January 1, Trump’s Coronavirus Response Stumps Skeptics

This Day in History | 2014

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members, loses contact with air traffic control less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur then veers off course and disappears. Most of the plane, and everyone on board, are never seen again.

Good morning Middle Americans, 

There’s just not much we can say about the Trump Administration’s response to the coronavirus. The president seems deeply skeptical of the doctors and scientist at the CDC and the National Institutes of Health. Mike Pence continues to run his wing of the response, but none of it seems coordinated. We hope we don’t sound like a broken record when we say that it’s not the coronavirus that’s going to get the Trump administration, it’s the mounting panic that could sink the economy. That’s the bigger threat here. And the Trump administration seems unable to contain that right now.  This, as Washington D.C. confirms it’s first case of the disease. 

Also, it looks like Tulsi Gabbard is going to get shafted, and won’t be on the debate stage during the next go-round. So get ready to see to 70+ guys arguing on TV about political policy.  Sound like fun to you?

Read all about it. 

– Fraser Dixon

Trump’s Mismanagement Helped Fuel Coronavirus Crisis

(Politico) – On Friday, as coronavirus infections rapidly multiplied aboard a cruise ship marooned off the coast of California, health department officials and Vice President Mike Pence came up with a plan to evacuate thousands of passengers, avoiding the fate of a similar cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, which became a petri dish of coronavirus infections. Quickly removing passengers was the safest outcome, health officials and Pence reasoned.

But President Donald Trump had a different idea: Leave the infected passengers on board — which would help keep the number of U.S. coronavirus cases as low as possible.

“Do I want to bring all those people off? People would like me to do it,” Trump admitted at a press conference at the CDC later on Friday. “I would rather have them stay on, personally.”

“I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault,” Trump added, saying that he ultimately empowered Pence to decide whether to evacuate the passengers.

Read more here

DC Confirms First Presumptive Case of Coronavirus 

(The Hill) – Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser announced Saturday that the city has its first presumptive case of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). 

Bowser announced on Twitter that local health officials received their first positive test of the virus on Saturday. Cases are considered “presumptive” until they are confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

At a Saturday evening press conference, Bowser said the patient is a male, D.C. resident in his 50s who began showing symptoms in late February and was admitted to a local hospital on March 5. 

Find out more here

Biden and Sanders Expected to be Alone in Qualifying for Next Debate

(The New York Daily News) – Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are likely to go head-to-head for the first time this month.

Democratic presidential candidates must have picked up at least 20% of the convention delegates disbursed so far to qualify for this month’s debate, the party announced Friday, all but certainly meaning Biden and Sanders will be the only ones on stage.

Both Biden and Sanders have already met the new threshold, but Tulsi Gabbard, the only other candidate left in the race, has only picked up two delegates — from the U.S. territory of American Samoa, where she was born.

Gabbard hasn’t won a single contest outright and is barely registering in most polls.

Before the March 15 debate in Arizona, there are eight primaries, with a total of 371 delegates up for grabs.

Learn more here