With Unhinged Ventilator Tweet - CCN.com

Niall Ferguson is the Milbank Family senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford

FDNY Emergency Medical Technicians secure a patient who was identified to have COVID-19 in an ambulance while wearing protective gear in New York City in this file photo from March 24, 2020.

Stefan Jeremiah/Reuters

We who only bet occasionally on a horse race are fascinated by true gamblers: those who frequent not only casinos and stock markets, but also the pages of history. We normal folk tend to think of two types of gambler. There is Fyodor Dostoevskys compulsive gambler, who cannot resist the lure of the roulette wheel who ruins himself by betting and betting.

Then there is the gambler as master speculator: Charles Dickenss Merdle, Anthony Trollopes Augustus Melmotte both loosely based on Nathan Rothschild or our own ages George Soros. This kind of gambler calculates the odds of each bet carefully.

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Yet there is a third kind of gambler, who lies between these extremes. He wins some; he loses some. He does not gamble to become a billionaire. He gambles for the sheer love of gambling. The risk-lover bets every day on the basis of his intuition his gut. To him, the bet is an act of will, intended as much to dominate the counterparty as to make money. The bravado is the point.

Donald Trump, as you will have guessed, is a type three gambler. He did not blow the money he inherited from his father; nor did he turn it into a mega-fortune. He has made many a disastrous business bet, as his creditors have learnt the hard way. Yet Mr. Trump has gambled his way from real estate to reality television to real power. And now he is making the biggest bet of his entire life.

He is betting that the number of Americans who die of COVID-19 will be about 40,000 in other words, approximately the number who die of influenza each winter.

Obviously, Mr. Trumps chances of re-election now hinge on how severely the pandemic hits America.

The United States is now in a pandemic-induced recession. The stock market, despite last weeks remarkable rally, is still more than 20 per cent below its February high, effacing most of the gains investors have made since Mr. Trumps election. The combination of public panic, rational social distancing and state-level orders to rest in place has thrown the U.S. economy off a cliff. Initial jobless claims soared last week to nearly 3.3 million, the biggest jump by a factor of almost five since records began.

The Presidents bet is not as crazy as you might think. It is, as I said last week, unlikely that the United States as a whole will have as disastrous an encounter with COVID-19 as Italy. Americans are less crowded together, use less public transport and kiss one another less than Italians.

It is also possible that the virus will claim many more victims in the big Democratic-voting states of the American coasts New York and California than in the smaller Republican-voting states of the heartland. Thus far, only 19 per cent of COVID-19 deaths are in counties Mr. Trump won in 2016.

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Those writing the obituaries of this presidency have written them many times before and been wrong. They must have read with incredulity the results of last weeks Gallup poll, which showed that a majority of voters, and in particular a majority (60 per cent) of registered independents, approve of Mr. Trumps handling of the pandemic.

The problem is that, this time Mr. Trump is gambling with peoples lives on the basis not of calculated risk but of complete uncertainty. We simply do not know enough about the virus to have any conviction about how many Americans it will kill. COVID-19 could kill 40,000 Americans. But if the virus spreads as far as H1N1 swine flu did in 2009, so that 20 per cent of us get it, and we have the (very low) German case fatality rate of 0.6 per cent, we could have 400,000 dead.

All we can say with any certainty is that most of east Asia and most of Europe have taken much more drastic steps to contain COVID-19 than America has yet taken. And the President wants to see even those restrictions lifted in a mere two weeks time.

Such is Mr. Trumps gamble with American lives. The one thing to be said in his defense is that, like his British counterpart U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson who very nearly gambled on a strategy of herd immunity and has now tested positive he has skin in the game. The President too will be at risk if this gamble goes wrong.

Niall Ferguson/The Sunday Times, London.

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Excerpt from:
Donald Trump, the risk-taker, is gambling with lives - The Globe and Mail

YES AND NO. The thing to understand about Donald Trump is that putting others before self is not something he can do, even temporarily. His attempts to convey facts that dont serve his perceived self-interest or to express empathy are forced, scripted, and always short-lived, since such reactions are alien to him.

This president does not have the capacity to listen to, synthesize, and internalize information that does not immediately serve his greatest needs: praise, fealty, adoration. He finds it intolerable when those things are missing, a clinical psychologist told me. Praise, applause, and accolades seem to calm him and boost his confidence. Theres no room for that now, and so hes growing irritable and needing to create some way to get some positive attention.

Adam Serwer: Trump is inciting a coronavirus culture war to save himself

She added that the pandemic and its economic fallout overwhelm Trumps capacity to understand, are outside of his ability to internalize and process, and [are] beyond his frustration tolerance. He is neither curious nor interested; facts are tossed aside when inconvenient or [when they] contradict his parallel reality, and people are disposable unless they serve him in some way.

ITS USEFUL HERE to recall that Trumps success as a politician has been built on his ability to impose his will and narrative on others, to use his experience on a reality-television show and his skill as a con man to shape public impressions in his favor, evenor perhaps, especiallyif those impressions are at odds with reality. He convinced a good chunk of the country that he is a wildly successful businessman and knows more about campaign finance, the Islamic State, the courts, the visa system, trade, taxes, the debt, renewable energy, infrastructure, borders, and drones than anyone else.

Read: How the pandemic will end

But in this instance, Trump isnt facing a political problem he can easily spin his way out of. Hes facing a lethal virus. It doesnt give a damn what Donald Trump thinks of it or tweets about it. Spin and lies about COVID-19, including that it will soon magically disappear, as Trump claimed it would, dont work. In fact, they have the opposite effect. Misinformation will cause the virus to increase its deadly spread.

So as the crisis deepensas the body count increases, hospitals are overwhelmed, and the economy contracts, perhaps dramaticallyits reasonable to assume that the president will reach for the tools he has used throughout his life: duplicity and denial. He will not allow facts that are at odds with his narrative to pierce his magnetic field of deception.

But what happens to Trump psychologically and emotionally when things dont turn around in the time period he wants? What happens if the tricks that have allowed him to walk away from scandal after scandal dont work quite so well, if the doors of escape are bolted shut, and if it dawns on even some of his supporterspeople who will watch family members, friends, and neighbors contract the disease, some number of whom will diethat no matter what Trump says, he cant alter this epidemiological reality?

Read the rest here:
The President Is Trapped - The Atlantic

P

resident Donald Trump on Friday signed into law a federal relief bill that provides emergency liquidity, tax relief and additional support for small businesses, among other measures that could benefit the gaming industry amid the coronavirus impact. The $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds will be allocated to states then apportioned to individual industries based on economic figures like the number of workers and taxable revenue generated.

Essentially every commercial gaming establishment in the United States is closed, with no definitive timeline for a return. The American Gaming Association (AGA) estimates 650,000 direct gaming employees have had work stoppages and $43.5 billion in economic activity could be lost if the shutdown were to last two months.

Bill Miller, AGAs president and CEO explained in a statement that the CARES Act provides tax relief to help gaming companies keep workers on the payroll; opens access to critical capital through loans for all industry segments; provides direct economic support for millions of American workers and their families; and offers vital stabilization funding for tribal governments.

With the House vote and President Trump's signature, gaming employees, their families, and communities will see needed relief. Read @BillMillerAGA's latest update: https://t.co/LRQfFuPZ9w pic.twitter.com/UdnnlUI4Pi

— American Gaming Association (@AmericanGaming) March 27, 2020

We commend Congress and the administration for acting swiftly to provide needed relief. The gaming industry united to achieve a major first step that will help sustain us during the required shutdown and ensure Americas employees can return to their jobs as soon as its safe," Miller said. But our fight is not over. As the nations response to the pandemic evolves, we know gaming businesses, workers, and their families will continue to need support. We will keep fighting to help every aspect of the gaming industry as Congress and the administration consider additional economic relief measures.

Past federal responses to natural disasters and financial crises, such as Hurricane Katrina and the 2008-09 global crisis, excluded gaming companies from assistance available to the rest of the business community.

This financial aid would include the expanding legal sports betting market in the US. On Thursday, Washington became the 21st state to pass sports betting legislation in the past two years. Legal bookmakers were operating in 16 states, with more jurisdictions preparing to launch, before casinos around the nation began closing. While in-person sports betting has ceased, several online bookmakers in the U.S. remain open. Indiana, New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania are among the states with active online sports betting, albeit with much smaller wagering menus.

Today, President @realDonaldTrump signed into the law the #CARESAct which will help small businesses stay open, help workers keep their jobs, and provide relief for distressed industries as our Country faces the threat of the Coronavirus together. pic.twitter.com/oXtg6RqS4o

— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) March 27, 2020

The pandemic has stopped all major American and international sports, leaving bookmakers scrambling to find betting offerings for customers. Table tennis and hockey from Belarus were among the highlighted events at sportsbooks this week. On Thursday, Nevada Gaming Control authorized its sportsbooks to take bets on an eSports tournament.

The new betting markets, however, are doing little to mitigate the loss of the NBA, the NHL and Major League Baseball. Multiple sportsbook operators told ESPN last week that they sometimes go hours without taking a single bet.

With people around the world encouraged to stay at home, other forms of online gambling have seen upticks, including poker. PokerStars, a leading international online cardroom, held its largest online tournament ever last week, with an $18.6 million prize pool that attracted a record 93,016 entries.

Continued here:
US President Donald Trump signs relief bill that could benefit the gaming industry - Yogonet International