Donald Trump’s collapsing administration and the coronavirus chaos

| 5:16 pm EST February 25, 2020
Dear Palmer Report readers,

We all understand what a dark era we're heading into. Journalists will be prosecuted. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. Advertising networks can't be counted on. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight, because someone has to.

In that regard we're looking to start funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens or how dark things get. We've launched a reader supported fund, and we've already raised $3360 and counting. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can contribute here. Thank you in advance.
Sincerely,
Bill Palmer
Palmer Report

The coronavirus has been officially contained in the United States, according to Donald Trump’s bumbling political adviser Larry Kudlow. The coronavirus is at risk of becoming an epidemic in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control, which is also part of the Trump administration. Meanwhile, the second highest ranking official in Trump’s Department of Homeland Security is busy asking people on Twitter to help him figure out how to get a coronavirus map to load on his computer.

None of this is funny, of course. People in other countries are dying, in large numbers and in horrific fashion, due to the coronavirus outbreak. People in the United States are clearly at some kind of risk, and should be taking steps accordingly. But we have no idea what’s even going on because the Trump regime – which is in full scale collapse by objective measure – can’t come close to getting its story straight.

Kudlow is a Trump ecumenic adviser, and he appears to be trying to severely downplay the coronavirus threat in the United States, for fear of the impact that a panic might have on the economy. But that ship already sailed. The ongoing negative impact on U.S. trading partners like China alone will take a major bite out of the U.S. economy whether the coronavirus ever becomes an epidemic in the U.S. or not. Just take a look at the stock market, which is down about eight percent over the past two days.

Meanwhile the CDC does good work, but Donald Trump has been viciously slashing its budget. So while we can probably trust what the CDC is telling us about the coronavirus, we have no real way of gauging whether the CDC is still sufficiently intact to protect us if things keep getting uglier. Donald Trump certainly didn’t unleash this awful virus on the world. But his incompetence and corruption have made the United States far more vulnerable to the impact of the coronavirus than needed to be the case. For this alone he should resign, but he won’t. We’ll simply have to vote him out, emphatically, in November – and work to minimize the fallout in the meantime.

Dear Palmer Report readers,

We all understand what a dark era we're heading into. Journalists will be prosecuted. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. Advertising networks can't be counted on. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight, because someone has to.

In that regard we're looking to start funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens or how dark things get. We've launched a reader supported fund, and we've already raised $3360 and counting. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can contribute here. Thank you in advance.
Sincerely,
Bill Palmer
Palmer Report