 We're in the middle of a global pandemic and we have a president who is holding daily news briefings for COVID-19 and this is exactly what we should expect from a leader, except instead of actually reassuring people that everything is going to be okay, he's basically going on television every single day and throwing temper tantrums and shitting himself. This is what we're dealing with. Now I will admit that the strategy of holding these daily press briefings, it's not just what leaders should do, but politically speaking, this is beneficial to Donald Trump theoretically because Joe Biden has basically been invisible throughout this COVID-19 crisis, hence why a lot of Democrats are kind of gravitating towards Andrew Cuomo, mistakenly so, but nonetheless, that's what's happening right now because they're desperate for a leader. So for Donald Trump to just be visible in and of itself, I think there is some value in terms of helping him with his reelection chances because if voters value anything in a leader, it strength its leadership and that's the bare minimum. But as we've seen with Donald Trump, he can't even do the bare minimum for too long before he starts having meltdowns because he literally can't even bother to seem somewhat competent. He can't pretend long enough until he's off air. And Donald Trump has been doing so little to assure people that he has this under control that his overall approval rating has actually gone down throughout the course of these daily press briefings. And this comes after a majority of Americans supported his response initially. And let me remind you that Donald Trump's approval rating should have been at 0%. The fact that a majority of Americans initially approved of his handling of COVID shows how much the media failed. Because he is the reason why this is so bad in the United States. He ignored repeated warnings time and again. So if we acted sooner, it's unquestionable. We would be better off. We wouldn't have been able to skirt this pandemic altogether. It was something that we were going to have to deal with, but it's not even arguable. He put us in a worse off predicament. So the fact that a majority of voters approved of his job was awful. It speaks to the failure of the media, but it's also embarrassing as an American because I mean, come on. But I mean, the fact that he took a majority approval and tanked it, it speaks to how stupid this individual is. And part of it is that he cares so little about Americans that he can't even really hide the fact that he doesn't care at all if they die. He was talking about reopening the country by Easter, until smart people around him had to let him know that that would be a terrible decision. And as Mary Popinfuss of HuffPost reports, in his haste to jumpstart the economy, Trump posed a frightening scenario to Dr. Anthony Fauci during a task force meeting in the situation room. No COVID-19 countermeasures would be taken so that people would quickly become infected with some recovering to create a protective herd immunity, sources told the newspaper. Quote, why don't we let this wash over the country? Trump asked. A question others told the post the president has raised repeatedly in the Oval Office. Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, realized with surprise that Trump was serious the post reported. Mr. President, Fauci responded, according to the post, many people would die. Now the fact that this even had to be explained to the president of the United States is utterly absurd. Like he genuinely believed for a period of time, maybe he still believes this, that we actually could choose between killing off Americans and the economy, as if lots and lots of people dying in and of itself wasn't going to be bad for the economy if you just let this disease wash over America. So the fact that this had to be explained to him shows you what a fucking moron this person is. But thankfully there are people in his ear, for now anyways, like Dr. Fauci, who are actually smart. And the reason why I say for now is because in an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN, Dr. Fauci admitted what was obvious to everyone. Of course, if we acted sooner, we would have been better off, which led to Donald Trump retweeting a chud who called on Dr. Fauci to be fired for daring to suggest that Daddy Trump could ever be wrong in any circumstance ever. And make no mistake about it. What Trump is doing here is kind of firing off a warning shot to Dr. Fauci. While in line, obey me or you're gone. Now Trump knows that politically this isn't going to help his case going into November because Dr. Fauci is one of the most trusted entities in American government currently. So if Donald Trump were to fire him, this wouldn't bode well for his electoral chances. So Donald Trump is probably having an internal battle right now. On one hand, he wants complete and total obedience because he is an authoritarian. But on another hand, he knows that he kind of has to play nicely with Dr. Fauci currently if he wants to reassure the American people that he's competent and he should be re-elected. And it kind of seems like after today, he is siding with his inner authoritarian. Because there is a battle that's going on currently between governors and Donald Trump's administration. You see kind of a pact forming along the West Coast and some other states. They're basically saying we're going to be the ones who dictate when we reopen our state's backup. And Trump wants to reopen sooner rather than later because of course he's self-interested and he thinks that the economy tanking is something that is going to hurt him. So if we reopen the economy, just push everyone back out into the workplace, get them all sick sooner, it's better for him. So if state governors are going to defy him, then he's not just going to stand idly by. So it's kind of mask off and he's just going full authoritarian case in point. When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total. And that's the way it's got to be. It's total. It's total. It's total. And the governor is now that. If a governor is now that, now you have a couple of bans of, excuse me, excuse me, you have a couple. Could you rescind that order? You have a couple of bans of Democrat governors but they will agree to it. They will agree to it but the authority of the president of the United States having to do with the subject we're talking about is total. The sitting United States president just said the president's authority is total. Wow. Now I actually think that it's pretty smart for governors to go back and forth with Donald Trump here because they know that Donald Trump is unhinged and he's going to battle them. And whenever he battles them, this helps raise their profile. Like Gretchen Whitmer has benefited a lot from Donald Trump attacking her. And she's believed to be a potential VP pick for Joe Biden. So they know that battling Donald Trump, it helps them politically at least in terms of throwing red meat to your own base of Democratic Party voters. So admittedly, this is a fuck you to Donald Trump when he says we're going to reopen for them to say, no we're not. I think this is kind of a good move for them. It shows strength. It shows leadership where we get none federally. At least we get it at the state level in some states. But here's the thing. If Donald Trump says we're going to reopen the country back up, whatever that means in whatever capacity he's thinking he has the authority to command them to do, what if they just say, no, like what is he going to do? What are you going to do, Trump? Are you going to send in the military to force them to reopen the state? Like what does that even look like? What authority does Donald Trump think he has here? You have federal recommendations from the CDC and whatnot. But at the end of the day, governors are the ones who get to dictate when states reopen. And you have the West Coast, Washington, Oregon, California, aligning with some East Coast states. And they're saying, actually, we're going to choose when it's best for our states each with our own unique internal battles with COVID-19. And fuck you. Now, somebody asked him a follow-up question about what he meant by that and how it's obviously not true. And he just kind of had a temper tantrum and melted down. You said when someone is president of the United States, their authority is total. That is not true. Who? You know what we're going to do? We're going to write up papers on this. It's not going to be necessary because the governors need us one way or the other because ultimately it comes with the federal government. That being said, we're getting along very well with the governors. And I feel very certain that there won't be a problem. Yeah, please go ahead. Has any governor agreed that you have the authority to decide when their state is back up? I haven't asked anybody. You know why? Because I don't have to. Go ahead, please. But who told you the president has the total authority? Enough. Please. You mentioned the vice president. Now, if you notice, he's kind of backtracking a little bit. In that first video towards the end, he said, you know, the president has total authority when it comes to this issue. Not true. Here, you know, he says, he kind of softens it a little bit. You know, actually these governors, they need the federal government when it comes to funding and supplies. So, um, yeah, that's what I meant. I didn't mean that I was going to be like this petulant authoritarian and force them to reopen their states, even if they think that that would be unsafe. Well, that's exactly what it meant. And because you know that you don't have the power short of some type of weird like unconstitutional power grab, he has no choice but to back down because this is a battle that he can't win because he doesn't have the authority to command states to do that. They're saying, no, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? You can't do shit. You can't force governors to be complicit if you command them to reopen their states and kill people. But the mere fact that he would even suggest that the president has total authority and use that authoritarian language, that should worry everyone. I should tell you that Donald Trump doesn't actually care about checks and balances. He literally does not believe that there is any check on his authority, even if he is actually saying it's only with regard to this issue. It's an unlimited scope that I have total authority. I don't believe that he believes that, but even if he thought that in a limited scope, he had total authority. That's not something that you say. As a leader, you say, you know, what I'm doing is I'm working with the experts and together we're formulating a response. We're formulating a plan to reopen the country. But he can't even do that because he can't help himself. Instinctively, he is an authoritarian to his core. He is not authoritarian. And each successive president has increased the power of the executive branch. George Bush did this a lot. We saw substantial increase in executive power under his administration. We saw another increase under Obama and we're seeing it again with Donald Trump. And this is going to be a trend that continues until we finally get someone in power who's not self-interested, who limits the scope and Congress actually stands up and does its job and the courts do its job. But as you can see, you know, what we have are institutions that just have completely caved to the executive. So there is really no check on authority. He doesn't have the constitutional ability. To be able to have total authority over anything. But the fact that he thinks he does, that should worry everyone. So let me just say that we are so and I cannot emphasize this enough. Fucked.