The Associated Press recently did a good roundup story about how the Trump administration procrastinated for months before acknowledging the gravity of the situation that we face as a nation. It answers a lot of the "what" questions, but answers none of the "why" questions.

Why did Trump procrastinate for two months? Was he trying to squeeze a few months extra revenue out of his hotels? Was it that he was watching Fox News and believing their spin, and then echoing it himself which caused Fox to pick it up and feed it back to him even more? Was he creating a deadly rightwing media feedback loop without even realizing it?

Was it so his billionaire buddies could unload all their stocks before things crashed? Was it because he knew that if hit, the economy would hurt his reelection chances and he thought maybe, just maybe he could just push his way through this? Why did Trump delay?

It's going to cost tens of thousands of lives, deaths that were completely unnecessary, and wreak massive damage to our healthcare system and the people who work in it.

Why did he decide to do that, when he could see other countries getting this thing under control at the same time that Italy failed to because they followed policies similar to his?

Why? America deserves an answer.

-Thom

Tuesday's Daily Stack

Article: "Corporations Successfully Lobbied Trump Not to Use Defense Production Act to Fight Coronavirus" by Colin Kalmbacher.

Article: "Weeks Before Virus Panic, Intelligence Chairman Privately Raised Alarm, Sold Stocks" by Tim Mak.

Article: "Sen. Kelly Loeffler grilled by Ed Henry over reports she sold off stocks ahead of coronavirus pandemic" by Julia Musto.

Article: "Kelly Loeffler" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Fear Grows As Protective Equipment Supplies Dwindle For Oregon Health Care Workers" by Conrad Wilson, Tony Schick.

Article: "George Bush sent people to war without body armor." by Robert Farley.

Quote: "As a matter of fact, in interviews in 1999 with respected journalist, and long time Bush family friend, David Herskowitz, then Governor George Bush stated: 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief. My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade... if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency." - My Testimony for the Downing Street Memo Hearings" by Cindy Sheehan, June 16 2005.

Article: "Super-rich jet off to disaster bunkers amid coronavirus outbreak" by Rupert Neate.

Article: "Massachusetts Governor Says He's Being Outbid By Federal Government For Coronavirus Supplies, Despite Trump Telling Govs To Get Their Own" by Jeffery Martin.

Article: "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe.

Article: "Testing blunders crippled US response as coronavirus spread" by Michael Biesecker, Mike Stobbe And Matthew Perrone.

Image: "Trump Coronavirus Timeline".

Article: "Cuomo briefing: Masks, gowns, more shipped statewide" by Kevin Tampone.

Play: "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller.

Article: "Flint water crisis" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Ford Pinto" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Hurricane Sandy" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Hurricane Katrina" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Hurricane Maria" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Puerto Rico" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Trump's hotel revenue is taking a big coronavirus hit. No wonder he wants to reopen businesses" by Laura Clawson.

Article: "Texas Lt. Governor Says Grandparents Are Ready to Die from Coronavirus for the Economy" by Luke Darby.

Book: "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" by Naomi Klein.

Article: "EARN IT is a direct attack on end-to-end encryption" by Matthew Green.

Article: "AOC slams reported DOJ effort to indefinitely detain people during emergency: 'Abhorrent'" by Allan Smith.

Article: "Coronavirus: Hungary to vote on giving far-right leader Orban powers to rule by decree" by Adam Forrest.

Article: "Hobby Lobby founder reportedly told employees a message from God informed his decision to leave stores open amid the coronavirus outbreak" by Bethany Biron.

Article: "Trump Considers Reopening Economy, Over Health Experts' Objections" by Jim Tankersley, Maggie Haberman and Roni Caryn Rabin.

Article: "Trump, lawmakers agree to end government shutdown without border wall funding" by Thomson Reuters.

Article: "Senate coronavirus stimulus bill fails again" by Lauren Hirsch, Jacob Pramuk.

Article: "Tamiflu and Donald Rumsfeld" by David Mikkelson.

Tweet: "WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF. AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!" by Donald J. Trump.

Article: "Here's the disturbing Fox News clip that appears to have triggered one of Trump's most dangerous tweets yet" by Cody Fenwick.

Article: "U.S. farm bankruptcies rise as trade war drags on" by Jessie Higgins.

Article: "Trump feels he can ignore Dr. Fauci after hearing Jared Kushner's 'conspiracy theories' about coronavirus: report" by Brad Reed.

Article: "Trump won't require firms to help fight coronavirus - after corporations lobbied Jared Kushner" by Igor Derysh.

Article: "Foldit" by Wikipedia.

Book: In Hitler's Bunker: A Boy Soldier's Eyewitness Account of the Fuhrer's Last Days by Armin D. Lehmann.

Hour Two: Republicans Always Want As Few People As Possible To Vote... And Here You Are Again!!
- Thom vs. Jason Snead, Executive Director - Honest Elections Project / Former Senior Policy Analyst-Heritage Foundation

Clip: "Paul Weyrich - "I don't want everybody to vote" (Goo Goo)".

Article: "There's election fraud in North Carolina. That's not the same thing as voter fraud." by Dylan Scott.

Article: "2004 United States presidential election in Georgia" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden proposes nationwide vote-by-mail in response to coronavirus" by Lizzy Acker.

Article: "Trump signed the Defense Production Act 'in case we need it.' But what is it?" by Libby Cathey and Jack Arnholz.

Clip: "The Man from Abilene" - Eisenhower.

Article: "Trump's increasingly muddled line on the Defense Production Act" by Steve Benen.

Article: "Cuomo calls on Trump to invoke Defense Production Act in fight against coronavirus" by Jon Ward.

Article: "Health Care Workers Account for 12% of COVID-19 Cases in Spain" by LAHT.

Article: "Trump Bets Business Will Answer Call to Fight Virus, but Strategy Bewilders Firms" by David E. Sanger, Ana Swanson and Maggie Haberman.

Letter: "To U.S. Chamber of Commerce" by Senators Warren, Markey, Schatz, Murphy, Baldwin, Whitehouse. March 23, 2020 (re "Trump Bets Business Will Answer Call to Fight Virus, but Strategy Bewilders Firms").

Article: "Herd immunity" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Herd immunity: will the UK's coronavirus strategy work?" by Sarah Boseley.

Law: "Patriot Act", 2001.

Article: "Mnuchin Lied About His Bank's History Of Robo-signing Foreclosure Documents" by David Dayen.

Quote: "You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." - Rahm Emanuel.

Article: "Can Smart Thermometers Track the Spread of the Coronavirus?" by Donald G. McNeil Jr.

Article: "Germany OKs big aid package to help companies, self-employed" by Geir Moulson.

Article: "Why are there so few coronavirus cases in Russia?" by Jeremy Rossman.

Article: "Ted Lieu: Trump is stoking xenophobic panic in a time of crisis" by Ted Lieu.

Article: "Fox News sneered at coronavirus, but Rupert Murdoch isn't taking chances with his own health" by Laura Clawson.

Hour Three: The Corona Virus Makes A Powerful Case for Boosting Our Social Safety Net
- Katrina vanden Huevel, Editorial Director & Publisher - The Nation Magazine

Article: "Trump again downplays coronavirus by comparing it to the seasonal flu. It's not a fair comparison." by Philip Bump.

Article: "The Coronavirus's Threat to Democracy Itself" by Katrina Vanden Heuvel.

Article: "If the UK Can Protect Workers From Covid-19 Layoffs, Why Not the US?" by John Nichols.

Article: "Basic income" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Want to Fight Covid-19? Save Local Journalism." by John Nichols.

Article: "Crisis of 1772" by Wikipedia.

Law: "Tea Act", 1773 (GB, British East India Company).

Excerpt: "Boston Tea Party, a chapter from the book Unequal Protection by Thom Hartmann" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "American Revolution" by Wikipedia.

Article: "American Civil War" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Abolitionism" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Great Depression" by Wikipedia.

Article: "New Deal" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr." by Wikipedia.

Article: "Assassination of John F. Kennedy" by Wikipedia.

Speech: "Great Society" by Wikipedia.

Site: What's Medicare?

Site: Medicaid.

Article: "Reconstruction era" by Wikipedia.

Case: "Brown v. Board Of Education", 1954 (Segregation in public schools) (overturned Plessy v. Ferguson).

Article: "William Barber II" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Severe acute respiratory syndrome" (SARS) by Wikipedia.

Article: "Exclusive: U.S. axed CDC expert job in China months before virus outbreak" by Marisa Taylor.

Article: "Trump wants 'packed churches' and economy open again on Easter despite the deadly threat of coronavirus" by Kevin Breuninger.

Video: EXCLUSIVE: Trump, Coronavirus task force participate in Fox News town hall. 24 March 2020.

Article: "Trump: I'd Love For U.S. To Be 'Opened Up By Easter' Amid Pandemic Response" by Philip Ewing.

Article: "Gov. Cuomo responds to Republicans: 'My mother is not expendable and your mother is not expendable'" by Walter Einenkel.

Article: "Darwin Awards" by Wikipedia.

Article: "At least 5 people have tested positive for COVID-19 after attending disco party on Trump property" by Walter Einenkel.

Article: "-OH MY GOD': Viewers shocked as 'insane' Trump accuses NY governor of creating 'death panels' in Fox coronavirus rant" by Sky Palma.

Article: "Joe Biden Outlines His Pandemic Plan In Basement Broadcast" by Hanna Trudo.

Article: "The Administration's Response to Ebola" by President Obama.

Article: "5 Years Ago, Trump Said an Ebola Doctor Should "Suffer the Consequences!"" by Jeremy Schulman.

Article: "Trump Has Sabotaged America's Coronavirus Response" by Laurie Garrett.

Video: Sen. McConnell: Democrats Need to Take 'Yes for an Answer'.

Article: "2020 coronavirus pandemic in Russia" by Wikipedia.

Article: "State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR" (Novosibirsk, Russia) by Wikipedia.

Article: "Fort Detrick" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Jerry Falwell Jr defies calls for coronavirus closures and reopens Liberty University" by Kenya Evelyn.

Wednesday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 12-3pm ET

Congressman Mark Pocan (D-WI, 2nd District) will be calling in to talk about the issues of the day and take your calls.

Plus, Science Revolution: Hunkering down w/green energy w/ Ty Benefiel, Co-Founder & CEO - Hero Power/Meter Genius (green energy brokers) and Host-The Climate Pod (podcast)

And, the best of the rest of the news along with your calls right here on...

The Thom Hartmann Program, Occupying The Media 3 hours a day 5 days a week for "we the people"

And don't forget...Democracy is NOT a spectator sport...it begins with you...

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Trump Weaponizes COVID-19 Through Sanctions