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I could read and write all day every day about those days in late September 2020 when Trump became the superspreader-in-chief. It almost feels like an obligation to do so, that we may inoculate ourselves against the potential claims of future historians that we were a blind, gullible, clueless people. Yes, we were, but not nearly as much as this episode suggests. We knew. We got it. The White House COVID outbreak with Trump at its center was very, very bad, and we understood that much in real time, not only in retrospect.
But now we have a new or more precisely an updated account of the shitshow, from someone who was neck deep in the shit at the time. Poor Chris Christie. He was done wrong so many times by Trump. He was the toadiest toady. There was the hostage video. There was this unforgettable headline: “Trump Uses Chris Christie As ‘Manservant’ To Fetch His McDonald’s.” There was Christie being unceremoniously dumped as the head of the transition. But in none of those episodes did Trump try to kill Christie.
Which brings us to the debate prep in 2020. Despite all the indignities visited upon him by Trump, Chris Christie went to the White House to help Trump prepare for his first debate with Joe Biden. I should say here that debate prep is one of those unfortunate tropes of political reporting: breathless, overanalyzed, vested with more significance than it possibly deserves. Who is in the room, who is portraying the opponent, what’s the candidate’s disposition? Maybe Trump has rescued us from those stale, tired stories until the end of time. Because nothing, nothing will compare to the 2020 White House debate prep, with a President infected with a pandemic virus covering up the fact of his positive test from those around him and knowingly exposing his top aides to it. His top aides and poor Chris Christie.
It’s been axiomatic for years: No one serves Trump who doesn’t in the end lose all dignity. But lose your very life? This was Trump at his most deranged. Look at who from the debate prep team was infected: Christie, Hope Hicks, Bill Stepien, Kellyanne Conway, and Stephen Miller. If you count Trump, Christie says, that’s six of the seven people in the debate prep room who came down with COVID.
Christie spent a week in the ICU. He says it was touch and go for a while. He did not know that Trump had already tested positive until excerpts of Mark Meadows new book began to appear in the past few days. Christie admits he’s still trying to process that new information. Listen to Christie tell it:
The Trump-led White House COVID outbreak is arguably the most unbelievable story of the Trump presidency. Not in the sense of not to be believed, but in the sense of no one story could possibly capture the epic mix of insanity, incompetence, brutish narcissism, and corrupt toadyism — and yet this one comes very, very close.
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Here’s what you should read this evening:
President Biden warned that democracy in the U.S. is in a state of decline
Today an Arkansas jury convicted former reality TV star and conservative influencer Josh Duggar on child pornography charges. You might remember us reporting on Josh Duggar’s deep ties to a once-powerful, fringe Christian ministry back in 2015
In a big loss for Trump, a D.C. federal appeals court denied his attempt to block the Jan. 6 investigation, allowing a subpoena for White House records about the Jan. 6 insurrection to proceed
NC Supreme Court Pushes Back Primaries Amid Suits That Challenge GOP Gerrymandering
“I have come to the conclusion that I must continue my work as attorney general,” with that New York Attorney General Letitia James said that she would be running for reelection as state attorney general in 2022. Multiple outlets reported that her office was seeking testimony from ex-President Donald Trump in a civil fraud investigation into the Trump Organization
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