Trump Wants Everyone to Forget He Ignored Repeated Coronavirus Warnings: A Closer Look

-Hello

everyone

and welcome back to the underground attic space. And, of course, the mystery persists. I know you've all been thinking about it: the tiny door. What is it? How do I get there? Why would an architect build a door that size in a normal-sized house? Or maybe it's a normal size door and I've just been 12'0" this whole time. You can never tell from TV. Or maybe, guys, maybe it's a Malkovich door. I won't confirm it or deny it, but Let's just say if you ever tune in and see John Malkovich doing "A Closer Look," someone please come pick me up on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike.

Look, I know you're all wondering, so, If you have any guesses, send them to [email protected]. Maybe we'll read some on the air, maybe not. Who knows? Honestly, we may never check that email and you just have to be okay with that. It's a pandemic. There are no rules. And, hey, while you're speculating about what's behind that door, the president is speculating about an unproven medical treatment for the

coronavirus

after ignoring

repeated

warnings

about the threat of a pandemic. Segue! To learn more about this, it's time for "A Closer Look." It seems like, almost every day, we get more and more evidence that the Trump administration knew long beforehand about the very real threat of a pandemic and that they

ignored

it and lied to the American people about it, even though the president keeps saying things like this. -No one could have predicted something like this.

Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion. I just think this is something, Peter, that you can never think will happen. It is an unforeseen problem. What a problem. He came out of nowhere. We have to solve a problem that, four weeks ago, no one thought would be a problem. It's something that no one expected. I would see it as something that surprised the entire world. -It is very revealing of your psychological state that, when you want to say "I", you say "nobody." Friends, no one could have kept a casino open in Atlantic City.

Nobody really screwed it up. Nobody sucks! So, no one could have seen this coming. Yes. Taiwan, South Korea, New Zealand and Singapore were all surprised. That's why they have a combined total of 12,000 cases and we have a total of 400,000 cases. Although, to be fair, New Zealand had a big advantage because they could summon those eagles from the end of "The Return of the King." And I'm sorry guys, but where the hell were you all this time? Are you telling me that Sam and Frodo spent three movies climbing Mount Doom, fighting giant spiders, and getting stabbed by Ringwraiths, and, all this time, they could have been hitchhiking on a giant bird?

Oh what? Don't they do direct flights from Hobbiton? You are less trustworthy than Spirit. Although I forgot it was called Hobbiton. Hey, J.R.R., what are you going to call the part of the county where Bilbo lives? "Oh, I don't know. I was thinking maybe like Hobbiton. Oh, I don't know if Hobbiton is any good. It sounds kind of lazy. No one's going to think I'm lazy! This thing is going to be like a thousand pages. " Hobbiton. Anyway, no. This did not surprise the entire world. Just because it surprised you doesn't mean it surprised the world.

Everything surprises you. Even your own speeches surprise you because many times you read them aloud for the first time, and that's why you do that weird thing where you read and comment on your own speeches on DVD. We will send aid to all 50 states. 50, wow. Wow, that's a big number, 50. It wasn't always 50. It's like a guy walking into a birthday party and

everyone

yelling "Surprise!" and they say, "Wow, we're all equally surprised. I can't believe it." "We were all lured here under the same false pretenses. Did you also think this was going to be a quiet dinner for two?" In fact, at one point, Trump even claimed that despite notable pandemics that have occurred throughout history, such as the 1918 Spanish flu, nothing like this had ever happened before. -So, there has never been anything like this in history.

There never has been. No one has ever seen anything like this. -Stop saying nobody! People who lived in 1918 definitely saw something like this and I'm pretty sure your friends will like them all. Wilbur, tell me what the Spanish flu was like. It was horrible. We had to subsist on soup and beer. Thank goodness he was over 21 years old. That's not Photoshop. I went on TV and had soup and beer. In fact, Trump keeps vaguely mentioning the 1918 flu pandemic, but for some reason he keeps getting the date wrong by exactly one year. -No one has seen this.

I would say, since 1917, that it was the greatest of all. Probably the best of all, right? 1917. There hasn't been anything like it since probably 1917. That was the big one. You read about them. You read about them since 1917 and you read about them in many other times. - So, I may have arrived late, reacting to the

coronavirus

, but I arrived a year early with the Spanish flu. Of course, no one writes about that, right? So, I think I know what happened here. Trump knows there was a movie called "1917." He thought those guys

look

ed a little sick and assumed it was the Spanish flu.

Of course, they're not sick, they're just British, something Trump would know if he hadn't turned off the movie to watch "Rugrats." And yet, despite Trump's

repeated

claims that no one could have foreseen this, it turns out that many people did. Including people from the Trump administration. Here's just a quick list. First, Obama officials accompanied Trump advisers through a global pandemic exercise in 2017. Then, in 2017 and 2018, threat assessment intelligence analysts even mentioned a close cousin of the coronavirus by name, saying it had pandemic potential. Then, in 2018, the National Security Council's director of medical and biodefense preparedness said at a symposium that the threat of pandemic flu is our top health security concern.

Then top administration officials said last year that the threat of a pandemic was keeping them up at night. Then, White House economists warned, in 2019, a pandemic could devastate the United States. Then, intelligence reports warned of coronavirus crises as early as November; and then US intelligence reports in January and February warned of a likely pandemic. Well, you know the old saying: "Eight strikes and you're out." Seriously, how many incredibly specific

warnings

do you need? This is like getting a note that says, "I know what you did last summer. Specifically, you hit a man with your car and then you and Freddie Prinze Jr. decided to hide the body and pretend it never happened.

And now, in "an act of revenge, I am going to stalk and systematically kill each of you, one at a time. I will also email this and copy all parties mentioned above." I don't know what that means, what it all means, but I think we should all go camping in the woods. I know a great place with no cell service. In fact, in this White House, if you stick your head in the sand and ignore reality, you can get a reward. For example, yesterday Trump named campaign spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany as the new White House press secretary.

In February, more than a month after our first confirmed case of coronavirus, McEnany said this... -This president will always put America first. He will always protect American citizens. We won't see diseases like coronavirus coming here. We won't see terrorism coming here, and isn't that comforting, compared to President Obama's terrible presidency? -If you think going from this... to this is refreshing, then maybe you don't know what that word means. Trump seems like the physical embodiment of the feeling you get when you fall asleep on the couch and wake up after dark and don't know what day it is.

The only refreshing thing here is the Kool-Aid you drank. If Trump is going to hire people who go on television and say such bad things, he might as well hire this lady as secretary of Know Who Greta Thunberg is. -A 2019 book titled "No One is Too Small to Make a Difference" is a collection of speeches given by a Swedish climate change activist. What's it called? -Sharon. -Oh! So close. First of all, I love that woman and that clip will never stop making me happy. Secondly, Sharon is such a bad assumption, for so many reasons, the least of which is how un-Swedish Sharon seems.

These are my friends, Elsa, Ingrid and Sharon. Anyway, after all those warnings, we learned of yet another one on Tuesday, when it was reported that Trump's trade adviser warned the White House in January about the risks of a pandemic. And, at the top of the document that he wrote, he literally says "Memorandum to the President." Of course, Trump has probably never heard the word memo before. He probably saw that and said... I can't read it. It's in Latin. So they knew and lied to you. They told you it wasn't a threat, but they knew it was and they put lives at risk, not to mention all the economic carnage they knew was coming.

They knew. Here's another part of the problem. The guy who wrote that memo, Peter Navarro, is also a nutcase. This is what happens when a sociopath with an oatmeal brain destroys public administration and surrounds himself with right-wing weirdos. Even if someone is right, you don't know who to believe. For example, Navarro, a business adviser, has been one of the administration's loudest voices pushing the unproven malaria drug hydroxychloroquine for the coronavirus. Now, Navarro has no medical experience, which led to this exchange on CNN on Monday... -My qualifications, in terms of

look

ing at the science, is that I am a social scientist.

I have a PhD and know how to read statistical studies, whether in medicine, law, economics or whatever. -I-I-I'm sorry. That doesn't qualify you to treat patients. Do you want an internist who closes commercial agreements? -Heh. Touch. -With Asian countries? - "Ha, ha, ha, yes! Touché, sir. I take my cap off to you, sir. On the issue of this potentially dangerous and unproven medication, you have checkmated me, sir. Well played, old friend . Bravo. These guys are so easy to beat. It's like playing tic-tac-toe with someone who doesn't realize you're supposed to make a straight line. It looks like my O's have all four corners. "No, I beat you." in three Touché, old friend.

Hit me, you did it. If you're wondering how someone like Navarro ended up on Trump's team, first of all, according to Vanity Fair, at one point during the campaign when Trump wanted to talk more substantively about China, he gave Kushner a summary of his points. sight and then asked him to do some research. Kushner simply went to Amazon, where he was struck by the title of a book, "Death by China," that he co-authored. by Peter Navarro. He cold-called Navarro, a well-known trade deficit hawk, who agreed to join the team as an economic advisor. You know, we give Jared a hard time for having no skills or experience, but in his defense, he has Amazon.

The guy is probably great at Google too, and here I am, giving him a hard time, telling him that he has no idea what he's doing, when he's probably asking Jeeves as we talk. And Trump has followed the lead of his crooked friends and allies by pushing hydroxychloroquine over the objections of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who said we need clinical trials to show it is safe and effective. For example, it could have potentially lethal side effects on the heart, and yet Trump has brushed aside those concerns. According to The New York Times, Trump made a rare appearance in the situation room on Sunday as his pandemic task force met, determined to talk about the anti-malarial drug he has aggressively promoted lately as a treatment for the coronavirus.

Once again, experts warned against overselling a drug that has not yet been proven to be a safe remedy, especially for heart patients. "Yes, things of the heart," Trump acknowledged. "Yes, things of the heart." Thank you Doctor. I can see Trump walking in to break the bad news to a patient. Listen, Jim, I'm afraid it's heart stuff, and that's really bad because you know you have that lung thing. It is clear that because he

ignored

repeated warnings about this horrible situation, Trump is now hoping there is a miracle cure that will set him free. Just listen to him selling hydroxychloroquine in an eerily quiet tone at a White House press conference on Saturday. -And I hope they use the hydroxychloroquine and can also do it with the Z-Pak, subject to their doctor's approval and all that.

But I hope they use it because I'll tell you what... What do you have to lose? There's a chance, a chance, and I say it, what do you have to lose? I'll say it again: what do you have to lose? Take it. I really think they should accept it, but it's his choice. And it is the choice of your doctor or the doctors at the hospital. But hydroxychloroquine. Try it, if you want. -My God, is anyone else scared by the tone of his voice? I feel like I just arrivedin a windowless white van in front of a high school.

Hey kids, I have hydroxychloroquine. It will make you feel on cloud nine. Try it, if you want. Furthermore, there are things of the heart. Trump desperately hopes all of this will go away and that is why he is pushing an unproven miracle cure. This morning he tweeted that, once this deadly pandemic that devastated our economy is over, he should quickly

forget

about it. But we must not

forget

it. Our government, led by our sociopathic president, ignored repeated warnings that a major public health and economic disaster was looming. And, if you point it out to Trump and his followers, the best they can respond is... -Heh.

Touch. -This has been "A

closer

look." ♪♪ City Harvest is a great charity, and now, they are working hard to support New York City families left out of work due to the COVID-19 pandemic. If you're watching this on YouTube, hit the donate button. Stay at home. Stay safe. We love you.