WASHINGTON (MaceNews) – The following is Wednesday’s status check of developments in the U.S. that can influence economic, health and political outcomes:
- You’ve heard the recordings, read the excerpts. What’s more to say? So skipping ahead, of course once The Washington Post’s Web site unveiled the excerpts of Bob Woodward’s latest book “Rage,” complete with actual recordings of the president, the most intriguing question to be answered was how Fox News would cover the story. A succession of anchors, both on the business channel and the mother ship, were up to the task, enlisting their usual talking heads to reinforce the view that Donald Trump’s behavior was perfectly understandable. Hour after hour, the effort to blunt the effect of the Woodward account continued.
- Karl Rove, the crossover eminence grise of the old and new Republican party, counseled that one should not expect “perfection” of the president.
- The evening’s Tucker Carlson program on Fox disappointed, leading off with the day’s confirmation of a partial withdrawal of about 2,000 U.S. troops from Iraq. “Democrats and the media were enraged” when Trump said the generals don’t like him because they just want to fight wars to keep weapons suppliers happy. The president fights the military establishment, Carlson went on, by opposing “endless wars.” Not emphasized was that there are still going to be a lot of U.S. troops in place in Saudi Arabia, Syria, 7,000 in Bahrain, Germany and on and on.
- Carlson gave the Woodward book only about a minute. “Bob Woodward dislikes Donald Trump” and works for Jeff Bezos’ newspaper, he said. Lindsey Graham brokered the interviews with Woodward and has opposed almost every Trump policy, including on immigration, he continued. Enough said.
- Fox’s Sean Hannity program led off with video of Trump opponent Joe Biden saying, on Feb. 28, a month after China travelers were banned, that “it’s not a time to panic,” presented as a case of Biden downplaying the virus, doing the same thing Trump admitted doing. Meanwhile “the media mob” is “lying to you as they have for four years,” Hannity said. More video of Biden campaigning without a mask. Biden, he continued, “is playing politics with the virus” “while the president did not want to create a panic.”
- Not included was Biden’s comments earlier in the day, in a long speech blasting Trump on pandemic management and on the economy, that in calling the virus a “hoax,” while knowing better as he told Woodward, it was a “life and death betrayal of the American people.” Hannity also played the video of Dr. Anthony Fauci saying earlier he didn’t think Trump was “distorting anything.” After adding the obligatory criticism of Biden as being frail with “something wrong,” came the main event, an interview of Trump.
- But first, Karl Rove showed up again, disputing Biden’s criticisms. Rove told Hannity that blaming Trump for the bad economy ignores that it was Trump’s deliberate shutdown in response to the virus that was to blame, which was actually a good thing. Rove then offered a series of quotes early on from Biden advisers saying the chance of a serious virus outbreak was “negligible.” A few more Biden “lies” about Obamacare, some observations from former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus – go on “offense” and the stage was finally set for Trump on the telephone.
- President Trump began his interview with Hannity by complimenting the program’s defense of his performance. Why did he do 18 interviews with Woodward? He thought he would “just give it a little bit of a shot” to try to get better treatment from Woodward than the reporter gave President Obama. Trump repeated, “I said ‘don’t panic.’ We don’t want to be jumping up and down and going wild.” He continued, repeating, “I’m a cheerleader for this country and I don’t want to see panic.” He repeated, “I thought I’d give Bob Woodward some time. I gave him some time but as usual with his books he writes, that didn’t work out.” Trump said he is too busy to read the book.
- The corona virus itself produced better numbers with fewer than 500 people listed among its victims for the third 24-hour period with less than half the 1,000 fatalities a day that was the case for several previous weeks. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced restaurant dining rooms in the state could reopen Sept. 30 with 25% capacity.
- Upcoming economic data includes the Labor Department’s report on fresh claims for state unemployment benefits. Also at 8:30a ET the Producer Price Index of business inflation. At 11a the delayed Energy Information Administration report on oil inventories.
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