All the ways Trump let the coronavirus win

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Over the last four years, Donald Trump‘s administration has kept fact checkers and truth-seekers several levels occupied. Those who aren’t actively correcting his statements busily dig for precedent or corroborating evidence to prove their take on reality isn’t simply yanked out of thin air, that it is accurately represented.

Such a task shouldn’t be difficult. But “Totally Under Control” shows how needlessly tough it is under an administration that has pitted science against politics and the economy, and for experts with extensive backgrounds on pandemic response against Trump loyalists more eager to remain in the president’s good graces than to curb the spread of a pandemic he’d rather would simply disappear, like magic.

“Totally Under Control” is a 123-minute indictment of the Trump administration’s disastrous mishandling of this pandemic, which is exactly what a person expects from an Alex Gibney documentary. No fan of this administration, Gibney has had an especially prolific 365 days thanks to this administration’s bungling; this is his third Trump-related documentary released since last November, after “Citizen K,” and HBO’s “Agents of Chaos.” Continue reading.

Trump again attacks Fauci’s guidance as coronavirus infections tick upward

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President Trump’s long-fraught relationship with Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease specialist, ruptured again this week in an ugly public dispute just as U.S. coronavirus cases have ticked past 50,000 per day and with three weeks left in a campaign dominated by the government’s response to the pandemic.

Trump on Tuesday responded to Fauci’s warnings that the president’s decision to resume campaign rallies this week was “very troublesome” by mocking him in a tweet that unfavorably compared his medical guidance to his errant ceremonial first pitch at a Washington Nationals game in July.

“Actually, Tony’s pitching arm is far more accurate than his prognostications,” Trump wrote, erroneously suggesting that Fauci’s advice in the early days of the pandemic that the public need not wear masks meant that the doctor was playing down the novel coronavirus. Continue reading.