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Bill Weir
With much of the cable news world wrapped up in silly debates about the latest culture war and partisan bickering about who wore a mask when, it's sometimes easy to forget that there are reporters covering serious and vital stories around the world.
We spoke to one of them: Bill Weir, a CNN correspondent with an ink-filled passport. Weir just spent 10 days reporting from Brazil, the country with the second-highest tally of recorded coronavirus cases and a nationalist-populist president not unlike our own.
Mediaite's KJ Edelman reports:
"Like the United States, the country’s cases are still climbing. Its president, Jair Bolsonaro, has downplayed Covid-19 since the beginning, even after contracting the virus in July. He’s fired several health officials and pushed for hydroxychloroquine as Brazil’s solution, all the while pulling publicity stunts to maintain his image."
Now that Bolsonaro has contracted the virus himself, Weir doesn't see that changing: his critics fear Bolsonaro will use his illness to downplay its severity. Meanwhile, the country is struggling.
"We went out to the biggest cemetery in Latin America where they had just dug 8,000 fresh graves," Weir said. "Until you stand on a hillside and look at what 8,000 fresh graves looks like, and the funerals are happening so fast. Each family is limited to 10 minutes to say goodbye. It’s like an assembly line of grieving. His decisions, like countries all around the world, are immediate life or death being influenced by policies at the very top."
Weir's dispatches from Brazil is vital international reporting that gives American audience a glimpse at a crisis that is both historic and global. 6.5.0 |
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 | MEDIA LOSER:
Jack Kingston
Few partisan pundits have entered the studio of Al Jazeera host Mehdi Hasan and come out with their dignity intact.
Jack Kingston was simply his latest victim. Hasan questioned the former Republican congressman and Trump campaign adviser over the president's infamous remark suggesting that scientists could look into injecting disinfectant into the body to fight the coronavirus. That remark, you might recall, marked the end of Trump's coronavirus briefings (before they were brought back this week).
“One of the maddest things I’ve ever heard any politician say in my lifetime,” Hasan said. “Even you, Jack, at that point must have said, ‘This guy shouldn’t be in charge of a bake sale, let alone a pandemic response.'”
Kingston didn't give an inch. Instead, he sought to defend the president's wild remark.
“Actually, if you listen to that interview, he was talking about is there a way to internally digest a medicine that could cure,” responded Kingston. “Now frankly, you know, it’s thinking outside the box in a laboratory that comes up with great inventions, but you know, I can understand your discomfort with him saying that at a press conference.”
Kingston went on to compare Trump's comment to Henry Ford demanding an automatic transmission as his engineers told him it was impossible. Quite a stretch.
His final stab at the question: "You know, when you drink Pepto Bismol, are you not cleaning out your system? Could that be considered a disinfectant?"
We've long admired Hasan's ruthless debating style. Piece of advice to Kingston: Not a good idea to try and defend the absurd on Hasan's show. 6.5.0 |
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| A Daunting Toll Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who served as president of the FDA for two years under President Donald Trump, believes that the number of coronavirus deaths in the U.S. could more than double by the end of the year.
Appearing on CNBC’s Squawk Box Wednesday, Gottlieb noted the latest trends — which show more than 1,000 Americans a day are dying from Covid-19 — and said that if the metrics don’t change, the forecast is dire.
“In the United States, probably by the end of the year we could have upwards of 300,000 if we continue on the current trajectory,” Gottlieb said. He added, “Right now we have close to 1,000 casualties a day; so if we don’t change that trajectory, you could do the math and see where we are towards the end of the year.”
The Cognitive Test Heard Around the World
Trump went viral, once again, on Wednesday night for an explanation of the cognitive test he took that he's been so intent on boasting about.
Speaking to Fox News’ Dr. Marc Siegel, the president explained: “It was 30, 35 questions. The first questions are very easy. The last questions are much more difficult. Like a memory question. It’s like you’ll go ‘person, woman, man, camera, TV.’ So they say could you repeat that? I said, yeah. ‘Person, woman, man, camera, TV.’ Okay, that’s very good. If you get it in order, you get extra points.”
“I have, like, a good memory. Because I’m cognitively there,” Trump said.
His rant is worth reading in full.
Some called Trump's response "mesmerizing." Others were harsher.
Marc Siegel had a generous take this morning on Fox & Friends:
“In a sense, that interview was a cognitive test,” Siegel said. “He is extremely sharp on every second. And he did a test on TV where he basically, you know, went through how great his memory is. And what he said was even all of the major leaders of the world, Ainsley. He talked about Putin, he talked about Chairman Xi. Whatever you think of them, they are extremely sharp, and we need a leader that has that level of awareness and sharpness.”
Your Fact Check of the Day
Contrary to a recent bit of fake news that has been spreading around lately, George Floyd did not appear on the Judge Judy show when he was a young man.
In recent weeks, people have been spreading a misleading video online that claims to show Floyd in Judy Sheindlin’s court room, facing charges for stealing and damaging a car.
The problem, however, is this is a completely different George Floyd.
Biden Dubs Trump the "First" Racist President
“We’ve had racists, and they’ve existed, they’ve tried to get elected president. He’s the first one that has,” Joe Biden said of Trump at a virtual event with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
Many took issue with the statement, pointing out that there have been presidents who owned slaves, instituted explicitly racist policies and held racist views.
In a statement, Biden campaign senior adviser Symone Sanders clarified the comment: "There have been a number of racist American presidents, but Trump stands out – especially in modern history – because he made running on racism and division his calling card and won.:
Trump responded to the allegation in his daily White House press briefing — pointing to decreased minority unemployment prior to what he literally called “the China plague."
Curious Flex
Axios' Mike Allen has some new deets from Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan's new book. Apparently the Republican — who criticized Trump's coronavirus response in a recent op-ed — considered waging a primary campaign against Trump this year, and considered the nicknames Trump might have given him.
“I assumed he would go with ‘Fat Larry,’ an obvious choice as I had admittedly put on some weight since my cancer battle. Or maybe ‘Cancer Boy.’ That would be a good one. But it didn’t happen,” Hogan wrote in his new book, Still Standing, released on Tuesday. 6.5.0 |
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| Kayleigh McEnany Spins Trump's Warm Words For Ghislaine Maxwell White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany attempted to spin Trump’s well-wishes to former Jeffrey Epstein girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell on Fox News Thursday morning.
“The other day he was asked about Ghislaine Maxwell, who’s being federally prosecuted for allegedly recruiting, grooming, sexually abusing underage girls," anchor Bret Baier noted, adding that the comment raised eyebrows.
“What the president was noting is that the last person who was charged in this case ended up dead in a jail cell and the president wants justice to be served for the victims in this case and he prefers this to play out in a courtroom,” the press secretary responded.
Watch the full exchange here.
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