Debate Cheat Sheet: Trump Failed Americans on Coronavirus — His Mismanagement Created a Perpetual and Worsening Crisis

On the Numbers:

222K Deaths; 8.3 Million Cases

Yesterday Alone, 63K New Infections and 1,100 Deaths

Hospitalizations Increasing in 39 States 

On Donald Trump’s Abdication of Responsibility:

New Columbia Study Blames White House for 130K Avoidable Deaths

In the Last Ten Days, Trump Has Hosted TWELVE Super Spreader Rallies

On the White House Outbreak:

Trump Tried to Cover Up WH Outbreak That Infected 30+ People

Trump Traveled, Attended Fundraiser While Experiencing Symptoms

On Attacking Experts:

This Week, Trump Attacked Fauci as an “Idiot”, “Disaster”

On Vaccines:

October Is Almost Over… and Still No Vaccine — Despite Trump’s Baseless Promises

Key Vaccine Developer Won’t Have Enough Data on Trials Until Late November

On The Economy:

Nearly 65 Million Americans Have Filed for Unemployment Since March

23 Million Americans Receiving Unemployment Benefits

8 Million Americans Have Fallen Into Poverty Since May

On The Supreme Court:

Trump Is Trying to Strip Americans of Access to Health Care During Pandemic

On tonight’s debate stage, Donald Trump will continue his reckless, disingenuous tactic of downplaying the pandemic, despite that his failed leadership has caused the crisis to worsen. 

More than 220,000 Americans have lost their lives to the coronavirus, and more than 8.3 million have been infected. Tens of thousands of new cases are being reported daily as new surges overwhelm the country. 

The virus never had to be this bad. But President Trump has spent the last seven months focused on saving his floundering re-election, rather than on saving American lives. Even after setting off an outbreak at the White House — endangering his own allies and family — Donald Trump is determined to abdicate all responsibility for the crisis, and even to make it worse. 

State of the Virus: As the US Passes 222,000 Coronavirus Deaths, the Pandemic Is Worsening

• As of October 22, there were 222,220 confirmed deaths and more than 8.3 million total cases of COVID-19 in the United States. Despite making up only 4% of the world’s population, the United States has more than 20% of the world’s deaths and more than 20% of the world’s cases.
  
• At least 31 states are currently reporting increased COVID-19 infections, the number of new cases in each is greater in the last week than the week before.
  
  • As of October 19, the US’ seven-day rolling average of new daily coronavirus infections was greater than 58,000 — higher than at any point since early August.
    
  • On October 22, the United States reported nearly 63,000 new infections.
    
• Coronavirus hospitalizations are increasing in 39 states. At least 14 states have reported peak hospitalizations in the last week.
  
• Daily deaths in the United States have crept back up past 1000. On October 22, the United States reported 1,124 lives lost to the virus.
  
• The University Of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) forecasts that 129,000 hospital beds will be needed to care for COVID-19 patients by January 2021 — nearly twice as many beds as were used during previous peaks.
• While the US has officially reported more than 220,000 deaths to COVID-19, a CDC study shows that 300,000 more people have died this year than in previous years — suggesting that the consequences of this pandemic are worse than we know.
  
• The IHME predicts that deaths might surge as high as 3,000 per day by late December, and forecasts that US deaths could rise to nearly 400,000 by February 1. 
• A new report from Columbia University estimates that hundreds of thousands of Americans died because of Donald Trump’s “abject failure” in responding to the pandemic. Researchers blame insufficient testing, delayed lockdowns, a lack of a unified federal response, and a failure to mandate non-medical interventions like masks and social distancing for 130,000–210,000 “avoidable” deaths.
  
• CDC Director Robert Redfield has said that nearly 300 million Americans, or 90 percent of the population, are still susceptible to being infected by coronavirus.

Trump’s Reckless Super-Spreader Behavior Led to a Coronavirus Outbreak at the White House; Even So, Trump Continues Jeopardizing Americans at Dangerous Rallies

• Trump’s constant refusal to follow basic guidance like mask wearing and social distancing led to an out of control outbreak at the White House and among Republican Party leadership, infecting even Trump himself.
  
  • Dozens of people in Trump’s orbit became infected with COVID-19, including Melania and Barron Trump, White House Aides Hope Hicks, Stephen Miller, Kayleigh McEnany and Kellyanne Conway, Trump Campaign Manager Bill Stepien, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Republican Senators Mike Lee, Thom Tillis and Ron Johnson, three White House press reporters and multiple non-political White House residence staff.
  • Trump and those close to him likely exposed thousands of people to the virus as he held events and traveled throughout the country in the days before his positive test. During the week before Trump tested positive, he held a maskless Supreme Court nomination event for Amy Coney Barrett at the White House, met with Gold Star Families, held two super-spreader campaign rallies, and attended fundraisers in New Jersey and Minnesota (even after he was experiencing symptoms).

• As the onset of the outbreak, Trump attempted to cover it up:
  

• • Trump told an adviser not to “tell anyone” about positive test results among White House staff and the Wall Street Journal reported  that Trump aimed to “keep a close hold” on aide Hope Hicks’ positive test.
    
  • During an interview with Sean Hannity on October 3, Trump did not disclose that he had already tested positive. Trump did not get tested before the September 29 presidential debate in Cleveland and has still not disclosed when his last negative test was before testing positive.

• After receiving world-class medical care, Donald Trump recovered. But the experience didn’t humble him. Instead, it emboldened him to make dangerous, false proclamations about immunity and to continue to put his own supporters at risk.
  
  • On October 11, Trump falsely claimed that he was “immune.”
    
  • He then proceeded to return to the campaign trail. In the last ten days, Donald Trump has hosted TWELVE super spreader rallies, many of which were in coronavirus hot spots like Wisconsin, Iowa, or North Carolina.
    
• Trump’s rallies have been shown to intensify outbreaks in the communities in which they are held. Cases have also been contact-traced directly to the rallies — though the true number is hard to determine without the cooperation of rally-goers. But there’s no doubt that these events needlessly endanger Americans — both those who attend and those who do not  — for the sole purpose of inflating President Trump’s ego.
  
• Prior to the White House outbreak, Trump regularly held dangerous events and ridiculed safety measures like masks.
  
  • Trump held indoor six campaign rallies in February and March after he acknowledged on tape to journalist Bob Woodward that he knew the virus was airborne, highly contagious and “more deadly” than the Flu.

• Trump held an indoor campaign rally in Tulsa Oklahoma on June 20 as the state was in the midst of a coronavirus surge. Three weeks later, the state was seeing a record number of new infections.

Rather Than Listening to the Experts and Protecting Americans, President Trump Seems to Be Embracing a Dangerous, Baseless Strategy of Herd Immunity

• The White House has embraced a declaration that suggests letting the virus spread through healthy populations in an attempt to achieve herd immunity through infections, and thus hasten the end of the pandemic.
  
• Experts agree that this strategy is nonsense, and would needlessly endanger Americans. Trump’s own CDC has found that spikes in infections among younger, healthier groups precede corresponding spikes among the elderly and vulnerable populations.
• Trump’s own National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins called herd immunity “dangerous”, while other experts warn that the strategy is “ethically problematic” and would potentially be a “massacre” for Americans.

Trump Has Routinely Ridiculed Scientists and Politicized Agencies Meant to Keep Americans Safe

• During an October 19 call with campaign staff, Trump attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci, calling him an “idiot” and “disaster” for warning Americans about the seriousness of the virus.
• Donald Trump also attacked Fauci on twitter, claiming Fauci was wrong about his predictions. At the same time, the Trump campaign used an out-of-context quote by Dr. Fauci (without his permission) in a campaign ad.
  
• As cases surge and the outbreak worsens, the White House has also blocked public appearances by Dr. Fauci, for fear that he would counter the White House’s rosy messaging on the virus. 
• • Trump and his allies have repeatedly attempted to discredit experts like Dr. Fauci throughout the pandemic. In doing so, President Trump has pushed junk science, miracle cures, and fringe conspiracy theories. He has also lifted up discredited doctors like Stella Immanuel.
    
  • Dr. Scott Atlas, President Trump’s latest addition to the coronavirus task force, has also been providing the President with coronavirus misinformation. CDC Director Redfield said of Atlas: “Everything he says is false.”
    
  • Trump has neutered the CDC — and rattled public faith in a once-independent agency meant to keep us safe.  From ordering the CDC to adjust testing guidelines to exclude people without symptoms (while Dr. Anthony Fauci was under anesthesia, no less), to strong-arming the agency into changing school reopening guidelines, to having his cronies like Michael Caputo and Paul Alexander change the reports of CDC scientists, Trump has attempted to retool the agency for political purposes.
    
• Trump has also regularly bullied the Food and Drug Administration into doing his bidding. He had the FDA issue an Emergency Use Authorization for convalescent plasma against the advice of experts and he pushed the agency to issue an EUA for hydroxychloroquine (which it later had to revoke). 

Trump Has Downplayed the Threat of the Virus Throughout the Pandemic and Admitted on Tape That It Was “Always” His Intention to Do So

• Trump says on tape that he knew how dangerous coronavirus was. On February 7, Trump told journalist Bob Woodward on tape that the virus was “deadly stuff”, airborne, highly contagious and “more deadly” than the Flu.
• But Trump lied to the American people, downplaying the threat of the virus at least 162 times since the beginning of the pandemic. Including repeatedly saying, without evidence, that the virus would “just disappear.”
  
• Trump told Woodward in March: “I wanted to always play it down… I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic.”
• Asked about 1000 Americans dying every day from coronavirus during an interview on August 4, Trump responded, “They are dying. That’s true. And you — it is what it is.”
• Even after getting sick himself, Donald Trump is gaslighting Americans about the severity and longevity of the virus. He keeps insisting Americans are “rounding the corner” on the pandemic — even as experts warn that the United States is heading for a deadly and devastating winter.

Vaccines: Independent Experts Agree a Safe, Effective Vaccine by Election Day Is Unlikely as Trump Makes Empty Promises and Erodes Americans’ Faith in Science

• Trump has repeatedly teased that a coronavirus vaccine will be ready by October — just in time for the Presidential election. October is almost over, and as experts predicted, a vaccine seems unlikely. 
  • Dr. Anthony Fauci has said “It’s unlikely we’ll have a definitive answer” on vaccines by Nov. 3.
    
  • Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the Chief Scientific Adviser to Operation Warp Speed has said: “There is a very, very low chance that the trials that are running as we speak could read before the end of October.”
    
  • Both CDC Director Robert Redfield and testing czar Admiral Brett Giroir have said that a vaccine will not be widely available until mid-2021.
    
• Americans are worried that Trump’s push for a vaccine by the election is political, and many are losing confidence in the safety of a vaccine if one is approved on Trump’s timeline.  A September poll showed that 69 percent of Americans have no confidence in the President vouching for the safety of a coronavirus vaccine.
  
• Experts say that the dwindling confidence among Americans in an eventual vaccine could have catastrophic consequences for the United States’ coronavirus recovery.
  
  • NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins has said: “Those who are vaccine hesitant have had their hesitancy enhanced by a variety of things that are happening right now, particularly the unfortunate mix of science and politics… I don’t want to have us, a year from now, having a conversation about how we have in our hands the solution to the worst pandemic of more than 100 years, but we haven’t been able to actually convince people to take charge of it.”
    
  • Dr. Anthony Fauci said:  “If you have a vaccine that is highly effective and not enough people get vaccinated, you’re not going to realize the full, important effect of having a vaccine.”
    
• Even leading vaccine developers say a vaccine won’t be ready by the election. Pfizer has said it won’t have enough data to submit a vaccine for authorization until late November.
  

Chaos in Schools: Trump Rush to Reopen K-12 Schools and Universities Has Sparked Outbreaks Across the Country

• Trump has repeatedly downplayed the danger of the virus to children and young people, despite telling Bob Woodward, “It’s not just old people, Bob… It’s not just old, older. Young people too — plenty of young people.” Still, President Trump has unilaterally pushed for schools to reopen for in-person instruction — even threatening to cut funding from those that refuse to do so.
  
• But nearly 750,000 children in the United States have been infected by COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, and at least 120 have died. The CDC has found that most children who have succumbed to coronavirus are Black, Hispanic, or Indigenous — though these groups make up only 41% of the US population, they account for 78% of pediatric deaths to COVID-19.
  
• Children have also been found to be able to transmit the virus to others — including vulnerable populations. Young adults, meanwhile, regularly seed infections among older groups. In the south, as cases surged over the summer, cases rose among those 60 and older just nine days after beginning to rise among those in their 20s and 30s.
  
• So it’s no surprise that the reopening of K-12 schools and universities has already been catastrophic. While there’s no federal mechanism to monitor outbreaks among schools, one independent effort suggests that there are nearly  70,000 cases among staff and students from K-12 institutions. Meanwhile, more than 178,000 infections have emerged on college campuses.  
• Infections at colleges, in particular, are driving deadly surges. A study conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Indiana University, the University of Washington and Davidson College concluded that college reopenings led to 3000 new cases a day in the United States.
  
  • In La Crosse, Wisconsin, for example, the return of students to campus corresponded to a spike in deaths among nursing home residents, though the facilities had been mostly unscathed up until then. 
    

Deflecting Blame to China: Trump Has Tried Repeatedly to Blame China for the Virus; Meanwhile, He Praised President Xi and Implemented a Useless Ban

• During January and February, Trump repeatedly praised President Xi and the Chinese government’s response to the virus. That praise didn’t stop Trump from later scapegoating China for his own failures.
  • Trump’s China travel ban did not stop travel from the country. Between February 2, the day Trump issued the ban, and early April, more than 40,000 people entered the United States from China.  Even before the ban was implemented, the virus was already spreading in the US. Later data confirmed that large outbreaks east coast most likely originated in Europe.
  • Trump has nonetheless tried to blame China for the pandemic — and refused to accept responsibility for his failure to act. Trump was warned for months that the pandemic was dangerous, but he chose to do nothing.
• Trump’s rhetoric blaming China for the pandemic has helped fuel an elevated number of attacks on Asian Americans. The hatred created by such misinformation has led to boycotts of Asian-owned businesses, and even violence.
• Trump’s attempts to castigate China are certainly a desperate ploy to distract from his own failures. But it’s also possible that Trump’s grandstanding is intended to mask more nefarious conduct; a recent analysis by the New York Times shows that Trump has a bank account in China, and has unsuccessfully pursued business ventures in the country.
  

Trump Failed to Ramp Up Testing: Months Into the Pandemic, Shortages Persist. 

• Trump failed to heed warnings that the United States needed to massively scale up testing in the beginning of the pandemic to contain the virus. Early on, the Trump administration declined to use the diagnostic tests offered by the World Health Organization, and then, when the CDC finally began its own testing regimen, the tests didn’t work and were restricted only to those who had been to China or who had had known exposure to the virus.
  
• Trump then abdicated responsibility for testing — delegating it downward to state and local governments when experts agreed that the country needed a robust, centralized testing infrastructure. States were ultimately forced to compete for limited testing supplies, just as they had to compete for PPE. As cases surged, testing supply shortages inhibited states from effectively identifying and tracing cases. Trump refused to invoke the Defense Production Act to increase supplies of testing materials like swabs until April 19th, weeks after shortages were first reported.
  
• Months into the pandemic, labs were still rationing tests and vying for limited materials. As cases surged in July, people were forced to wait hours to get a test and weeks for results — by which time the tests were rendered useless.
  
• It’s now October, and the United States’ testing efforts are still subpar. 36 states are testing below the levels experts say is necessary to mitigate the spread of the virus.  As flu season returns, equipment shortages are also expected to reemerge: most flu tests rely on the same components and equipment as coronavirus tests.
  
• FREQUENT TRUMP TALKING POINT: The United States is testing more than any other country in the world.
  • Frankly, it doesn’t matter if the United States is testing “more” than any other country in the world. The United States has the worst outbreak in the world, so it should be testing accordingly. And the sheer number of tests being conducted doesn’t actually tell you that much about an outbreak — especially when multiple states are reporting positivity rates in double digits.
    
  • Even with improvements in testing, the United States is still only testing at 60% the level experts say is necessary to mitigate the spread of the virus.

PPE Shortages: Trump Failed to Secure Enough Personal Protective Equipment for Health Workers Who Are Still Being Forced to Reuse Masks 7 Months Into the Pandemic

• • Trump will undoubtedly claim that he acted swiftly to shore up the nation’s supply of protective equipment. The White House, just last month, released a report asserting that President Trump used the Defense Production Act eighty times throughout the pandemic to alleviate shortages. But that’s far from the truth.
    
  • The Trump Administration has used the Defense Production Act to address shortages only sparingly throughout the pandemic. In fact, much of the $1 billion that Congress allocated for the purchase of supplies through the DPA was instead shifted to military contractors.
    
  • As a result of Trump’s failure to act decisively on PPE shortages early in the pandemic, governors, hospitals and municipal health departments across the United States were forced to compete on the open market for limited resources — as prices soared. The Trump administration provided little help, as FEMA routinely sent damaged, expired, or otherwise useless PPE to states struggling to get the virus under control.
    
  • Although shortages are now far less acute, nurses and doctors continue to fear that, as cases rise, PPE shortages will return. And, seven months into the pandemic, nurses are still being forced to reuse N95 masks until they are broken or visibly dirty. An August Survey of 21,500 nurses showed that 68% of them are still asked to reuse respirators.
    
• Meanwhile, a recent AARP analysis shows that nursing homes in every single state are still reporting some form of PPE shortage. During the reporting period analyzed, at least a quarter of facilities reported a shortage.
• The persistent lack of PPE has had devastating consequences. Shortages of protective supplies can allow coronavirus to tear through medical facilities, jeopardizing both patients and care workers. As of October 22, Kaiser Health News and The Guardian were investigating the deaths of 1319  care workers who died on the frontlines. 

Economic Collapse: Trump’s Failure to Combat the Virus Is the Primary Reason That the US Is Now in a Prolonged Recession

• Trump’s failure to get the virus under control is the primary reason why nearly 65 million Americans have been forced to file for unemployment since March. Another 787,000 people filed for unemployment last week as the economy continues to be in a recession. 23 million Americans are currently receiving unemployment benefits.
• Trump oversaw the greatest economic collapse in history. The United States’ gross domestic product shrank 32.9% in the second quarter of 2020, the worst economic downturn on record. 
• The Wall Street Journal reported that 1.4 million small businesses have closed for good since March and that 4 million could close forever by the end of 2020. 
• Trump’s economic response to the pandemic has benefitted billionaires, banks, corporations, and his own donors, all while shutting out Americans desperate for a lifeline.
• Months after the House passed the Heroes Act to provide relief for struggling Americans, Trump and Senate Republicans have failed to pass legislation that would support workers and small businesses. Senate Republicans are now trying to ram through a Supreme Court nominee, rather than helping millions of Americans in need.
  
  • Donald Trump, Steve Mnuchin, and Senate Republicans are all on different pages about aid, failing to get their own house in order as millions of Americans suffer.
    
  • Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is actively encouraging the White House to avoid a deal that could help Americans (eight million of whom have slipped into poverty since May) as he holds sham votes on useless packages.

Trump’s Coronavirus Failures Have Resulted in Racial and Ethnic Disparities Among Those Impacted by COVID-19 

• Trump’s failure to contain the virus has disproportionately impacted Black people and people of color in the United States.
  
• Nationwide, Black people are dying of coronavirus at 2.3 times the rates of white people. Hispanic or Latino people are dying at 1.5 times the rates of white people, as are American Indians/Alaska Natives. Hispanics and Latinos are dying from COVID-19 at rates higher than their share of state populations in 19 states and the District of Columbia.
  

• The coronavirus death toll is twice as high for people of color under the age of 65 than it is for white people under the age of 65.
  

• Among children with COVID-19, Hispanic children are hospitalized at eight times the rate of white kids, and Black children are hospitalized at five times the rate of white kids. Black children are also more than four times as likely as white children to test positive for the virus, while Hispanic children are more than six times as likely as white children to test positive.
• 78% of pediatric deaths due to the virus have been among Black, Hispanic, or Indigenous Americans. 

Trump Is Trying to Strip Americans of Access to Health Care During Pandemic as Covid Becomes a Pre-Existing Condition for 8 Million People

• Some survivors of COVID-19 suffer from long term complications. Many have fatigue, myalgia, inflammation of the heart and brain, memory problems, fever, and more. Researchers haven’t ascertained how many people infected by COVID-19 become “long-haulers,” but with more than 8 million people infected in the United States, there are no doubt thousands, if not millions, suffering from lingering effects.

• The Affordable Care Act (ACA) prevents insurers from dropping those with pre-existing conditions. But on November 10, 2020 — one week after the election — the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in California v. Texas, a case that could overturn the ACA and allow insurers to discriminate against seven million people who have been infected by COVID-19. As President Trump claims victory over the virus, he is putting millions at risk by attempting to ram through a Supreme Court nominee who could overturn the ACA.