It's not worth my time to keep track of the Trump/Mark Cuban love/hate relationship..."

... but here they are theatrically performing the love version of whatever it is they have going, which I'm just going to assume is about self-interest and getting something that looks good done:

"I want to thank the leaders of several major pharmacies and generic drug makers who are partnering with us on this effort, including the co-founder of Cost Plus Drugs, Mark Cuban. Mark, thank you very much. Mark, looking good, Mark. Come here, Mark. Nice to be with you.... We have the same thing, one thing in common. We want to make people better and keep them wealthy, right? Good. Good to be with you."

"I got a call from a number of people, including the great Joe Rogan, and he said we have to do something about this."

"And I looked into it. I called Bobby... And it was really uniform support. And I said, so why would we wait three or four years to get it done?... Let's get it done immediately. And that's what happened. This is probably has never been anything that happened so quickly. Everybody is so strongly in favor of this. It's for a lot of people, but it's for the military in particular...."

"I want to thank Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is fantastic.... And people love him. More importantly, your wife is here.... Real boss in the family. It's fantastic.... Joe Rogan — fantastic. We did an interview before the election. We had over 300 million people. And I said, oh, man, I hope Kamala doesn't do it and she didn't. He wanted her to do it and she didn't Some day, Joe's gonna explain why. I can tell you why. Because she didn't want to.... The executive order I'm signing... today.... directs the FDA to expedite their review of certain psychedelics already designated as breakthrough therapy drugs.... If these turn out to be as good as people are saying, it's gonna have a tremendous impact on this country and other countries too.... Usually with things like this, nothing ever happens, no matter how the research ends up. We're changing that...."

ADDED: Joe spoke:

🚨 WOW! Joe Rogan reveals President Trump IMMEDIATELY offered him FDA approval for a psychedelic treatment in a text chain

Because the data was SO CONVINCING and STUNNING

"I wanna tell everybody how this happened. I send President Trump some information."

"With one dose of… pic.twitter.com/dnqYVf96hN

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 18, 2026

"The federal government on Thursday acted to put an end to gender-related care for minors across the nation, threatening to pull federal funding from any hospital that offered such treatment...."

"The administration’s action is not just a regulatory shift but the latest signal that the federal government does not recognize even the existence of people whose gender identity does not align with their sex at birth. If finalized, the proposed new rules, announced by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a news conference Thursday morning, would effectively shut down hospitals that failed to comply.... The new rules come one day after a divided House of Representatives voted to approve legislation that would criminalize gender transition treatments for minors.... Another [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] rule would prevent Medicaid from paying for the treatments for minors. And the Food and Drug Administration announced that it was issuing warning letters to 12 manufacturers of breast binders, tight garments used to flatten and masculinize chest appearance under clothing, for 'illegal marketing' of the products to children as a treatment for gender dysphoria.... Mr. Kennedy cited [an HHS report] to argue that the treatments do not meet professionally recognized standards for medical care...."

From "Trump Moves to Prevent Access to Gender-Related Care for Minors/Proposed new rules would pull all federal financing from hospitals that continue to provide gender treatments for adolescents" (NYT).

The NYT expresses worries about denying "the existence of people whose gender identity does not align with their sex at birth," but recognizing the existence of transgender persons does not dictate the belief that they require medical treatment or that the currently proffered treatments are ethical. There are many phenomena that are recognized but not treated. That's the basis of the old credo "First, do no harm." 

"I caused so much trouble yesterday. But it worked out."

Said Scott Adams on his live show this morning.

Coffee With Scott Adams 11/3/25 https://t.co/Vie6dMg9Dw

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) November 3, 2025

On his X feed:

Best President ever.

Thank you, President Trump.

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) November 3, 2025

That follows this, yesterday:

"On bad days, Ms. Martinez said, the pain is 'unbearable.' So she was confused and upset on Monday when President Trump encouraged pregnant women to 'tough it out'..."

"... without Tylenol. He claimed that acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, could be a cause of autism, even though doctors say it is safe in moderation. Ms. Martinez immediately contacted her doctor, asking whether she should continue taking pain medication. After hearing that it was OK, she still called her mother in tears, overwhelmed by the fear of being blamed for whatever might go wrong.... In interviews with pregnant women and doctors, they described how Mr. Trump’s announcement added a new wrinkle of worry. As it is, pregnant women do not need to look very far for advice and admonishment; it comes from all directions, even from strangers on the street...."

From "A President’s ‘Surreal’ Advice Worries Pregnant Women/The administration’s guidance to avoid Tylenol and 'tough it out' prompted anxiety, especially for expectant women who face pain" (NYT).

One reason to avoid having children is the fear that you'll do something wrong or — like that mother in tears — the fear that other people will think you did something wrong. Why complicate your life with such things? The babies themselves may grow up into beings who tell you you've done it wrong. Thank God some women dare to have children. But what are the rest of us to do — we who feel called to protect children? Only Ms. Martinez knows how bad her pain is and how much Tylenol might help. Who but she should decide if it's worth the risk to take Tylenol after the President has cast aspersions upon it?

By the way, here's an interesting episode of the "Modern Wisdom" podcast: "Why Population Collapse is Closer Than You Think."

"It's too much liquid."

Trump: Break it up, because it's too much liquid, too many different things are going into that baby at too big a number, the size of this thing, when you look at it, it's like 80 different vaccines pic.twitter.com/bBHjLBqTj9

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 22, 2025

WaPo moderates anti-Trump hysteria with the headline "New FDA coronavirus vaccine rules bring U.S. closer to other countries."

Subheadline: "But confusion over who can get shots and resignations by officials who say the Trump administration is undermining vaccine science have few parallels elsewhere."

Who is sowing this confusion? If the Trump administration is aligned with what other countries are doing, why are "officials" resigning and performing outrage? 

"If our government is going to fund science, it should be good science."

Who could disagree? But what are the chances of getting good science on transgender medical treatments for children? 

I'm reading "Trump’s Attack on Trans Youth Research Is a Tragic Error" by Jesse Singal (in the NYT).

Singal writes:

I’ve long been a critic of American youth gender medicine. Researchers in this field have often produced slipshod work and drawn premature conclusions about the benefits of blockers, hormones and surgery. There are serious unanswered questions about the safety and efficacy of these treatments, which have been banned or restricted in about half of American states and a number of European countries in the wake of several damning government-sponsored reports.

But cutting back on research about these treatments would be a tragic error. What this field needs — and what gender-questioning youth deserve — is reform, oversight and higher methodological standards. To cripple this field in its infancy would be to leave countless families in intolerable limbo.

Wasn't it the bad science that crippled the field in its infancy? If that hadn't been so ghoulish and awful you wouldn't have Trump's attack. You probably wouldn't even have Trump as President. 

I regularly hear from parents whose kids express severe distress about their biological sex.

That's a badly miswritten sentence, and I don't want to be lectured about "good science" by someone who lacks the critical awareness of why it's so wrong.

RFK Jr.'s issues — he's made it very clear — are censorship, chronic disease in children, and the war in Ukraine.

From RFK Jr.'s speech announcing his endorsement of Trump:

Three great causes drove me to enter this race in the first place, and these are the principal causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent, and now to throw my support to President Trump. The causes were free speech, the war in Ukraine, and the war on our children.... 

The military-industrial complex has provided us with a familiar comic book justification, as they do in every war, claiming this one is a noble effort to stop Vladimir Putin. Tiny Ukraine is a proxy in a geopolitical struggle initiated by the ambitions of U.S. neocons for American global hegemony.

I'm not excusing Putin for invading Ukraine; he had other options. The war is Russia's principal response to the reckless neocon project of extending NATO to encircle Russia, a hostile act....

The Ukraine war began in 2014 when U.S. agencies overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine and installed a hand-picked pro-Western government that launched a deadly civil war against ethnic Russians in Ukraine. In 2019, America walked away from a peace treaty.... In April 2022, we escalated the war....

President Biden stated that month that his objective in the war was regime change in Russia. His defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, simultaneously explained that America’s purpose in the war was to exhaust the Russian army and degrade its capacity to fight anywhere else in the world. These objectives had nothing to do with what they were telling Americans about protecting Ukraine’s sovereignty. Ukraine is a victim in this war; it is a victim of the West.... 

Judging by her bellicose and belligerent speech last night in Chicago, we can assume President Harris will be an enthusiastic advocate for this and other neocon military adventures. President Trump says he will reopen negotiations with President Putin and end the war overnight as soon as he becomes president. This alone would justify my support for his campaign....

Less than two hours after President Trump narrowly escaped assassination, Calley Means called me on my cell phone.... I was delighted when Calley told me that day that he had been advising President Trump. He told me President Trump had been anxious to talk to me about chronic disease and other subjects, and to explore avenues of cooperation.... In a series of long, intense discussions, I was surprised to discover that we are aligned on many key issues.

In those meetings, he suggested we join forces as a unity party. We talked about Abraham Lincoln’s "team of rivals." That arrangement would allow us to disagree publicly and privately, even fiercely if need be, on issues over which we differ while working together on the existential issues upon which we are in concordance.... [W]e are aligned with each other on... ending the Forever Wars, ending the childhood disease epidemics, securing the border, protecting freedom of speech, unraveling the corporate capture of our regulatory agencies, and getting the U.S. intelligence agencies out of the business of propagandizing, censoring, and surveilling Americans, as well as interfering in our elections....

In case some of you don’t realize how dire the condition is regarding chronic disease, I would urge you to view Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with Calley Means and his sister, who was the top graduate of her class at Stanford Medical School.... This is the most important issue. It has the potential to bring us together, so let me share a little bit about why I believe it is so urgent....

Two-thirds of American adults and children suffer from chronic health issues. Fifty years ago, that number was less than 1%. We have gone from 1% to 66%.... When my uncle was president, juvenile diabetes was effectively nonexistent. Today, one out of every three kids who walk through a doctor’s office door is diabetic or prediabetic.... There has been an explosion of neurological illnesses that I never saw as a kid: ADD, ADHD, language delay, Tourette’s syndrome, narcolepsy, Asperger’s, autism. In the year 2000, the autism rate was one in 1,500. Now, autism rates in kids are one in 36 according to the CDC nationally....

Why are we allowing this to happen to our children?... So, what is causing this suffering? I will name two culprits. First, and the worst, is ultra-processed food.... The second culprit is toxic chemicals in our food, medicine, and environment. Pesticides, food additives, pharmaceutical drugs, and toxic waste permeate every cell of our bodies. The impact on our children's hormones is relentless.... The good news is we can change all this, and we can change it quickly....

I got involved with chronic disease 20 years ago, not because I chose to or wanted to, but because it was thrust upon me. It was an issue that should have been central to the environmental movement.... 

For 19 years, I prayed every morning that God would put me in a position to end this calamity. The chronic disease crisis was one of the primary reasons for my running for president, along with ending censorship and the Ukraine war. It is the reason I made the heart-wrenching decision to suspend my campaign and support President Trump....

If I am given the chance to fix the chronic disease crisis, I promise that within two years, we will watch the chronic disease burden lift dramatically. We will make Americans healthy again....

MAHA. 

This is a spiritual journey for me. I reached my decision through deep prayer and hard-nosed logic.... I am 70 years old. I might have a decade to be effective. I cannot imagine a President Harris allowing me or anyone to solve these dire problems. After eight years of President Harris, any opportunity for me to fix the problem will be out of my reach forever.

President Trump told me this is what he wants to be his legacy. I am choosing to believe that he will follow through....

My dad and uncle made such an enduring mark on the character of our nation.... They were able to put their love into the hearts of ordinary Americans and to unify a national populist movement of Americans—blacks, whites, Hispanics, urban and rural Americans—with love, high hopes and a culture of kindness.... That is the spirit with which I ran my campaign and I intend to bring into the campaign of President Trump, instead of vitriol and polarization.... The most unifying theme for all Americans is that we all love our children....

When Trump said "I wanted to always play it down" and not "create a panic," did he believe that 11 million Americans were going to die?

11 million is what I believed, when I did my own math in early March. Multiply the U.S. population — 330 million — times the predicted death rate — 5% — and imagine an infection rate of 70%. You get 11.5 million!

Now, I'm looking at the transcript of Trump talking to Bob Woodward on February 7th, and Trump — comparing the coronavirus to the flu — says: "This is more deadly. This is 5% versus 1%, and less than 1%. So this is deadly stuff."

He believed the death rate was 5%! Fortunately, that turned out to be wrong, but Trump had to speak and act using the imperfect information he had, and — if he spoke truthfully to Woodward — he believed 5% of those who get infected would die. He envisioned a far worse dying off of Americans! I don't know what percent of Americans he thought would become infected, but he was using the same 5% death rate that I'd used to get to 11 million. Even if you go down to 30%, you still end up with a shocking number: 5 million!

Here we are today, thinking that approaching 200,000 is horrible, but back when Trump was talking to Woodward, I believe he was thinking that millions of Americans would die. The health care services would be overrun, and we would be dying without access to any care. Would health workers even continue to show up for work? How could the food supply chain continue? We would starve and, before that, panic about the prospect of starving. Americans would soon be at war with each other. There would be civil disorder — far beyond the Black Lives Matter riots — and the disease would spread even more quickly, with nothing to stop it.

In that light, consider what Trump said to Woodward on March 19th (in the same transcript), "Well, I think Bob, really, to be honest with you... I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic."

If the real prediction of death — 5 to 11 million — had been stressed in early February, how would we have behaved? Would we have flattened the curve and preserved access to medical care the way we did? There's a lot of trashing of Trump right now over how he handled the crisis, but the criticism of his effort to suppress panic is — in my view — completely wrong.

An effective presentation of what Trump got right and Biden got wrong about the coronavirus.

pic.twitter.com/DzCU5kF6Mm

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020

“I don’t kid.”

"Mr. President, there was a lot of interest about whether you would end up wearing a mask today. Could you just take us through your thought process of why you decided not to wear a mask?"

Trump was asked after his tour of a Ford plant yesterday. From the transcript:

Well, I had one on before. I wore one in this back area, but I didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it, but no, where I had it in the back area, I did put a mask on....

Why would you not be wearing it here, sir?

Not necessary here. Everybody’s been tested and I’ve been tested. In fact, I was tested this morning, so it’s not necessary.

But the... executives are wearing them.

Well, that’s their choice. I was given a choice and I had one on in an area where they preferred it. So I put it on and it was very nice. It looked very nice, but they said they’re not necessary here....

What about the example that it would set for other Americans to see you wearing a mask?

Well, I think it sets an example both ways. And as they say, I did have it on. Thank you.... I just liked your question so much. You know what, it was such a nice question.... By the way, here is my mask right here...  and I liked it very much. I actually, honestly, I think I look better in the mask. I really did. I look better in the mask... but I’m making a speech so I won’t have it now, but I did have it on right here. And I think some of you might’ve gotten a shot. Thank you very much.

Got that? He'll give them self-deprecation — "I look better in the mask" — he's not going to let them take the means of Trump-deprecation into their own hands. That's the "pleasure" he knows they want. The most pleasurable thing for the press would be to catch Donald Trump in something like John Kerry's worst photo op:

"I tested positively toward negative... meaning I tested negative... but that's a way of saying it — positively toward the negative...."

A funny locution. Who among us has never found it a little hard to remember that "negative" is good?



Anyway, if you let that Trump video keep going, you'll see his answer to the question what he thinks of that study — from Columbia University disease modelers — that said "If the United States had begun imposing social distancing measures one week earlier than it did in March, about 36,000 fewer people would have died in the coronavirus outbreak" (NYT). He was ready to go with an answer to that one.

"It's like saying maybe if you inject Clorox into your blood it may cure you. C’mon, man! What is he doing? What in God’s name is he doing?"

"There’s no serious medical person out there saying to use that drug. It’s counterproductive. It’s not going to help, but the president, he decided that’s an answer...."

Biden has decided that hydroxychloroquine is not the answer.

And isn't it better to default to no until the "serious medical people" give something of a recommendation?

Plunging into things that just might work is the approach I associate with the left. Do something, anything! It's not conservatism. Trump's eagerness to try this pushed his opponent into what I see as the conservative approach: Better to do nothing than to act and make things worse.  Or, as I like to say, better than nothing is a high standard.

I mean, I think the best way to be healthy is to leave your body alone to fight illness with its natural mechanisms. Don't add anything — except food... water... air. That's the presumption, and it should be hard to rebut the presumption.

"I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists, especially in his age group and his — shall we say weight group — what is 'morbidly obese'...."

Nancy Pelosi — second in line for the presidency if Trump dies — expresses concern for our President, after he says he's taking hydroxychloroquine. Transcript.

Trump would need to weigh over 300 pounds to be morbidly obese (even assuming he's shrunken with age from his peak height of 6'3"), so Nancy is either taunting him or badly misinformed. Isn't it enough to call someone obese? There's some question whether Trump is even over the line to obese, so stretching it to morbidly obese is mean, and I think a person with such a high stake in Trump's death should not look eager to refer to his dying.

But is "morbid" really a reference to death? That's how I've heard it, connecting it to the French "mort" (death) and "mortality." But what explains the "b" in the place of the "t"? Maybe I have this wrong.

"Mortal" traces back to the Latin mortālis, which means "subject to death, human, transient" and — post-classical — "causing death" or "relating to death." (I'm quoting the OED).

But "morbid" goes back to the Latin morbidus, which means "diseased, sick, causing disease, unhealthy." Strangely, there's an Italian word "morbido" which refers to the "refinement of colours, or harmony of proportions" and, earlier, meant "having a soft, yielding, or doughy consistency" and also was used for the "body or face of a woman or child" to mean "beautiful, delicate."

When we call someone "morbid," though, we mean that their thoughts are grounded in death, don't we?

The OED defines "morbid," when used to describe a person's mental state, as "characterized by excessive gloom or apprehension, or (in later use) by an unhealthy preoccupation with disease, death, or other disturbing subject; given to unwholesome brooding."

But obesity is not a person with a mental state, so the applicable definition of "morbid" is "Causing disease; characteristic of, indicative of, or produced by disease; of the nature of disease; of or relating to disease." So "morbid" in "morbidly obese" is about the causation of disease, not death.

Anyway, is Trump really taking hydroxycholorquine? Or is this more of his sarcasm that nobody understands? From the transcript:

I’m taking it, hydroxychloroquine. Right now. Yeah. Couple of weeks ago I started taking it. Because I think it’s good. I’ve heard a lot of good stories. And if it’s not good, I’ll tell you right. I’m not going to get hurt by it. It’s been around for 40 years for malaria, for lupus, for other things. I’d take it. Frontline workers take it. A lot of doctors take it. Excuse me. A lot of doctors take it. I take it....

Did the White House doctor recommend that you take that? Is that why you’re taking it?

Yeah, White House doctor. He didn’t recommend it. No, I asked him, “What do you think?” He said, “Well, if you’d like it.” I said, “Yeah, I’d like it. I’d like to take it.”...

Much more at the link, and much more discussion of it in the media. I'm only quoting one commentator, Nancy Pelosi, because I thought it was rich that she called him "morbidly obese." But I like to talk about Trump rhetoric too, and I need to throw it out there that he's just lying. He's counterpunching against all those people who've criticized him for talking up hydroxychloroquine in the past, and he's forcing everyone to talk about hydroxychloroquine and not whatever else would have been the subject of the day. He's injecting optimism into the discussion. Everyone loves to think there is a pill that can save us from the big disease, and he's saying something that people want to believe and backing it up with his own (purported) behavior. Commentators who want to oppose him are forced to sound pessimistic: No, there is no pill... it's foolish to hope there's a pill. People are hungry for hope, hungry for pills. Eat those pills! The President does. If he does. I don't know that he does, but he does want to say he does, and I can see why.

"National crises often lead to more centralized power. But everything about this one is unusual..."

"... including President Trump’s decision to let state and local authorities make nearly all decisions about daily life and business activity. Washington provides expert advice, policy guidance, backup supplies, emergency personnel, and massive funding. It has not issued national mandates. Trump has refused to shift more power to the central government.... Trump’s reliance on federalism... caught the left by surprise. When the crisis began, liberals voiced their long-standing criticism: Trump is a wannabe dictator who will use this crisis as an excuse to exercise authoritarian power. He hasn’t.... Government leaders [have generally tended to] suspend the rules so they can act swiftly and decisively... That’s why Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, Woodrow Wilson the First Amendment, and Franklin Roosevelt the basic rights of Japanese Americans.... State and local officials already face mounting public resistance... Federal courts are taking hard looks at restrictions on speech, worship, protest, and business operations. They are skeptical of executive orders that override statutory laws. Judges are unlikely to waive constitutional protections for any extended period, if that...."

Writes emeritus polisci prof Charles Lipson.

So the "government leaders" who are targets of complaints about authoritarian power are the state and local officials, not Trump. Trump relied on the American tradition of federalism — a high ideal — to locate the criticism away from himself. This forces the anti-Trumpsters — the left — to choose between criticizing him for not being enough of a dictator or to shift to criticize the state and local officials — many of whom are on the left — for excessive authoritarianism. Or they could just be incoherent on the subject of authoritarianism and — if Trump takes control — call him a despicable dictator and — if state and local officials exercise control — declare that it's just lovely to be so effectively and masterfully controlled — thank you, Governor, thank you, mayor, and curse you horrible fellow citizens who don't follow orders.

"Armed members of the Michigan Home Guard stood outside Karl Manke's barbershop, ready to blockade the door if police arrived."

"They were determined to help Manke, 77, reopen his shop Monday, in defiance of state orders, and dozens joined them, wearing Trump sweatshirts and Trump cowboy hats and waving Trump flags. They gathered not because they desperately needed haircuts but to rail against Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s approach to fighting the coronavirus outbreak in Michigan, one of the nation’s worst hot spots. They were channeling President Trump’s support of such protests, but some also were taking aim at the state’s Republicans, who they say have not done enough to 'liberate' the state from safety measures that have ground life to a halt.... The protest and others like it — including two last month that included demonstrators with swastikas, Confederate flags and some with long guns inside the capitol — have alarmed lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. But after Trump appeared to urge the militia members on, tweeting that they are 'very good people' who 'want their lives back again,' they have forced Michigan’s Republican lawmakers to strike a delicate balance, managing a deadly virus while also being careful not to contradict Trump or alienate their conservative supporters.... Protesters in Michigan have sought a radical turnabout in the state’s response to the pandemic, with some demanding that Whitmer lift all restrictions. Many come from fringe movements and harbor deep suspicion of health officials.... While Trump won the state by 10,700 votes in 2016, there are signs Michigan is shifting to the left as it again stands to be a major battleground in 2020.... Now, some see signs that Trump’s attacks on Whitmer — and his support of hard-line protesters — could further endanger his prospects...."

From "Armed militia helped a Michigan barbershop open, a coronavirus defiance that puts Republican lawmakers in a bind" (WaPo).

You can see the slant of the article, even as it gives you so many reasons to doubt it. Is Trump doing well in Michigan? Will this protest movement help him or hurt him? WaPo wants to assure us that the state is moving left and Whitmer represents the future, and it wants to pressure Republican legislators to stick with Whitmer's approach and to steel themselves against the rowdy freedom freaks. But there's Trump, giving those protesters reason to love him, even though he doesn't give them that much. He just says they're good people who want their lives back. That's not saying they're going about it exactly the right way, just that he loves them. Meanwhile, the elite media and politicians find them stupid and toxic — deplorable. But Trump is "endanger[ing] his prospects" we're told. Who can believe that? Only the willfully blind. And why not go for willful blindness if you hate Trump? Your alternative is to root for the disease to flare back up and kill the freedom freaks you deplore. You don't want to say that, but isn't it what you think?

"It’s not that there’s no sincere sentiment underneath the Republican reticence to do too much to save the economy."

"Republicans are genuinely fearful that people will be too thankful if government helps them too much and that the crisis will make the passage of stronger safety-net programs more likely in the future. But if you thought Trump could still win, your best move would be to give the economy the biggest short-term boost possible with massive government spending, then worry about cutting it back later. Doing nothing now, even if you’re planning to promote cuts in a year or two, suggests only that you think the Trump presidency is all but a lost cause."

From "Republicans have already decided Trump is going to lose" by Paul Waldman (WaPo). I've quoted the last 2 paragraphs, which account for the very dubious proposition in the headline.

"Our country has to go back to being our country again. You have people that are not going to stand for this and I understand them very well..."

Said President Trump in his interview with ABC's David Muir — transcript, video.

Muir was trying to get Trump to talk about how the reopening would work — whether the results would be monitored and the restrictions reimposed if transmission/hospitalization/death rates go up. Trump continued:

... and we are going to put out little embers and little fires and maybe some big fires, but we still have to go back to work.

Muir wanted Trump to speak in the same terms as Governor Cuomo, who'd said — this is Muir's paraphrase — "you just have to be ready to turn the valve off for a time if you see a spike."

But Trump's reaction to hearing Cuomo's name was to remind us that Cuomo had praised him. Trump said: "Governor Cuomo last week said, the president and the federal government have done a phenomenal job. He said that, a phenomenal job."

That's Trump's strategy in dealing with these difficult questions, to get right on the message that his administration has done a great job. Every question is understood first as a prompt to bang us on the head again with that message. He ignored the whole point of the question, which is about how the reopening will be done. Why couldn't he address Cuomo's idea and agree with it or reject it?

Here's Cuomo speaking on May 4th. Trump acted as though he wasn't familiar with this, but I don't believe that. It's so cogent and sensible that it's very disappointing to hear Trump professing unawareness of it and Muir letting him off the hook. Cuomo: