From the N.Y. Times today;
"Hassett separately said during an interview on ABC that he thought the country is going to see an unemployment rate comparable to the Great Depression.
“This is the biggest negative shock that our economy, I think, has ever seen. We’re going to be looking at an unemployment rate that approaches rates that we saw during the Great Depression,” Hassett said
{ is this a preparatory signal to expect a new ‘Great’ depression ? -Bassett is the economic advisor to Mr. Trump.}
Some more . Is Trump a genius or a disgruntled neurotic ?
Fox News
CELEBRITY NEWS
Published April 27, 2020
Last Update a day ago
Bryan Cranston questions sanity of ‘deeply troubled’ Donald Trump and his supporters
By Tyler McCarthy | Fox News
Get all the latest news on coronavirus and more delivered daily to your inbox. Sign up here.
Bryan Cranston questioned the sanity of both President Trump and his supporters in a fiery tweet presented with little context over the weekend.
The “Breaking Bad” actor became the latest Hollywood star to criticize Trump and his administration as they respond to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Clearly not happy with the way that Trump is guiding the country through this unprecedented time, Cranston took to Twitter on Saturday to take a jab at both the president and those that support him.
“I’ve stopped worrying about the president’s sanity. He’s not sane,” the 64-year-old actor wrote. “And the realization of his illness doesn’t fill me with anger, but with profound sadness. What I now worry about is the sanity of anyone who can still support this deeply troubled man to lead our country.”
While the actor didn’t say what prompted this rebuke of the president and his supporters, the tweet came as the news cycle was dominated by remarks Trump made during a recent coronavirus press briefing in which he seemed to imply injecting light and/or disinfectants like household cleaners into the body could act as a treatment for the coronavirus.
"And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or, or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets on the lungs and it does a tremendous number, so it will be interesting to check that. So that you’re going to have to use medical doctors. But it sounds, it sounds interesting to me. So we’ll see,” Trump said at the time. “But the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute, that’s, that’s pretty powerful.”
Bryan Cranston criticized the sanity of Donald Trump and his supporters in a recent tweet. (Reuters)
On Friday, after the comments caught severe backlash from the public and medical experts alike, Trump clarified his remarks, explaining that he was simply asking sarcastic questions to reporters.
“I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you,” Trump said. “Disinfectant for doing this, maybe on the hands, would work. I was asking…when they use disinfectant it goes away in less than a minute.”
He added: “I was asking a very sarcastic question to reporters in the room about disinfectants on the inside…that was done in a sarcastic way.”
©2020 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved.
Opinion
Trump is unravelling – even his supporters can’t ignore it now
The president is leaning heavily on sarcasm to excuse a range of blunders, but US conservatives are unimpressed
I don’t know what kind of disinfectant Donald Trump has been injecting, but the man does not appear to be well. The president’s lethal medical musing has turned him into (even more of) a global laughing stock and the widespread ridicule has clearly bruised his fragile ego. While Trump has never been a paradigm of calmness or competence, he has become increasingly irate and erratic in recent days. Now even his diehard supporters seem to be cooling towards him. Is the “very stable genius” starting to unravel?
Let’s start with the president’s weekend tweetstorm, which, even by Trumpian standards, was spectacularly unhinged. On Sunday, Trump lashed out at what he called a “phony story” in the New York Times that claimed he spends his days eating junk food and watching TV. “I will often be in the Oval Office late into the night & read & see [in the Times] that I am angrily eating a hamberger & Diet Coke in my bedroom,” he tweeted. “People with me are always stunned.” He then deleted the tweet and replaced it with one in which hamburger was spelled correctly. (This was clearly a challenge for him: he has previously misspelled hamburgers “hamberders”.)
It turned out that the hambergers were just an appetiser. A rant about the “Noble” prize, which Trump seems to have confused with the Pulitzer prize, followed. This was subsequently deleted and replaced with a tweet stating it had all been an exercise in sarcasm. He is a master of sarcasm, as we all know.
While none of Trump’s aides seem able to shut down his Twitter account, they are trying to tone down his daily press briefings. Trump didn’t hold a briefing over the weekend as he normally does, while Monday’s event was cancelled and then reinstated. “We like to keep reporters on their toes,” the White House director of strategic communications, Alyssa Farah, tweeted with a winking emoji. She then deleted the tweet – presumably to keep reporters on their toes. Monday’s briefing was notable for the briefness of Trump’s remarks; instead of treating it like a political rally, he ceded the floor to a number of CEOs.
Trump enjoyed a bump in his ratings last month when he stopped downplaying coronavirus and announced a 15-day plan to slow the virus’s spread. During his brief experiment with coherence, 55% of Americans said they approved of the way he was handling the crisis and CNN’s chief political correspondent, Dana Bash, told viewers Trump “is being the kind of leader that people need”.
The tide now seems to have turned. Recent polls show that most Americans are unimpressed with Trump’s handling of the crisis. This includes conservatives: a Siena College poll released on Monday found that 56% of Republican voters in New York say they trust Andrew Cuomo, the state’s Democratic governor, to decide how to reopen the state over Trump. Even Fox News seems to have cooled towards Trumpism; the network has just cut ties with Diamond & Silk, a pair of rightwing social-media stars who have been two of Trump’s biggest cheerleaders, after they promoted conspiracy theories and disinformation.
Perhaps the only people more incompetent than Trump are the ragtag team of sycophants he has surrounded himself with. According to Politico, Trump is leaning heavily on Hope Hicks, who he reportedly calls “Hopey”, to steer him through the coronavirus crisis. Hicks, 31, who was formerly the White House communications director, is one of Trump’s most-trusted aides; according to one tell-all book, her duties used to include steaming his trousers – while he wore them. It turns out Hopey is the mastermind who urged Trump to “act as a frontman” during the crisis instead of deferring to health experts. Now that plan has backfired, Hicks – who officially works under boy genius Jared Kushner – is apparently developing a new strategy for Trump. He had better Hopey this one is a little more effective.
© 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.
POLITICO
CORONAVIRUS
Trump faces the risk of a coronavirus cliff
Unemployed Americans will lose a federal safety net long before the economy fully recovers — potentially creating a messy Election Day for the GOP.
Republicans are trying to pull off a high-wire act over the next three months: Reopen the economy enough to get most jobless Americans back to work and off the public dole, while resisting another giant stimulus package.
If they fail, they’ll face a coronavirus cliff — an even deeper collapse in spending and sky-high unemployment in the months before Election Day. That could both damage President Donald Trump’s reelection prospects and put the party’s Senate majority at serious risk.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has suggested that states be allowed to seek bankruptcy protection and questioned the need for a big new stimulus, said Monday that the Senate would return next Monday along with the House. He indicated he would consider additional coronavirus relief funding, but that any aid to states would continue to come with strings attached. And he told POLITICO last week that he was leery of adding much more to the deficit, joining other conservatives who are growing concerned about the GOP record of racking up a mountain of debt after railing against it for a decade before Trump.
Republicans are currently betting that efforts to reopen states will be successful and the nearly $3 trillion already allocated by lawmakers — the largest federal rescue in American history — will be at least close to enough to start bringing the unemployment rate down and sending economic growth back up.
But it remains far from clear that it will be anywhere near enough to restore the tens of millions of jobs lost in recent weeks. A provision of the enhanced unemployment benefits enacted under the CARES Act added $600 per week to jobless benefits offered by states — but only through July 31.
And risks remain high that quick reopenings could lead to fresh virus breakouts, shutting down the economy again.
If that happens and the rescue programs aren’t expanded for individuals, businesses and state and local governments, the political toll could be enormous.
“Trump in 2016 won quite a few voters who traditionally back Democrats, the so-called ‘forgotten voters’ in places like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan,” said Michael Weber, a University of Chicago economist. “So it’s very risky to think about austerity right now because it would hit many Trump voters the hardest. Trump realizes his reelection depends on the economy and that’s why he is pushing to reopen states, even though that creates a very big risk of a second wave of the virus.”
There are complex political calculations in play over a potential successor to the $2.3 trillion CARES Act. Some close McConnell observers say despite recent remarks urging states to consider bankruptcy and warning of any more big spending, the Kentucky Republican knows another significant injection of federal funds will be required to boost the economy heading toward Election Day. Blocking one could wreck the prospects for numerous GOP candidates in November.
These people say McConnell is simply trying to start negotiations on a footing more friendly to the Senate GOP caucus while holding off other recent Democratic demands on mandating states to allow mail-in voting, clean energy, food stamp benefits and other wish list items. They say there will likely be another coronavirus relief bill, but that it will be significantly smaller than the CARES Act and only passed with both chambers in session in Washington.
McConnell on Monday acknowledged the need for at least some added funding. But he suggested it would have to be coupled with more liability protection for corporate America and would not amount to bailouts for states. “I’m open to additional assistance. It’s not just going to be a check, though, you get my point?” McConnell said in an interview. “We’re not writing a check to send down to states to allow them to, in effect, finance mistakes they’ve made unrelated to the coronavirus.”
But others warn that McConnell’s stance and general Republican pressure not to add much more to federal deficits could wind up delaying or even killing another big stimulus package, an outcome that could curtail any chance for a fast recovery and slam marginal Trump voters in critical swing states.
It could also give Democrats an even better shot at flipping the three or four seats they will need to control the Senate. They would need three if Joe Biden wins the White House and his vice president controls the deciding vote in a 50-50 Senate.
The question of additional assistance on top of the roughly $3 trillion already allocated — on top of trillions in additional support from the Federal Reserve — comes as grim economic data continues to pile up.
The first read on economic growth in the first quarter of the year, due out Wednesday morning, is expected to show an annualized decline of around 4 percent. The second quarter, which covers most of the Covid-19 shock thus far, will be far worse with estimates ranging up to an annualized decline of 30 to 40 percent.
Already, over 26 million Americans have filed for first-time unemployment benefits during the crisis, suggesting a jobless rate of up to 20 percent, nearing the Great Depression high of 24.9 percent. The number is expected to leap over 30 million new jobless claims when fresh numbers come out on Thursday.
These numbers help explain why Trump — who regularly boasts about how great the economy was before the virus hit — wants states to start opening up as soon as they possibly can.
The president on Monday evening said he did not know how bad the economy might tank in the second quarter, but that “the third and the fourth quarter in particular are going to be I think spectacular.” He added that it would be a “tremendous comeback.”
But he is not in charge of the reopening process, which is likely to unfold quite slowly until the U.S. has far more effective virus testing and tracking capabilities. New outbreaks of the virus caused by rapid reopenings could also force fresh lockdowns and further damage the economy.
Party strategists are worried the GOP isn’t prepared for the coming spike in voting by mail.
The Trump campaign is furious over a strategy memo on coronavirus circulated by the Senate Republican campaign arm.
President Trump said the estimated death toll for coronavirus is higher than he recently predicted.
California’s plans for contact tracing could serve as a national model.
And plenty of gaps could open up by summer if the GOP sticks to its current approach.
The Paycheck Protection Program, intended to help small businesses stay afloat, has been beset by problems from the start and already ran out of money once. It may do so again this week.
Economists suggest there is only a limited chance that most who lost jobs during the initial wave of the crisis — largely lower-paid service industry workers — will be reemployed by the summer. The jobless rate is likely to remain well into the double digits into the fall.
If the added benefits are not extended and more money is not pushed into the small business program, dreams that the economy could snap back to rapid growth heading into the November elections could be vaporized.
“There is a time and place to have these discussions about spending and debt, but now is certainly not the time,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. “I do think Republicans will have to relent here because the number of unemployed we are seeing is just horrendous. A lot of businesses have already gone under and more will follow.”
Farooqi added that “the unemployment rate is going to stay high through the end of the year. We will need extended help and it’s inappropriate to be having these discussions and saying things like states should be allowed to go bankrupt.”
McConnell brought up the state bankruptcy possibility last week on conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt’s radio show. “I would certainly be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route,” he said. “My guess is their first choice would be for the federal government to borrow money from future generations to send it down to them now so they don’t have to do that. That’s not something I’m going to be in favor of.”
The comments drew howls of rebuke from Democratic governors like New York’s Andrew Cuomo, who noted that his state pays far more into federal coffers each year than it takes out. Some Republicans, including Maryland governor Larry Hogan, also slammed McConnell’s remarks.
In an interview last week with POLITICO, McConnell also staked out a hardline position on another stimulus package. He expressed little appetite for adding much more to a federal deficit that the Congressional Budget Office now says could nearly quadruple this year to nearly $4 trillion. And he is leery of the federal government bailing out state pension funds. Any further aid to states is likely to feature the same restrictions included in the CARES Act that the money only go to offset losses directly attributable to the virus.
“You’ve seen the talk from both sides about acting, but my goal from the beginning of this, given the extraordinary numbers that we’re racking up to the national debt, is that we need to be as cautious as we can be,” McConnell told POLITICO last week. “We need to see how things are working, see what needs to be corrected, and I do think that the next time we pass a coronavirus rescue bill, we need to have everyone here and everyone engaged.”
Trump weighed in on the aid to states argument on Twitter Monday, basically echoing McConnell’s approach. “Why should the people and taxpayers of America be bailing out poorly run states (like Illinois, as example) and cities, in all cases Democrat run and managed, when most of the other states are not looking for bailout help?” Trump wrote.
Many economists, meanwhile, argue that it is not yet time to be “cautious” when considering further economic assistance for individuals, small businesses and cash-strapped state and local governments that have seen tax receipts crash. State and local governments employ around 13 percent of the American workforce. And huge layoffs in the sector helped worsen the 2008-09 recession and slowed the recovery, according to some analysts.
There may not be enough time to see if current federal assistance is working — as McConnell wants to do — before Congress needs to act again. It takes significant time for fiscal stimulus, including direct payments to individuals and businesses, to show up in economic data.
While the deficit is breaching historic levels, interest rates remain close to zero, meaning the cost of borrowing is historically low. And the old economic consensus that debt begins to get dangerous when it outstrips the overall size of a country’s economy, as is likely to happen to the U.S. this year, no longer really holds, especially for such a large nation that controls the most widely used currency in the world.
“In the next year or two, the more they do in terms of fiscal stimulus, the quicker the economy will recover. This is a very big whole the economy has to dig out of,” said Jim O’Sullivan, chief U.S. macro strategist at TD Securities. “There is going to have to be more aid for states.”
“One caveat to all this would be if markets get spooked by deficits and interest rates rise,” he said. “But we just aren’t seeing any of that at this point. I’m not saying something like that couldn’t happen in 10 years’ time, but right now, it’s pretty clear the U.S. needs more fiscal help.”
© 2020 POLITICO LLC