How many extreme liberal idiots have died at the hands of Andrew Cuomo and Gavin Newsom's inept and incompetent handling of Corona Virus in theirs states? Not that it matters but, President Donald Trump still lives rent free in your head, Trump Derangement Syndrome at its finest! Don't worry, he is not going to charge you because one red cent.
Well this is obvious... Birx says Trump White House prioritized election over COVID-19 response https://thehill.com/homenews/admini...s-trump-white-house-prioritized-election-over Former President Trump and other White House officials were "distracted" by the 2020 election and prioritized campaigning over any COVID-19 mitigation strategies, the administration's former coronavirus adviser Deborah Birx told House investigators earlier this month. In excerpts from closed-door testimony conducted Oct. 12-13 by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis shared with The Hill, Birx said she felt the White House focus on campaigning took people’s time away and distracted them from focusing on the pandemic. "I felt like the White House had gotten somewhat complacent through the campaign season, and I wanted to make sure that as soon as everyone was back the day after the election, that people would comprehensively reengage," Birx told the panel. Birx said the administration's resistance to promoting basic public health mitigation resulted in more than 100,000 avoidable deaths. She said former President Trump did not do everything he could to try to stop the spread of the virus and save lives. "I believe if we had fully implemented the mask mandates, the reduction in indoor dining, the getting friends and family to understand the risk of gathering in private homes, and we had increased testing, that we probably could have decreased fatalities into the 30 percent less to 40 percent less range," Birx said. More than 735,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, including more than 300,000 since President Biden took office. Administration officials were not present at the White House, and nobody was holding consistent COVID-19 meetings, Birx said. Instead, they were traveling across the country to campaign. "They were actively campaigning and not as present in the White House as previously," Birx said. During the summer of 2020, Birx left Washington and began meeting with state and local leaders to discuss mask-wearing, physical distancing and other mitigation measures she said Trump did not want her speaking about to the American public from the White House podium. Birx told the House panel that the White House was not in sync with its messaging, and she was frustrated that her warnings continued to be ignored. "Do I think that we could have done more on unified messaging coming out of the White House? Do I think we could have done more on — very early on showing the efficacy of masks? Yes. And I think that would have decreased the confusion," Birx said. Birx did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Birx was one of Trump's top health advisers. Since leaving the administration, she has expressed regret for how she handled her role as head of the White House coronavirus task force and has accused former administration officials of censoring her warnings about the severity of the pandemic. Birx drew criticism last year for praising Trump's understanding of the data on the pandemic as well as her failure to push back in spring of last year when Trump made false claims about people injecting disinfectant as a means to treat the virus. Her interview comes amid the House panel's investigation into political interference in the pandemic response from the Trump administration. “President Trump’s prioritization of politics, contempt for science, and refusal to follow the advice of public health experts undermined the nation’s ability to respond effectively to the coronavirus crisis," the panel's chairman Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said in a statement. "The Trump White House’s prioritization of election year politics over the pandemic response — even as cases surged last fall — is among the worst failures of leadership in American history.”
The Trump administration inappropriately awarded $700 million from a pandemic fund to a struggling trucking company, House Democrats said. Wednesday, April 27, 2022 10:11 AM EST https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/27/us/politics/trump-pandemic-loan-yrc.html The report, released by the Democratic staff of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, describes the role of corporate lobbyists during the early months of the pandemic in helping to secure government funds as trillions of dollars of relief money were being pumped into the economy. WASHINGTON — Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday released a report alleging that top Trump administration officials awarded a $700 million pandemic relief loan to a struggling trucking company in 2020 over the objections of career officials at the Defense Department. The report, released by the Democratic staff of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, describes the role of corporate lobbyists during the early months of the pandemic in helping to secure government funds as trillions of dollars of relief money were being pumped into the economy. It also suggests that senior officials such as Steven Mnuchin, the former Treasury secretary, and Mark T. Esper, the former defense secretary, intervened to ensure that the trucking company, Yellow Corporation, received special treatment despite concerns about its eligibility to receive relief funds. “Today’s select subcommittee staff report reveals yet another example of the Trump administration disregarding their obligation to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars,” Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the Democratic chairman of the subcommittee, said in a statement.“Political appointees risked hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds against the recommendations of career D.O.D. officials and in clear disregard of provisions of the CARES Act intended to protect national security and American taxpayers.” The $2.2 trillion pandemic relief package that Congress passed in 2020 included a $17 billion pot of money set up by Congress and controlled by the Treasury Department to assist companies that were considered critical to national security. In July 2020, the Treasury Department announced it was giving a $700 million loan to the trucking company YRC Worldwide, which has since changed its name to Yellow. Lobbyists for Yellow had been in close touch with White House officials throughout the loan process and had discussed how the company employs teamsters as its drivers, according to the report. Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, was a “key actor” coordinating with Yellow’s lobbyists, according to correspondences that the committee obtained. The report also noted that the White House’s political operation was “almost giddy” in its effort to assist with the application. The loan raised immediate questions from watchdog groups because of the company’s close ties to the Trump administration and because it had faced years of financial and legal turmoil. The firm had lost more than $100 million in 2019 and was being sued by the Justice Department over claims that it had defrauded the federal government for a seven-year period. It recently agreed to pay $6.85 million to resolve allegations “that they knowingly presented false claims to the U.S. Department of Defense by systematically overcharging for freight carrier services and making false statements to hide their misconduct.” To qualify for a national security loan, a company needed certification by the Defense Department. According to the report, defense officials had recommended against certification because of the accusations that the company had overcharged the government. They also noted that the work that the company had been doing for the federal government — which included shipping meal kits, protective equipment and other supplies to military bases — could be replaced by other trucking firms. But the day after a defense official notified a Treasury official that the company would not be certified, one of Mr. Mnuchin’s aides set up a telephone call between him and Mr. Esper. Following the call, Mr. Esper certified that the company was critical to national security and a week later the approval of the loan was announced. Mr. Mnuchin then sent an email to Mr. Meadows that included news reports praising the loan. He highlighted positive comments from James Hoffa, the longtime president of the Teamsters union, who according to documents in the report made a direct plea to President Donald J. Trump about the loan. Mr. Esper and Mr. Mnuchin declined to comment. A former Treasury official familiar with the process said that the loan saved 25,000 union jobs during an economic crisis and prevented an enormous disruption to the national supply chain that the Defense Department, businesses and consumers had depended on. The former official said that because of the terms of the loan, taxpayers were profiting from the agreement. At a congressional oversight hearing before leaving office in late 2020, Mr. Mnuchin said that the loan was appropriate and necessary for saving jobs and maintaining trucking services to the Defense Department. Lawmakers from both parties, such as Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, and Pat Roberts, the Republican former senator from Kansas, had sent letters to Mr. Mnuchin urging him to consider the loan application. Yellow had many connections to the Trump administration. The company had financial backing from Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm with close ties to administration officials. Mr. Trump had selected the company’s chief executive, Darren D. Hawkins, to serve on a coronavirus economic task force. And he had nominated the company’s former chief executive, William D. Zollars, to the U.S. Postal Service’s board of governors. The report accuses Yellow of misrepresenting its business to help secure the loan. It claimed to provide a larger share of trucking services to the Defense Department than the department assessed. Communications included in the report also showed a company executive discussing using funds to catch up on capital investments when the relief money was supposed to be used for offsetting losses from the pandemic. The executive said the company had its “hand in the cookie jar.” Along with the release of the report, Mr. Clyburn sent a letter to the Treasury Department’s inspector general asking for an investigation into whether Yellow had violated the False Claims Act. A law firm representing Yellow sent a letter to Mr. Clyburn before the release of the report defending the company’s actions and describing many of the allegations as “baseless.” The letter noted that company had settled its dispute with the government last month. The letter, which was written by Marc E. Kasowitz, who was previously Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, was provided to The New York Times by Heather Nauert, an adviser to Yellow who was previously a spokeswoman for Mike Pompeo, Mr. Trump’s secretary of state.