Monthly Archives: April 2020

SWEETWATER, Fla. The Miami-Dade Republican headquarters has the look and feel of a single-family home where the single family has an especial devotion to Donald J. Trump. Matching love seats open the space, with one positioned under watercolor portraits of the president and first lady, the other decorated with needlepoint American flag pillows. From the corner of the room, a particularly lifelike cardboard cutout of Mr. Trump keeps watch.

Then theres the kitchen, cluttered with Post-it notes, to-do lists, mementos and a bulletin board with a photo of Kellyanne Conway pinned next to a print of Jesus Christ.

I live here, Mariela Jewett says with a laugh, but its tough to tell whether shes joking.

Ms. Jewett, a 71-year-old Cuban-American, has worked for the local G.O.P. for 18 years, and she insists she hasnt seen so much enthusiasm in the party since the Reagan era. On one afternoon in late February, the telephone trilled with the numbing frequency of white noise a barrage that began after Senator Bernie Sanders extolled elements of Cubas communist dictatorship on CBSs 60 Minutes.

Now, the office is closed because of the coronavirus Miami-Dade has nearly 4,500 confirmed cases, and on Wednesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a statewide stay-at-home order after a conversation with Mr. Trump. Ms. Jewett said the crisis was like a nightmare, like an old movie, like science fiction. But she praised the president for his handling of it. Hes covered every aspect, she said.

To spend any time among Republicans in South Florida is to be in an America as Mr. Trump would have it, where his support extends beyond his white working-class base and includes unabashed admiration from the wealthy, from immigrants (at least many from Cuba and Venezuela), and from Jewish voters who thank him for the United States Embassy in Jerusalem.

For Mr. Trump, scarred by the disapproval of many fellow New Yorkers, his newly declared home state offers a blissful safe space. And Florida has benefited: Mr. Trump has responded to Mr. DeSantiss requests for personal protective equipment for health care workers and other needs, while other governors have complained about insufficient federal help.

Of all the governors, Mr. Trump has found his kindred spirit in Mr. DeSantis, who for weeks marched to his own drum on the virus, refusing to close beaches or sound grave alarms, leading the state as if unencumbered by the sort of experts who now surround Mr. Trump.

In his drive to ensure that the state remains red in November, South Florida has become a political ground zero. The region has eluded Republican presidential nominees for decades, a reality Mr. Trump felt acutely in 2016: His explosion in support across the state was nearly offset by Miami-Dade alone, where a crush of Republicans broke ranks to help Hillary Clinton easily carry the county.

There are signs that Mr. Trump is poised to perform better here in November, particularly with Cuban-Americans who, after giving him the lowest share of their vote of the past three Republican nominees, are coming around to the president.

The coronavirus hasnt changed this, Republicans here say. For Trump supporters, the one thing more frightening than a pandemic is the idea of weathering it in a socialist country, something many of them believe Democrats are pushing America toward.

Anxieties the real and imagined, sincere and sinister have long propelled Mr. Trumps success. And now, as the Democratic Party veers further left on issues like health care and immigration, his ability to stoke them could be critical to piercing this blue stronghold of South Florida. If he succeeds, it would complete his coronation as the Florida Man of the modern Republican Party.

Since his election, the president has held 10 rallies across the state. That Mr. Trump included Florida in his so-called Thank You tour in December 2016 was fitting: His victory scrambled long-held wisdom about what it takes to carry this perennial battleground. Mrs. Clinton may have tallied more voters than any Democratic nominee since Jimmy Carter in cities like Jacksonville, where a strong showing has historically been central to Democratic victory. But Mr. Trump so toppled turnout models in rural and blue-collar counties that it didnt matter.

Some 20,000 voters flocked to the Amway Center in Orlando for the presidents re-election campaign kickoff rally last summer, many of them for the same reasons. With Mr. Trump, they feel seen and emboldened after years of feeling belittled by the leadership in both parties.

And when it comes to the coronavirus crisis, they dont feel that Mr. Trumps early dismissive attitude toward the threat was dismissive at all; rather, it was his attempt to stay positive and not incite panic.

I think thats why President Trump has been really out front, said Lee Green, a Republican in The Villages, a retirement community northwest of Orlando. So that people will stay calm, and not be silly. Few if any say they are concerned about Mr. Trumps falsehoods or divisiveness.

On one level, the presidents Florida base is much like his base anywhere else in the country. The difference here is that Mr. Trump reciprocates the obsession in full.

Mr. Trumps aspirations in Florida are intensely personal. Its a large part of why his campaign has devoted resources to South Florida, why in November Mr. Trump held a rally in a county where Mrs. Clinton won 66 percent of voters three years before.

For Mr. Trump, Broward County hits close to home. Some of the most recognizable names in his orbit, including his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, reside there. The city of Sunrise, where the president held his rally, is almost the precise midpoint between his beloved Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach and the Trump National resort in Doral. Less than four weeks before the rally, he officially declared the former his new residence.

Accordingly, he billed the event a homecoming.

As Mr. Trump looks to bolster support, his Florida allies are thrilled that he himself can now contribute at the ballot box.

His base is solidly growing, said Karen Giorno, the Trump campaigns former chief strategist for the state. And now that he and the first lady are residents of Palm Beach County instead of Manhattan, their votes will finally count in 2020.

Among voters in Miami-Dade County, Cuban-Americans have long been central to any Republicans success, their loyalty tracing back to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. And come Election Day, they show up: In 2016, Cuban-Americans represented 6 percent of voters in Florida a critical margin in a state whose winner is often determined by less than one percentage point.

In Miami-Dades Cuban enclaves, Mr. Trump vastly underperformed past G.O.P. nominees. In 2012, Mr. Romney won Hialeah, a traditionally Republican city with the highest Cuban-American population in the country, by nine percentage points; four years later, Mr. Trump virtually tied with Mrs. Clinton there. In the heavily Cuban Miami suburb of Westchester, Mr. Trumps support was eight points lower than Mr. Romneys.

At the time, many in the community were repelled by Mr. Trumps apparent anti-Hispanic rhetoric, according to Dario Moreno, a pollster and associate professor of politics at Florida International University. Added to that were broader political shifts years in the making, with younger generations of Cuban-Americans increasingly leaning left and a growing number of older voters receptive to the warmer United States-Cuba relationship encouraged by President Barack Obama.

But the last three years have seen a reversion, Dr. Moreno said. Theres been a kind of return to the Republican Party from Cuban-Americans, mainly on the issue of Cuba and the more hard-line stance taken by Trump, he said. At many points, Mr. Trump has tightened the longstanding U.S. embargo on Cuba, reinstating the travel and business restrictions that Mr. Obama had loosened. While younger voters continue to oppose the embargo, Cuban-American support in Miami for Mr. Trumps policies has substantially increased over all.

Dr. Moreno, who is Cuban-American, said Mr. Trump today seemed more popular among the community than McCain, Romney, and himself in 2016.

Carlos Gimenez, the mayor of Miami-Dade and a Cuban-American Republican, is among the converted. In 2016, Mr. Gimenez announced he would vote for Mrs. Clinton, arguing Mr. Trump lacked the makeup to be president.

Now, Mr. Gimenez is all in. In January, the two-term mayor went on Twitter to announce his bid to unseat Representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Democrat, in the same post thanking Mr. Trump for all youve done for our economy & to fight socialism. Hours later, the president rewarded him with his complete and total endorsement!

Asked to explain his change of heart, Mr. Gimenez demurred. Im not going to get into those reasons. The president has won me over, he said. His record speaks for itself.

Mr. Gimenezs embrace of Mr. Trump is testament to how more and more Republican voters in Miami-Dade expect their candidate to support the president in the same way that those in, say, the Panhandle might. And if many of them were already coalescing around Mr. Trump, Mr. Sanders has only quickened their steps.

At a winter gathering of the Womens Republican Club of Miami, some fought tears when asked about Mr. Sanders, who, in an interview with 60 Minutes that aired on Feb. 23, praised Fidel Castro for introducing a massive literacy program in Cuba.

The point is that I was in Cuba that happened, said Lucy Pereda, 76. And what happened was not teaching people how to read and write. It was indoctrination.

Mr. Trump, however, has been tough on dictatorships, said the clubs 44-year-old president, Claudia Miro. Hes been tough on Cuba. Hes been tough on Venezuela.

Such conversations are taking place all across South Florida and not just among Cubans. Thousands of Venezuelans in Miami have already signaled their support for Mr. Trumps stance against Nicols Maduro, the countrys leftist leader, who has refused to cede power.

But there are also voters in South Florida whose support for Mr. Trump is less a response to Democrats than it is an appreciation of his record itself. Like Cubans, Jewish Floridians are among the states most reliable voters, most of them concentrated south of Palm Beach County. Unlike Cubans, they tend to vote Democratic: Mr. Trump won 27 percent of their vote in 2016, three points less than Mr. Romney in 2012, according to exit poll data.

Two years later, in his race for governor against Andrew Gillum, Mr. DeSantis proved his partys ability to increase those margins, winning 35 percent of Jewish voters.

Mr. Trump has zeroed in on this bloc with similar intensity, headlining the Israeli-American Councils annual summit meeting in December in Broward County, where thousands of Jewish supporters cheered as the president said the U.S.-Israel relationship was stronger now than ever before.

Irma Gordon, 86, who runs the Jewish Republican Club of Broward, said many of her members liked Mr. Trump in 2016, but now, she emphasized, everyone is for Trump.

Still, Ms. Gordon acknowledged that while she thinks more Jewish Floridians lean Republican today than they did in 2016, in part because of the presidents decisions such as moving the embassy to Jerusalem, its not only about what Trump has done. Its the way the Democratic Party She paused and shuddered. All this trying to make us socialist and communist the Democrats today, oh my goodness.

Ellen Motz, a retiree in Broward County, had been a Democrat all her life, founding her areas Jewish Americans for Obama chapter and campaigning for Mrs. Clinton in 2016. Last summer, she became a Republican because of Mr. Trump.

She felt Mr. Trump was truly working for the people. And when it came to the Democratic Party, she said, the negativity started getting to me to the point that I was just ready to quit.

Ms. Motz admires the president even more in this scary moment.

I know hes trying to make people feel better, she said. And when Democrats say he should have focused on the virus earlier, she said, I think, look at what he was dealing with at the time. All the impeachment hearings that was all they could think about with all that was going on in the world.

Mr. Trump has almost no chance of winning the Jewish vote here outright. But if he can continue to increase his support among the disparate groups that make up South Florida, all while maintaining his hold on the rest of the state, the 2020 election cycle could be Floridas final one as a battleground.

For now, his supporters arent worried about the coronavirus affecting Mr. Trumps chances in November.

In South Florida, Mariela Jewett says, with all Democrats today talking about socialism, voters have other concerns top of mind. Listen, she said, furiously chewing on a peppermint, I work too hard. Im 71 and still working. I dont want to give anyone my money

Shes interrupted when an older man opens the door at Miami-Dades G.O.P. headquarters. Hes looking for Trump merchandise, he says, some bumper stickers, whatever you have. Ms. Jewett explains that theyre fresh out. But the man lingers, and soon the strangers are spun up in conversation.

Im almost 71 and this country wasnt like this when I was young, he says, shaking his head. Somethings going on.

Ms. Jewetts voice then nearly cracks. Socialism! she cries. Its here!

The rest is here:

Donald Trump and Florida, a Love Affair - The New York Times

Wajahat Ali: This is what happens when the federal government abandons you

If we were doing a bad job, we should also be criticized. But we have done an incredible job, Trump said on February 27. Were doing a great job with it, he told Republican senators on March 10. I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, he tweeted on March 18.

For three-quarters of his presidency, Trump has taken credit for the economic expansion that began under President Barack Obama in 2010. That expansion accelerated in 2014, just in time to deliver real prosperity over the past three years. The harm done by Trumps own initiatives, and especially his trade wars, was masked by that continued growth. The economy Trump inherited became his all-purpose answer to his critics. Did he break laws, corrupt the Treasury, appoint cronies, and tell lies? So what? Unemployment was down, the stock market up.

Suddenly, in 2020, the rooster that had taken credit for the sunrise faced the reality of sunset. He could not bear it.

Underneath all the denial and self-congratulation, Trump seems to have glimpsed the truth. The clearest statement of that knowledge was expressed on February 28. That day, Trump spoke at a rally in South Carolinahis penultimate rally before the pandemic forced him to stop. This was the rally at which Trump accused the Democrats of politicizing the coronavirus as their new hoax. That line was so shocking, it has crowded out awareness of everything else Trump said that day. Yet those other statements are, if possible, even more relevant to understanding the trouble he brought upon the country.

Trump does not speak clearly. His patterns of speech betray a man with guilty secrets to hide, and a beclouded mind. Yet we can discern, through the mental fog, that Trump had absorbed some crucial facts. By February 28, somebody in his orbit seemed to already be projecting 35,000 to 40,000 deaths from the coronavirus. Trump remembered the number, but refused to believe it. His remarks are worth revisiting at length:

Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus, you know that, right? Coronavirus, theyre politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, Hows President Trump doing? They go, Oh, not good, not good. They have no clue. They dont have any clue. They cant even count their votes in Iowa. They cant even count. No, they cant. They cant count their votes.

One of my people came up to me and said, Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia. That didnt work out too well. They couldnt do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything. They tried it over and over. Theyd been doing it since you got in. Its all turning. They lost. Its all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax.

But we did something thats been pretty amazing. We have 15 people [sick] in this massive country, and because of the fact that we went early. We went early; we could have had a lot more than that. Were doing great. Our country is doing so great. We are so unified. We are so unified. The Republican Party has never ever been unified like it is now. There has never been a movement in the history of our country like we have now. Never been a movement.

So a statistic that we want to talk aboutGo ahead: Say USA. Its okay; USA. So a number that nobody heard of, that I heard of recently and I was shocked to hear it: 35,000 people on average die each year from the flu. Did anyone know that? Thirty-five thousand, thats a lot of people. It could go to 100,000; it could be 27,000. They say usually a minimum of 27, goes up to 100,000 people a year die.

And so far, we have lost nobody to coronavirus in the United States. Nobody. And it doesnt mean we wont and we are totally prepared. It doesnt mean we wont, but think of it. You hear 35 and 40,000 people and weve lost nobody and you wonder, the press is in hysteria mode.

On February 28, very few Americans had heard of an estimated death toll of 35,000 to 40,000, but Trump had heard it. And his answer to that estimate was: So far, we have lost nobody. He conceded, It doesnt mean we wont. But he returned to his happy talk. We are totally prepared. And as always, it was the media's fault. You hear 35 and 40,000 people and weve lost nobody and you wonder, the press is in hysteria mode.

Originally posted here:

This Is Trumps Fault - The Atlantic

Throughout the administrations response to the pandemic, the president has repeatedly promoted his decision in late January to close the border to foreign nationals who had recently been in China while instituting a mandatory two-week quarantine for U.S. citizens returning from the countrys Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak.

Those directives contradicted a series of WHO recommendations cautioning that travel bans to affected areas or denial of entry to passengers coming from affected areas are usually not effective in preventing the importation of coronavirus cases, but may instead have a significant economic and social impact.

In general, evidence shows that restricting the movement of people and goods during public health emergencies is ineffective in most situations and may divert resources from other interventions, the WHO reported, adding that such measures could interrupt needed aid and technical support and disrupt businesses.

The WHO did acknowledge, however, that travel restrictions may have a public health rationale at the beginning of the containment phase of an outbreak, as they may allow affected countries to implement sustained response measures, and non-affected countries to gain time to initiate and implement effective preparedness measures.

But the restrictions need to be short in duration, proportionate to the public health risks, and be reconsidered regularly as the situation evolves, the WHO advised.

The presidents initial order and the administrations subsequent actions, of course, did not heed any of those conditions.

Trumps travel ban was announced after the disease had already begun rampaging across China, not in the opening stage of the outbreak, and it did not accompany broader federal efforts to prepare the U.S. for the coming pandemic.

The ban, which has now extended beyond two months, also was not short in duration and included exemptions that reportedly allowed nearly 40,000 people to enter the U.S. on direct flights from China.

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Trump threatens World Health Organization funding - POLITICO