Today’s takeaway from another presser that this time was an hour late: Trump thinks the massive fertilizer explosion in Beirut was an attack, Trump gathered new data to try to divert attention from the current economic recession. And for some reason the state of Florida has superior mail-in voting ability than other states.

Goofy Gaslight does another presser to do a pandemic update. More likely he's trying to offset the disastrous HBO/Axios interview shown in its entirety last night.

The usual pattern is remarks and a few press questions and he calls on OANN close to end of questions. The last few have lasted about 30 minutes.

Lebanon thoughts and prayers believes that the explosion in Lebanon was an attack (did he get a military brief or is he just making it up?)

x Unsurprisingly, when asked about President TrumpÃ¢ÂÂs statement on the Lebanon explosion being an attack, the @DeptofDefense and @CENTCOM have remained absolutely silent— Ryan Browne (@rabrowne75) August 4, 2020

x A spokesman for the Pentagon responds: Ã¢ÂÂThe Department of Defense refers you to the White House on this matter.Ã¢ÂÂ

— Ryan Browne (@rabrowne75) August 5, 2020

Hurricane reports, usual federal boilerplate

ISM production order numbers Trump searches for good news, like in auto sales, home sales, home construction, which will have

x Trump says he'll talk soon about the response to the “China virus,” but first he has some “rather spectacular” economic numbers to talk about.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020

Now on to COVID, another China inference.

x “The recent rise in cases has not been accompanied by a significant increase in deaths.” Deaths haven't reached the levels of the early peaks, but they have spiked – back above 1,000 per day from a low around 500. Per @COVID19Tracking: pic.twitter.com/Cvpta9uIFr

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020

Cites “test positivity” rate.Usual boilerplate. death rate half of what it was in April. Another “blame China” inference.

Trump getting bored with reading again.

Usual “embers” utterance

x The same song as always. “We're putting out embers. We're putting out flames.”

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020

Trump jabbers about telehealth via Medicare

Therapies and vaccines – claims about final phases. The usual “very soon” hype. confabulates pharma prices.

x Trump on the virus: “We're seeing indications that our strong mitigation efforts are working. Very well, actually.” He adds, “The numbers are getting very good.”

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020

Still can't pronounce “plasma” Does usual remdesivir treatment mention.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020

x “Testing has been incredible, what we've been able to do.”

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020

x “It's been an amazing achievement, the testing.” It was a catastrophic failure in the key early stage, is still plagued with severe problems, and the US only has to do so many more tests than other countries now because those countries did better at the outset.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020

x “The recent rise in cases has not been accompanied by a significant increase in deaths” is a wild quote. The daily average has roughly doubled; we're talking 500+ additional deaths per day. The president is calling this insignificant.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020

x Trump says that a lot of the bad US numbers were because NY and NJ had a bad time, and “when you take them out,” “our numbers are among the lowest.” So aside from all the American deaths, there have been fewer American deaths.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020

Trump blah-blah about testing, reels off numbers about PPEs

Trump gets bored with numbers, goes sing-songy.

Questions

Q: Kodak? SEC questions

Trump goes blah-blah “I wasn't involved”

Q: Lebanon “attack”? (explosion of fertilizer storage 1,000s of tons)

Trump thinks it was a bomb

x “It looks like a terrible – attack,” Trump says of the Lebanon explosion, though no public evidence has emerged to suggest it was an “attack.”

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020

x Trump didn't seem confident in calling the explosion an “attack.” It seemed like an ad-lib he added at the end of his prepared remarks, and he said it kind of haltingly.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020

x Note of caution: The president has repeatedly fabricated alleged conversations with “generals” and many others.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020

x I canÃ¢ÂÂt emphasize this enough. Trump usually prefers to make things up to cover an error rather than admitting he misspoke. He could prove correct here, but extreme caution required. https://t.co/8rKTwEj5BA

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020

Q: COVID cases? % deaths of US population

Trump goes bafflegab “we're at the bottom of the list”

Q: follow-up using the JHU data

Trump goes bafflegab NY, FL, “we have among the lowest numbers”

Q: reinstatement of unemployment benefits?

Trump attacks Democrats (bad management) payroll tax suspensions Trump veers to Portland DHS cites WSJ story)

WSWH “We'll see what happens” On evictions: “It's not their fault, it's China's fault” talks about shelters being bad for COVID

Q: unprecedented TikTok actions?

Trump does usual blah-blah, tries to rationalize benefit to the Treasury, goes to stupid landlord analogy (September 15) mentions Huawei.

Q: what would be the down side to testing too many Americans (Alcindor)

Trump goes blah-blah “we're looking at it strongly” “media gold”

Q: You mentioned Florida mail-in ballots, what's different?

Trump doesn't know how to answer it – still clueless about the difference between absentee and mail-in ballots uses NY Carolyn Maloney example “I think they'll have to do the election over”

x Contrary to TrumpÃ¢ÂÂs claims, thereÃ¢ÂÂs no evidence of voter fraud, let alone mass voter fraud, in the NY Dem primaries that remain uncalled. The counting has been slow because of quantity of ballots and administrative/tech/staffing problems.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020

Trump sees his argument getting flimsy, Flees at 640pm ET

x ItÃ¢ÂÂs nice of Joe to keep offering Trump free lessons in what heÃ¢ÂÂs supposed to be saying and doing. https://t.co/9eVFEKgS8J — James Gleick (@JamesGleick) August 5, 2020

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