# The Trump Administration: A Clusterfuck in the Making **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 7, 2016, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070 "2016-12-07T00:25:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2065
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41285 "2020-03-12T06:12:11Z")
“…a foreign virus…” I’m now picturing a microscopic lane in airports labeled “viruses”. There’s others for Bacteria (Gram+), Bacteria (Gram-) and Parasites. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41286 "2020-03-12T06:38:21Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > "The White House has clarified that the President was reading words whose meaning he hadn’t reviewed before he addressed the nation and didn’t understand as he was reading them. That would be, literally, every word in the dictionary. > [@](#): > > The White House hope this clears matters up." Yep. It’s nice to see officialdom admit that Trump is a fucking moron. > [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Insurers say that they didn’t speak with Individual 1 about waiving copays. According to Politico writer Sarah Overhmohle. > [https://twitter.com/owermohle/status/1237922717699014658](https://twitter.com/owermohle/status/1237922717699014658) See? No matter what the issue is, Trump cannot tell the truth. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41287 "2020-03-12T07:28:45Z")
> [@garygnu](#): > > Leave it to the extremely stable genius to proudly close the barn door after the horse has bolted. And Trumpero brought furnaces, and massy hammers, and welded the bolts shut. Except for a side door for goods and people who talk like him. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41288 "2020-03-12T10:41:17Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > My best guess is that we have roughly 5-7 weeks to get this under some semblance of control. Can we do it? I’m not overly optimistic. No, we can’t do it because we don’t have 5-7 weeks. It’s more like 1-2 weeks. At most. At least that’s my guess based on how things have gone down in other places. Very shortly we’re going to see a LOT of people all getting sick at the same time in various hot spots. Sure, only a fraction will needs hospital care but the rest won’t be hale and healthy, a lot of them will be miserable sick at home, further cutting down on available people to help with any situation that comes up. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41289 "2020-03-12T10:43:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Commentary: > > "The White House has clarified that the President was reading words whose meaning he hadn’t reviewed before he addressed the nation and didn’t understand as he was reading them. > > The White House hope this clears matters up." :smack: Shouldn’t basic literacy be a requirement for PotUS? And if the Prez is dyslexic or something maybe a verbal feed into an earpiece? There are work-arounds for learning disabilities these days. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41290 "2020-03-12T11:55:44Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > :smack: > > Shouldn’t basic literacy be a requirement for PotUS? And if the Prez is dyslexic or something maybe a verbal feed into an earpiece? There are work-arounds for learning disabilities these days. I’m sure he could get remedial assistance under the provisions of the ADA. It’s clear that the most important part of the speech from his point of view was to blame the Europeans for failing to contain The Yellow Peril. If there is a silver lining to this cloud, it’s that his utter incompetence, ignorance, pettiness, and lack of empathy were in full display for all to see. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41291 "2020-03-12T11:58:56Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > **Sage Rat @41313:** Well, does your girlfriend have a pinchable butt? Technically she presumably has a butt which can be pinched so on a purely physical level she has a “pinchable butt”. On every other level, however, why the fuck would you or anyone even ask that question? > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > On the counter side, the press has been presenting a false fatality rate of 3.4%. It’s not a “false” rate; it just lacks context. It’s the fatality rate in the US for people who have been positively identified as having the coronavirus. However, as the level of testing in the US has lagged so far behind that of other countries, most of the testing has focused on the most obvious and severe cases, and that population will naturally have a higher fatality rate. There are almost certainly many, many people with mild or no symptoms who have not been identified, thus skewing the statistics. For an overall fatality rate for the disease, the South Korean numbers are probably the most reliable as they have the highest rate of per capita testing by far. > [@Skypist](#): > > He fired the experts who used to belong on the pandemic preparation team. So he notices it to some degree. If he could pull money from the CDC without Congress he would. I don’t trust that he might have realized he shouldn’t pull resources from public health. > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Jesus Christ, the last two days the left seems to have gone hardcore into false news mode. Did someone put something in the water in New York this last weekend? > > **John Bolton** , under his own personal restructuring of the NSC let go of a person who filled the pandemic preparation _position_. > > What his reasoning was and why he didn’t refill the position is unknown, but it seems to have been his deal not Trump’s - minus greater evidence otherwise. News from the time says that Bolton came into office already planning to restructure things. Again, this lacks context. The guy who left wasn’t just a “person who filled the pandemic preparation position”, he was Rear Admiral Timothy Ziemer, the senior director of global health and biodefense on the National Security Council who oversaw global health security issues. In addition, Tom Bossert, a homeland security adviser who recommended strong defenses against disease and biological warfare, was reportedly pushed out by Bolton in 2018 (he certainly left, under whatever circumstances). The teams operating under Ziemer were restructured elsewhere and never replaced, leading to a [bipartisan report on global health security](https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/191122_EndingTheCycle_GHSC_WEB_FULL_11.22.pdf?utm_campaign=wp_the_health_202&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_health202) last year recommending that the NSC leadership on the issue be restored. So while one side has misrepresented what happened under the Trump administration with regard to pandemic identification and management, that doesn’t mean that the other side should either. > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > The UK exception is pretty curious (rewarding Johnson for Brexit, maybe?) Trump has a golf course in Scotland. ---
**Author:** ![flip-68](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@flip-68](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flip-68)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41292 "2020-03-12T12:23:46Z")
Re: why would you ask that. That was the feedline from the article that sage rat stole his text from. It was a knowing nod to sage that he chose to ignore. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41293 "2020-03-12T12:49:24Z")
So how much confidence do the markets have in fiscal conservatism? They’re plunging again. And again. And again. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41294 "2020-03-12T13:02:46Z")
What was up with the “…various other things as we get approval…” statement in il Doofus’ hostage video? Did his handlers forget to disguise their authorial voices, or did he accidentally say out loud that he can’t do anything important without permission from Daddy Vladdy? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41295 "2020-03-12T13:04:57Z")
Just to add to the confusion, this [tweet](https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1237916324808069124) from the official White House account is still up: _“We will be suspending all travel from Europe, except the United Kingdom, for the next 30 days. The policy goes into effect Friday at midnight.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41296 "2020-03-12T13:39:11Z")
The Dow opened 7.13% below last night’s closing. It looks like trading was halted again. We’ll see what happens in about ten minutes. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41297 "2020-03-12T13:51:10Z")
It took 4 minutes for trading to be halted on Monday. Did they break that record today? ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41298 "2020-03-12T13:53:23Z")
> [@](#): > > Trump sparks chaos as crisis worsens. CNN headline this morning. Nice summary current situation. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41299 "2020-03-12T13:59:58Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > [Fantastic commentary on the AP from Jonathan Lemire](https://apnews.com/3441fea7832f3c4a1e45efa87fa2f29e). > > > [@](#): > > > > …The virus does not have a Twitter account and, unlike so many previous Trump foes, is resistant to political bullying or Republican Party solidarity… Brilliant! ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41300 "2020-03-12T14:00:01Z")
All the man had to do was read the words on the teleprompter. How did he screw that up? ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41301 "2020-03-12T14:18:13Z")
Re: the travel ban, my first purely selfish concern was about a sibling currently in Europe who would like to come home. It _looks_ like that can still happen. But of course expect additional economic fuckery to continue. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41302 "2020-03-12T14:20:29Z")
Re: the travel ban, my first purely selfish concern was about a sibling currently in Europe who would like to come home. It _looks_ like that can still happen. But of course expect additional economic fuckery to continue. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41303 "2020-03-12T14:20:42Z")
> [@Skypist](#): > > Okay, I was inaccurate that trump directly fired them, but it was certainly not a priority of his administration and still isn’t, even now, since he has been reluctant to take any action on covid-19 lest the markets be upset. …Perhaps he didn’t do each one of these things personally - I’d have to look into further. But any proposed cutting of programs for public health has his tiny fingerprints all over it. Sorry I was imprecise in the Pit. :rolleyes: “Trump fired the pandemic experts!” is going to be campaign fodder from now until November (if the Biden team has any brains at all), so we better get used to it. And it’s true enough for politics. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2020, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/41304 "2020-03-12T14:24:36Z")
So what the nation hoped to hear from the President last night: (Fact-based) progress report on testing. (Fact-based) progress report on vaccine development. Guidance for business and local governments on how to control the spread. Government assistance for hospitals. Government assistance for those not covered by medical insurance and paid time off. Reassurance that the economy is fundamentally sound and that the markets will take care of themselves. What we got: Travel ban from EU (except the UK). Later back-tracked and clarified and fixed. Vague hand-waving about financial help for some people. Thank you, Mr. President. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=2064) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=2066)