Here's what the White House staff had to deal with on Wednesday:
The COVID-19 Death Clock was going to tick over the 100,000 mark sometime during the day.
To distract from that dreadful milestone, Donald Trump loaded up Air Force One with family and friends to witness the launch of Elon Musk's SpaceX mission carrying two astronauts to the International Space Station only to have the mission scrubbed at the T-minus 16 mark for weather.
Also scrubbed was the speech Trump was going to deliver right after the successful launch claiming (I presume) that only he could have ended the nine-year drought of launching Americans into space from U.S. soil.
Mar-a-Lago is closed, so there was nothing to do but get back on Air Force One and fly back to Washington.
Trump, angry at Twitter for noting that his Tweet about mail-in voting leads to voter fraud is incorrect, announced he will sign an executive order designed to punish Twitter and other social media.
It is discovered that the press secretary, whose greatest accomplishment has been making the nation pine for the good old days of Sean Spicer, has voted by mail eleven times. ELEVEN TIMES, Mrs. Bueller.
Trump voted by mail in the Florida presidential preference primary in March.
A cop in Minnesota had put his knee on a suspect's neck for about seven minutes thus cutting off the man's oxygen and/or blood supply, resulting in his death at a hospital a short time later. The suspect's name was George Floyd. Protests disintegrated into riots in Minneapolis forcing the evacuation of the State Capitol Building in St. Paul.
As of this writing, here is Trump's reaction to the 100,000 dead from COVID-19; a Tweet. No speech, no Presidential statement, a Tweet, 280 characters:
We have just reached a very sad milestone with the coronavirus pandemic deaths reaching 100,000. To all of the families & friends of those who have passed, I want to extend my heartfelt sympathy & love for everything that these great people stood for & represent. God be with you!
[A] It took until mid-morning on Thursday for that Tweet to be posted; [B] A better construct might have been "Melania and I …" and, [C] Everyone who thinks Trump actually wrote that raise hands. Put your hand down, Eric.
Compare and contrast with Joe Biden's video message on Wednesday night which concluded:
"I know there's nothing I or anyone else can do to dull the sharpness of the pain you feel right now, but I can promise you from experience, the day will come when the memory of your loved one will bring a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eyes."
Part of the thrashing around the Oval Office might be the total collapse of Trump's job approval numbers.
According to the RealClearPolitics.com aggregate of national polls, exactly three months ago, on March 28, Trump's approval stood at 47.2 and his disapproval at 49.5 just 2.3 percentage points - essentially a tie.
This afternoon, May 28, Trump's approval average dropped to 44.0 while his disapproval jumped to 54.1 - a difference of 10.1 percentage points.
Even the usually pro-Trump approve/disapprove numbers from Rasmussen have collapsed with the latest having Trump nine points underwater at 45-54. That's still better than Fox News' poll which has Trump down by 10 percentage points at 44-54.
The clock is ticking toward election day on November 3, five months and six days if my Microsoft Date Calculator is correct.
As political guru Joe Gaylord reminded us a million times: You can raise more money, you can hire more talent, but every day that goes by is a day you can never get back.
Many more days like Wednesday and Mar-a-Lago will be welcoming Ex-President Trump on the afternoon of January 20, 2021.
100,000. Trump can ignore the number of people who have lost their lives to COVID-19, but their memories will remain.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to the Reuters COVID-19 tracker, to the George Floyd story, to Joe Biden's statement on the number of deaths, and the RealClearPolitics polling page.
he Mullfoto is my stash of sanitizers as we head into Phase I openings in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia.
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