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April 10, 2020- by Steven E. Greer
President Trump is still running his administration using the lessons he learned from pitting people against one another on his reality show The Apprentice. That might not be a bad way of managing The White House, actually. He has had tremendous success so far. Then again, he has suffered many anguishing unforced errors as a result of this chaotic style too. History books will decide in a few decades.
For this pandemic crisis, he has established a virus-response team, led by Vice President Mike Pence. Every day, President Trump places cast members of his White House reality show before the press to take the fire.
Which cast members should be voted off the show? Which ones have performed well?
So far, the best performers of his mostly incompetent cabinet have been Peter Navarro, Steven Mnuchin, and FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn.
Mnuchin comes from Goldman Sachs where he was an equities trader (like me). Although I am not a fan of Wall Street for the most part, it is a cutthroat culture where only competent people retain their jobs. While being stiff and not good in front of the TV camera, Mnuchin has demonstrated strong aptitude at running the Treasury and all things financial. If the paycheck loans are finally issued to people as soon as next week, then that will be a true miracle. One has to keep in perspective how poorly the federal government has rolled out such large plans before. For example, Obama’s HHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, failed to create even a simple website for Obamacare enrollment.
Navarro comes from Harvard with a PhD in economics. His career was rather nondescript until he became a campaign advisor to Trump and impressed him. Trump’s instincts were correct. Navarro has been a plain-speaking, competent sounding, man handling trade affairs. He presents himself well before the West Wing press corps.
Stephen Hahn, MD comes from MD Anderson Cancer Center and recently took the helm at the FDA. He is doing a remarkable job of approving drugs and devices in rapid fashion. He is good before the cameras as well.
The rest of the pandemic team has been an abject failure. The two so-called virus MD experts, Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci, have not only performed poorly in front of the camera (an unforgivable sin for Trump), but have also destroyed the global economy with their irresponsible fearmongering using outlandish death estimates. I have written many essays about this. It is hard to say which person is more annoying to the American public. Chicken Little Fauci’s Brooklyn-accent-hoarse-voice and Birx’s teenage-girl-sassy-smirks are both equally bad.
The Surgeon General, Jerome Adams, is literally not fit to manage a fast-food restaurant. He is so nervous before the camera that his mouth becomes dry. More importantly, he stood before America, time after time during news interviews, and made the bald-faced lie that face masks do not help against the virus. He claimed that we idiots did not know how to use them properly, etc. Of course, it was all a crock. The CDC now recommends using face masks.
The Secretary of the entire Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, seems to have been demoted already. He is no longer part of the briefings. Azar oversees the FDA, CDC, and CMS.
Azar’s subordinate, CMS Director Seema Verma, rumored to be angling for his job, is doing an adequate job before the cameras. If she can manage to get relief payments to doctors and hospitals, then her stock will rise.
The man put in charge of assembling the team above, Mike Pence, is the worst of them all. He is extremely rigid in front of the camera, and can only spew the usual vague political platitudes. He is his own Saturday Night Live parody.
However, Pence’s worst sin has been to allow his National Guard and Homeland Security response teams to orchestrate the lame TV stunts of floating hospital ships into New York Harbor and setting up visible emergency tent hospitals in Central Park, while intending all long to never actually treat any virus patients. Meanwhile, the ill-equipped hospitals in Queens cannot meet the demand and thousands of people each day have been dying in these unofficial quarantined areas.
No one will admit it, but the virus cases have been quarantined in the Queens, Harlem, and Brooklyn hospitals because the Manhattan hospitals and their billionaire donors do not want the virus coming to Manhattan. Since almost all of the deaths have been among illegal alien and minority demographics, no one in the establishment media has reported on the conditions. It does not fit with their pro-Democrat propaganda agendas to expose the horrific conditions within these Cuomo-controlled hospitals. In the bigger picture, the same hot spot areas for the virus are also the sanctuary city hot spots where Third World conditions arise. The entire virus epidemic in the boroughs of New York is an indictment of the far-left.
President Trump will surely be conducting a post-pandemic assessment of his team. The economic depression (not recession) to come will hurt his chances for reelection. He will need to make changes.
He needs to oust many of the failed cast members detailed above. Then, President Trump should dump Pence and replace him with a female of color. Tulsi Gabbard would be the ideal VP candidate (not Nikki Haley, for the love of god).
Hey Steve,
I think you are being too harsh on Pence….he is working his ass off. Yes, he is a stiff but we all know that.
I agree on the rest of your points.
Hope you are doing well, and keep fighting the good fight! Enjoyed the Piscopo interview.
Not many Republicans in BPC…We need to stick together.
Michael
You might be correct. My comments are mostly shrewd politics. I think Trump would get a big boost from a female VP. Pence is a mockable parody of himself.
Wow – You were right about Pence !
Trending on twitter #theflywasright
Heard that Pence was responsible for the False smears re General Flynn !
Heard today about Pence deal with Rance Priebus Access Hollywood tapes to have Trump removes from ticket ? Paul Ryan involved?
If true Patrick Byrne is right – Trump is almost too nice
Too loyal so good can’t see evil