President Trump's "metrics" for when to reopen the economy are in his brain, he explained on Friday and The Late Show dramatized Monday.
"The United States, tragically, has now passed every other country in coronavirus fatalities, and to add insult to incompetence, this weekend there were multiple exposés on Trump's mishandling of the crisis," Stephen Colbert said on Monday's Late Show. As detailed in the article Trump is most upset about, in The New York Times, "it's clear that Trump is in over his head, and I'm not the only one who feels that way — evidently, so does Donald Trump."
"Right now, Trump is talking about ending the stay-at-home for the country as early as May 1, to which I say: Mayday!" Colbert said. But "here's the thing: Reopening the country is not up to Trump, because from the very beginning Trump has left all the hard decisions on fighting coronavirus to the individual states." Naturally, "a lot of governors are coordinating when to lift the quarantines, but Trump wants to be the only hero who opens things back up," he added, addressing Trump: "You were the one who said you were just a cheerleader — you put yourself on the sidelines."
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"Trump has no idea when the country will be open for business again, but that doesn't stop reporters from continually asking when the country will be open again," Jimmy Kimmel sighed. "It looks like the president has another enemy inside his administration, and unfortunately that enemy is Dr. Anthony Fauci," he said. "A spokesperson for the White House said the media chatter is ridiculous and that Trump is not firing Dr. Fauci — so he is definitely firing Dr. Fauci. If Dr. Fauci wants to keep his job, he'd better find a way to blame this virus on Hunter Biden, and quick."
The Daily Show gathered together some of the people Trump has actually blamed for the pandemic.
"The same president who ignored repeated warnings from medical experts and intelligence officials about the crisis and instead just went with his intuition is once again telling people he's going to decide to reopen the economy soon, based on his instincts," Late Night's Seth Meyers said. He ran through some new details from the "bombshell New York Times report" on Trump's missed warnings and lost opportunities. Watch to the end to see what Meyers keeps in his attic closet. Peter Weber
