Donald Trump ‘lost $1bn in a month’ from coronavirus lockdown | Business | The Guardian

Donald Trump lost an estimated $1bn of his paper fortune in the past month as the coronavirus lockdown forced the closure of offices, shopping centres, hotels and golf courses he owns.

The US president’s fortune has fallen from an estimated $3.1bn (£2.5bn) on 1 March to $2.1bn on 18 March (at the height of stock market panic caused by the coronavirus pandemic) according to Forbes magazine’s annual billionaires list.

Wonder why he wants to put people at risk by opening up early?

via Donald Trump ‘lost $1bn in a month’ from coronavirus lockdown | Business | The Guardian

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What you need to know about Trump’s suspension of WHO funding — Quartz

As of the end of March, the US had yet to pay its 2020 bill of $115,766,920 for assessed contributions. The country also has approximately $80 million outstanding from other years.

via What you need to know about Trump’s suspension of WHO funding — Quartz

Surprise: Trump Started Itching to End Social Distancing After His Six Most Profitable Clubs Closed | Vanity Fair

Thus far, the Trump Organization, run by the president’s adult sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., have closed properties in Doral, Florida, Las Vegas, Ireland, Scotland, Bedminster, New Jersey, and Palm Beach, Florida, the home of Mar-a-Lago. According to the Post, those hotels and clubs represent six of Trump’s top revenue-producing businesses, bringing in about a collective $174 million per year, or $478,000 per day. Additionally, 160 employees have been laid off at the president’s Constitution-violating D.C. hotel, while 51 have been laid off at his New York hotel and an unknown number at his Vegas property. As the Post notes, the hotel business “needs new people walking in the door every day, to eat and stay,” and the current situation is far from swell. “The data is bad. And we haven’t seen the worst of it yet,” said Jan Freitag, a senior vice president with STR, which analyzes hotel-industry data. “What we’re seeing here is a rapid descent that’s going to last. So it’s going to be a little bit of a worst-case combination of post-9/11 and [the financial crisis of] 2009.”

via Surprise: Trump Started Itching to End Social Distancing After His Six Most Profitable Clubs Closed | Vanity Fair

Did the Trump Administration Send 18 Tons of PPE to China in Early 2020?

The U.S. facilitated the sending of nearly 17.8 tons of donated medical supplies to China to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus in early 2020.

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via Did the Trump Administration Send 18 Tons of PPE to China in Early 2020?

‘Tremendously dangerous’: In Iran, conspiracy theories and religious bickering slow COVID-19 response | CBC News (Does this sound familiar?)

When the COVID-19 outbreak first appeared in Iran on Feb. 19, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei proclaimed it a hoax, a conspiracy from the country’s enemies.

There were reports the regime tried to cover up the number of fatalities, until cellphone videos appeared that showed bodies being hurriedly buried in a graveyard in the northern city of Qom by workers wearing masks and hazmat suits.

When President Hassan Rouhani finally acknowledged the outbreak on Feb. 26, he said it did not warrant a mass quarantine.

Iranian-American journalist Borzou Daragahi, who covers Iran for the Independent in the U.K., said the regime flips back and forth between two explanations for the outbreak.

“One is it was propaganda … to besmirch Iran and China. And the other is that it’s some sort of bio-weapon, and you hear that from loonies on all sides around the world, including in Iran.”

via ‘Tremendously dangerous’: In Iran, conspiracy theories and religious bickering slow COVID-19 response | CBC News

Canada Urges US Not to Put Troops at Border During Pandemic – The New York Times

Canada said Thursday it told the Trump administration that a proposal to put troops at the U.S.-Canada border amid the coronavirus pandemic was entirely unnecessary and would damage relations between the two longtime allies.

The Wall Street Journal, citing an unidentified U.S. official, later reported that the Trump administration had dropped its consideration of the plan.

via Canada Urges US Not to Put Troops at Border During Pandemic – The New York Times

Coronavirus: Canadian company working with Ottawa to boost ventilator production | Globalnews.ca

Thornhill Medical is a company that manufactures ventilators — specifically a type that is compact, self-contained and portable, called the MOVES SLC.

The company, which has signed a letter of intent with the federal government, says the device can provide all the crucial functions of a modern intensive care unit, on battery power.

via Coronavirus: Canadian company working with Ottawa to boost ventilator production | Globalnews.ca

Trump Has Sabotaged America’s Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic

The epidemic control efforts unfolding today in China—including placing some 100 million citizens on lockdown, shutting down a national holiday, building enormous quarantine hospitals in days’ time, and ramping up 24-hour manufacturing of medical equipment—are indeed gargantuan. It’s impossible to watch them without wondering, “What would we do? How would my government respond if this virus spread across my country?”

For the United States, the answers are especially worrying because the government has intentionally rendered itself incapable. In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response I encountered was distressed confusion. If the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it isIf the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it is—not just for the public but for the government itself, which largely finds itself in the dark.

footnote: This was back in January, where has Trump been?

via Trump Has Sabotaged America’s Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic

White House Asks Congress for Billions to Fight Coronavirus – The New York Times

“That President Trump is trying to steal funds dedicated to fight Ebola — which is still considered an epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo — is indicative of his towering incompetence and further proof that he and his administration aren’t taking the coronavirus crisis as seriously as they need to be,” Mr. Schumer said.

footnote: This was 3 weeks ago!

 

via White House Asks Congress for Billions to Fight Coronavirus – The New York Times

Climate crisis will not be discussed at G7 next year, says Trump official | World news | The Guardian

The climate crisis will not be formally discussed at the G7 summit in June next year, Donald Trump’s acting White House chief of staff said on Thursday.

“Climate change will not be on the agenda,” Mick Mulvaney told reporters, without elaborating.

Mulvaney announced that the 2020 summit of seven of the world’s most powerful industrialised countries will take place at the National Doral Miami, one of the president’s golf resorts in Florida, despite widespread ethics concerns and an ongoing impeachment inquiry into Trump’s conduct.

From weakening regulation on vehicle emissions to blocking warnings about how coastal parks could flood and withdrawing funding for conservation programs, the Trump administration is accused of consistently ignoring, burying and undermining climate science.

via Climate crisis will not be discussed at G7 next year, says Trump official | World news | The Guardian