THE PREZ’S Way-off-the-wall rant about
As coronavirus continued its unrelenting nationwide spread Sunday, President Trump added 30 days to his social distancing guidelines and went on a bizarre rant implying foul play in New York City’s heavy use of urgently needed face masks.
Speaking after a manufacturer said an unnamed New York hospital’s mask usage had increased more than tenfold since the virus outbreak, Trump donned his tinfoil hat and insinuated a dark conspiracy was taking place.
“Something is going on. And you ought to look into it as reporters,” the paranoid prez ranted in the White House Rose Garden. “Where are the masks going? Are they going out the backdoor? How do you go from 10,000 to 300,000 [masks used per week], and we have that in a lot of different places.”
“They have to look at that in New York,” he added.
The crazed comments came after weeks of pleas from leaders in New York City and beyond for face masks and a long list of other medical supplies.
Earlier Sunday, Mayor de Blasio said the city has enough supplies to last another week, going out of his way to praise the feds for equipment shipments to date.
His spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein dismissed Trump’s rant as “absolutely ludicrous.”
“There is no hoarding or conspiracy going on here,” she tweeted. “Just a simple fact: Our doctors and nurses need masks. That’s the sad, unchanging truth unless the federal government steps up and protects our frontline workers.”
At Sunday’s 90-minutelong news conference, Trump extended the voluntary national shutdown, initially set to expire Monday, to at least April 30. The feds are urging Americans to avoid large group gatherings and encouraging older people and those with preexisting health problems to stay home. Americans are also urged to work at home as much as possible and shun bars, restaurants, shopping trips and nonessential travel.
“The better you do, the faster this whole nightmare will end,” Trump said. “Therefore, we will be extending our guidelines to April 30, to slow the spread.”
As of Sunday morning, the country had about 125,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, while the death toll exceeded 2,100.
Trump recently predicted the U.S. could be back open for business by Easter, which falls on April 12.
But Sunday morning brought a stark reality check from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top expert on infectious diseases. He predicted 100,000 to 200,000 Americans could die of coronavirus and millions could end up infected.
“Whenever the models come in, they give a worstcase scenario and a best-case