Latest tirades........

We Interrupt This Pandemic to Bring You the President’s Finest Counterprogramming (Copy-Edited)

An annotated markup of Trump’s latest tirades, improved

DANIEL KING

In the absence of a vaccine, enough ventilators to contain the coronavirus, or a president capable of putting the country’s needs ahead of his reelection campaign, it’s tempting to dismiss Trump’s press conferences as the propaganda pageants they are—and back slowly away from his Twitter account, a feeding ground for the world’s largest ego, luxuriating in its own likes.

Can we? Mute @realDonaldTrump for a minute? No. We’d miss too many high-impact statements that have real consequences in our lives, whether we cringe at his tweets or not, from a president who one conservative New York Times columnist calls a “sociopath,” a designation more and more experts are making—marked by extreme lack of conscience and empathy in favor of delusional self-praise.

Even if you’re not in the diagnosis business, I do wonder if this country’s spirits wouldn’t be lifted by watching Trump undergo a devastating brush with something more consequential, ruthless, and upending than anything else: a copy edit.

Here, in the name of national security and public hygiene, is an emergency deployment of the finest tool Mother Jones has available: the annotation feature. Click on the highlights below, like this, to instantly improve the president’s tweets and our country’s health.

"96-0 in the United States Senate. Congratulations AMERICA!"

“My Administration is actively planning the next phase in an all-out war against this horrible virus.”

"I love Michigan, one of the reasons we are doing such a GREAT job for them during this horrible Pandemic. Yet your Governor, Gretchen “Half” Whitmer is way in over her head, she doesn’t have a clue. Likes blaming everyone for her own ineptitude!"

"I just signed the CARES Act, the single biggest economic relief package in American History – twice as large as any relief bill ever enacted. At $2.2 Trillion Dollars, this bill will deliver urgently-needed relief for our nation’s families, workers, and businesses."

"General Motors MUST immediately open their stupidly abandoned Lordstown plant in Ohio, or some other plant, and START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!!!!!! FORD, GET GOING ON VENTILATORS, FAST!!!!!!"

"Invoke “P” means Defense Production Act!"

"….I have been packed all day with meetings, I have no time for stupidity. We’re working around the clock to KEEP AMERICA SAFE!"

"On the recommendation of the White House CoronaVirus Task Force, and upon consultation with the Governor’s of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, I have asked the @CDCgov to issue a strong Travel Advisory, to be administered by the Governors, in consultation with the…."

"For the purpose of creating conflict and confusion, some in the Fake News Media are saying that it is the Governors decision to open up the states, not that of the President of the United States & the Federal Government. Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect…."