Tag: Trump making Americans less safe

Biden team expresses concern over ‘abrupt halt’ in cooperation with Pentagon

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President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team expressed concern Friday about what it described as an “abrupt halt” in cooperation with the Defense Department.

The Pentagon had said it was rescheduling meetings with the transition team originally planned for Friday until after the new year, but insisted the change was part of a “mutually agreed” pause for the holiday season.

“Our agency review teams continue making progress on a shortened timeline, and we’ve benefited from constructive cooperation within many departments and agencies, but we have met isolated resistance in some corners, including from political appointees within the Department of Defense,” Biden transition executive director Yohannes Abraham said in a briefing Friday. Continue reading.

NOAA leaders violated agency’s scientific integrity policy, Hurricane Dorian ‘Sharpiegate’ investigation finds

Washington Post logoNo punishments have been proposed, despite the violations

An investigation conducted on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has found that agency leadership violated its scientific integrity policy through actions that led to the release of a statement that backed President Trump’s false statement about the path of Hurricane Dorian, according a new report.

The NOAA statement, issued Sept. 6, 2019, contradicted its own meteorologists at a weather forecast office in Birmingham, Ala.

The scandal over the forecast for Hurricane Dorian has come to be known as “Sharpiegate,” after President Trump displayed a modified NOAA forecast map during an Oval Office briefing to depict the storm threatening Alabama. Continue reading.

Trump: US ‘terminating’ relationship with WHO

The Hill logoPresident Trump said Friday that the United States is “terminating” its relationship with the World Health Organization (WHO) over its response to the novel coronavirus, following through on a threat issued earlier this month.

Speaking at a press conference in the White House Rose Garden, Trump accused the WHO of being under China’s “total control” and of failing to make reforms requested by his administration. The president said he would “redirect” funds promised to the WHO to assist other global health needs.

“We have detailed the reforms that it must make and engaged with them directly, but they have refused to act,” Trump said.  Continue reading.

Trump to withdraw from Open Skies Treaty

The Hill logoPresident Trump plans to withdraw from another major arms control agreement, the Open Skies Treaty, citing Russia’s violations of the pact.

The Open Skies Treaty allows the pact’s 35 signatories, including the United States and Russia, to fly unarmed observation flights over each other with the intention of providing transparency about military activities to avoid miscalculations that could lead to war.

Trump told reporters at the White House that Washington and Moscow could reach a new agreement following the U.S. withdrawal. Continue reading.

Sick People Across the U.S. Say They Are Being Denied the Coronavirus Test

New York Times logoIn a health care system that is already difficult to navigate, some patients describe Kafkaesque quests for tests.

BOSTON — First came the tickle in the throat. Then, a hacking cough. Then, a shortness of breath she had never experienced before. Hillary King, a 32-year-old consultant in Boston who lives down the street from a hotel where dozens of Biogen executives contracted the new coronavirus, decided that she had better get tested.

But getting tested is far easier said than done, even as testing slowly ramps up nationwide. Five days after President Trump announced that anyone who wants a test can get a test, Ms. King’s experience shows how difficult it can be in the United States to find out if you have the coronavirus.

Many who fear they have the virus have faced one roadblock after another as they try to get tested, according to interviews with dozens of people across the country. Continue reading.

Trump says he’s considering Rep. Douglas Collins for permanent DNI post; Collins says he doesn’t want it

Washington Post logoAIR FORCE ONE — President Trump told reporters Thursday evening that he was considering Rep. Douglas A. Collins (R-Ga.) as his permanent director of national intelligence — a move that Collins shot down a few hours later.

The move not only would fill a post that has not been permanently filled since Daniel Coats resigned last summer, but would help Trump and his fellow Republicans avoid what is already shaping up to be a messy intraparty fight for the Georgia Senate seat, where Collins is running against Sen. Kelly Loeffler in the party’s primary.

Collins is just one of several candidates he’s considering, said the president, who spoke to reporters as he flew from Colorado to Nevada as part of a four-day swing out West. Continue reading.

‘Unqualified’: Trump Names Grenell As Intelligence Chief

President Donald Trump is expected to install Richard Grenell, his current Ambassador to Germany, as his next Acting Director of National Intelligence, according to The New York Times. Grenell is known as a bombastic Trump loyalist who has not been well received in Berlin.

Some eyebrows are being raised, not due to Grenell’s harsh attitudes but his disturbing lack of qualifications for the job of Director of National Intelligence, also known as the DNI.

The DNI is a Cabinet-level official who sits at the very top of the entire Intelligence Community, serving as the head of the 17 federal agencies that comprise it. They also serve as the President’s chief advisor on national security, and produce the top-secret President’s Daily Brief (PDB). Continue reading.

Trump’s soft touch with China’s Xi worries advisers who say more is needed to combat coronavirus outbreak

Washington Post logoPresident Trump has lavished praise on Chinese President Xi Jinping for his handling of the growing coronavirus outbreak — a posture some in his administration are growing increasingly uncomfortable with as his advisers remain concerned about China’s lack of transparency and handling of the epidemic.

Worries about rattled financial markets and their effect on the economy as well as the delicate negotiations with China over a trade deal — a key to Trump’s reelection — have played a large role in influencing the president’s friendly posture toward China over the deadly coronavirus, according to several senior White House and administration officials. Trump has heralded Xi’s leadership and “discipline” in responding to the outbreak.

“I had a long talk with President Xi — for the people in this room — two nights ago, and he feels very confident. He feels very confident. And he feels that, again, as I mentioned, by April or during the month of April, the heat, generally speaking, kills this kind of virus,” Trump told the nation’s governors last week. “So that would be a good thing. But we’re in great shape in our country.” Continue reading.