Trump: We’ll Probably Open Up the Economy Pretty Soon

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I’m taking my own advice and not watching Donald Trump’s coronavirus briefing right now, but apparently our president is bored with all the shutdowns and lockdowns he’s had to endure for the past [checks notes] seven whole days. So how much longer will this stuff last? “I’m not looking at months,” he says, even though nearly every expert says that months are indeed what we have to look forward to. “This is going away,” he says, despite abundant evidence that it’s not going away anytime soon.

If there’s any silver lining here at all, it’s the fact that it’s mostly governors who have the authority to shut down businesses and enforce quarantines. This is faint comfort for anyone living in a red state, who probably has a governor that slavishly follows Trump’s direction, but at least some of us will still be doing the right thing.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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