Coronavirus aid should be based on need, not on Trump's fragile ego

Anthony L. Fisher

Mar 26, 2020, 18:09 IST

Coronavirus aid should be based on need, not on Trump's fragile ego

MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

US President Donald Trump (L) speaks with anchor Bill Hemmer during a Fox News virtual town hall meeting from the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 24, 2020.

Trump just survived an impeachment over demanding a quid pro quo from a foreign leader. He's followed that up by implying governors in coronavirus-stricken states need to be nice to him to receive federal aid.
A president should never be able to make such a threat.
Congress should always demand oversight over the dispersal of aid, and there should be an inspector general keeping an eye on politically-motivated shenanigans.
The former proprietor of several bankrupt casinos loves to talk about his negotiating prowess, so it's possible that his sociopathic indifference to people's lives isn't as disgusting as it appears. Maybe to Trump, it's just business.
This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
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What do you do if you're a president who just survived an impeachment trial over a quid pro quo demand to a foreign leader?

Evidently, you state outrightly that governors need to "treat you well" for their states to receive coronavirus disaster relief.

Or at least you do when you're President Trump, who just months after being impeached for trying to solicit political favors from a foreign leader said the process of the federal government providing desperately needed resources to coronavirus-inundated states is a "two-way street."

"They have to treat us well also. They can't say, 'Oh gee, we should get this, we should get that,'" the president asserted on Tuesday during a Fox News town hall. Unable to help himself, the president added, "We're doing a great job."

In a country not presided over by such an insecure and thin-skinned bully, the "two-way street" would be local leaders telling the federal government what kind of help they need, and the federal government reciprocating by offering as much aid as it can based on the needs of the state and the available resources.

But Trump doesn't see it that way.

Democrats, in particular, must supplicate themselves at the knee of the president as a pre-condition for receiving aid.

There's a Latin phrase for that kind of arrangement.

A president should never be able to make such a threat. It should be the standard operating system for Congress to have oversight over the dispersal of congressionally-authorized aid, and there should be an inspector general keeping an eye on any politically-motivated shenanigans.

That this is even possible is a flaw in the system, and that his comment wasn't met with universal opprobrium demonstrates how desensitized this country has become to Trump's grotesque pettiness.

Trump's fragile ego means more to him than New Yorkers' lives

I'm currently locked-down, indefinitely, with a family of five in New York City. This is is currently the epicenter of the pandemic in the US (which could soon become the most coronavirus-inundated country in the world, according to the World Health Organization).

The city that never sleeps is at a standstill. Our hospitals are already at capacity. We're preparing for the possibility that we'll soon run out of space to store dead bodies.

It gets worse. Gov. Andrew Cuomo yesterday predicted the "apex" of hospitalizations would be about three weeks from now, based on medical experts' projections.

The thought that help is not available is a particularly terrifying one. It's got me on edge not only about contracting coronavirus, but also about the prospect of one of my kids' accidentally breaking a finger while they're unnaturally cooped-up with little to do but climb the walls.

But we're not going to a hospital. Nurses are wearing garbage bags because they lack the appropriate protective gear. And regular doctors are in short supply.

It feels like we're all made of glass. So we'd better not move.

Meanwhile, as a slow-moving tragedy envelopes the city from which he originally hails, the president has nothing more important on his mind than whether or not governors like Cuomo are sufficiently stroking his very fragile ego.

Cuomo and Trump have clashed over each of their responses to the pandemic. At various points in recent weeks, Trump has said Cuomo needs to "do more," Cuomo has retorted, "No - YOU have to do something! You're supposed to be the President." Trump then admonished Cuomo to "keep politics out" of his criticisms of the federal response. Then, Trump insulted Cuomo's brother, CNN host Chris Cuomo.

More substantively, Cuomo had expressed exasperation with Trump over New York only receiving 400 of the 30,000 ventilators he requested. Trump responded Wednesday morning by tweeting: "Fake News that I won't help them because I don't like Cuomo (I do). Just sent 4000 ventilators!"

Cuomo's office also released a statement calling the Republican-led Senate bill "terrible" for New York state, which he says will receive the second-lowest amount of federal aid proportional to the state's budget.

The former proprietor of several bankrupt casinos loves to talk about his negotiating prowess, so it's possible that his sociopathic indifference to people's lives isn't as disgusting as it appears. Maybe to Trump, it's just business.

Trump bellowed about a once-great America that had been destroyed by "domestic disaster and international humiliation" during his Republican National Convention speech in 2016. To these challenges, he claimed: "I alone can fix it." If he were a more honest person, he would have added, "if you're nice to me."

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