A global pandemic combined with incompetent leadership from Donald Trump has plunged America into a likely recession, and the White House is now trying to cover up how many people are filing unemployment claims.
According to The New York Times, “[T]he Trump administration is asking state labor officials to delay releasing the precise number of unemployment claims they are fielding.”
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes said on Thursday night that the revelation is the latest indication that the Trump administration’s priorities are completely backwards.
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The Trump administration is asking states not to release how many people are filing for unemployment. #ctl #p2 pic.twitter.com/yrvgGnYtui
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) March 20, 2020
Hayes said:
We have some breaking news tonight which may further develop where the priorities of the Trump administration truly lie. In the midst of the economic crash happening during the coronavirus crisis, the Trump administration, according to a notice just posted on the blog of the New York Times – their live updates – is asking state labor officials to hold off on releasing figures on unemployment claims. And this may be why. A labor department release today showed new unemployment claims jump to 281,000 last week – 33% over the week before and according to the department, quote, clearly attributable to the impacts from the coronavirus. The Trump administration would apparently rather you not hear those numbers. Remember when the president, at CDC, when he was talking about maybe he would take those people off the ship and give them medical care, said he liked the numbers where they were. He didn’t want the numbers to double. It’s the numbers.
Trump is constantly trying to cover up the consequences of his screw-ups
Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump has careened from one self-inflicted screw-up to another, always blaming somebody else for his failures, or at the very least trying to hide the disastrous consequences from the American people.
He may be terrible at his job and completely unfit to be president of the United States, but he certainly does his darnedest to make sure nobody knows the scope of the damage he’s done to this country.
That’s been particularly true in the midst of this global health emergency as he spent precious time at the outset downplaying the coronavirus and blocking aggressive testing, which put America weeks behind in its response and made the health and economic situation more dire than it should have been.
Instead of plunging the United States into one crisis after another and having to cover up the consequences of his incompetence, perhaps Donald Trump should try doing his job for a change – or step aside and let somebody else do it.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
