Day: April 30, 2020

Briefings

Background Briefing: April 30, 2020

On By gram

 

Exposing an Undercount of Covid-19 Deaths in Florida and in the Nation

We begin with the undercount of the number of deaths in this country from COVID-19 with researchers at the Yale School of Public Health finding that 15,400 more people died between March 1 and April 4 than government agencies were reporting. And with so many dying from what was earlier labeled as the flu but likely was from the coronavirus before it was identified, and so many people dying at home, the actual death toll could 10% to 25% higher than the official national numbers so far. Joining us is Kathleen McGrory, Deputy Investigations Editor at the Tampa Bay Times who has exposed an unreported spike on child gun injuries, a fatal power-plant accident and mistakes at a prestigious children’s hospital, joins us to discuss her latest article at the Tampa Bay Times, “Florida medical examiners were releasing coronavirus death data. The state made them stop”. We look into the extent to which Florida’s Governor DeSantis, who was among the last governors to begin lockdowns and is a leading proponent of opening up the economy in spite or warnings from health officials, is covering up the real numbers of deaths in his state in order to follow the wishes of his idol Donald Trump who wants to revive the economy to get reelected.

 

Trump Pressures the Intelligence Community for Evidence to Blame China

Then we examine the war of words between the Trump administration and the Chinese government which is degenerating into a blame game with China’s Foreign Ministry suggesting Trump is covering up his mistakes while Trump threatens to punish China for being responsible for the coronavirus pandemic and even demand financial compensation. Victor Shih, a Professor of Political Science in the 21st Century Program in the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego, who is constructing a large database on biographical information of elites in China, joins us to discuss how Trump is pressuring U.S. intelligence agencies to find evidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the source of the COVID-19 outbreak.

A Pollster on Trump Blaming His Campaign Manager For Bad Poll Numbers

Then finally we will speak with Dr. Terry Madonna, a Professor of Public Affairs and Director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College where he directs the Franklin and Marshall College poll and is the pollster for the Philadelphia Daily News. He joins us to discuss Trump’s meltdown last Friday in which he attacked his own campaign manager and threatened to sue him after the RNC had shown the president polling that he would loose to Biden in November in all of the critical swing state including Pennsylvania.