State of Emergency: As Americans mobbed the grocery stores to lay in emergency supplies, President Trump yesterday declared a national emergency to confront the coronavirus pandemic and early this morning the House passed a bill to provide billions of dollars to sick workers to prop up the economy.

  Trump said,  “I am officially declaring a National Emergency. Two very big words.” That’s his version of an inspiring speech to calm the nation.

  Trump said regulations that slow the delivery of emergency care will be lifted. “We’ll remove or eliminate every obstacle necessary to deliver our people the care that they need and that they’re entitled to,” he said. “No resource will be spared. Nothing whatsoever.”

  The President said the government is moving to establish drive-through testing centers, but tests have been slow to reach the public. 

  As of this morning the US has had 2,174 cases of the coronavirus and 47 deaths. Worldwide, It’s 147,779 cases and 5,539 deaths.

 The House relief deal would allow for two weeks of paid sick leave and up to three months of family and medical leave for people affected.

  Trump’s emergency declaration also provides about $50 billion for state and local governments to deal with the crisis.

  During a Rose Garden news conference, Trump said he would suspend interest collections on federal student loans, and that the  Energy Department will buy cheap oil to fill the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve “to the top.”

   Trump was scheduled to speak at 3pm, but didn’t make it until  3:30, further evidence that the trains don’t run on time in his administration.

  He did speak before the financial markets closed, spurring a late rally. The Dow Jones closed up 1,985 points, a little over nine percent, recovering most of Thursday’s hemorrhage.

Degrees of Separation: Making his appearance in the Rose Garden, President Trump made no effort to follow the advice of his administration to stop the spread of coronavirus. He shook hands and shared a microphone with other speakers.

  Trump has been exposed to several people who have since been diagnosed as infected. Challenged about whether he will get tested, Trump said, “Fairly soon. We’re working on that. We’re working out a schedule.” He sounded like he was making up an answer, which he has a tendency to do.

  Hours later the White House doctor said Trump would not be tested.

BS: President Trump has established a firm record of getting things wrong or making them up in the midst of this crisis.

  Yesterday Trump said, “Google is helping to develop a website. It’s going to be very quickly done, unlike websites of the past, to determine whether a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location.”

  That was news to Google. There is no such website and Google had no idea the President would say that. WIRED magazine reports that a Google subsidiary is working on a program to triage patients for coronavirus testing to be rolled out in the San Francisco and expanded over time.

Blame: Trump has repeatedly blamed the Obama administration for the lag in making tests available for diagnosing the coronavirus. He has made vague references to regulations that never went into effect, claiming his administration’s hands were tied when the crisis was developing. 

  Asked by a reporter whether he takes responsibility for the delay in getting test kits out to the population, Trump said yesterday, “No, I don’t take responsibility at all because we were given a set of circumstances, and we were given rules, regulations and specifications from a different time. It wasn’t meant for this kind of an event with the kind of numbers that we’re talking about.”

  After presiding over budget cuts for the Centers of Disease Control, Trump has been slow to react to the current crisis. David Frum writes in The Atlantic that, “More people will get sick because of his presidency than if somebody else were in charge. More people will suffer the financial hardship of sickness because of his presidency than if somebody else were in charge. The medical crisis will arrive faster and last longer than if somebody else were in charge. So, too, the economic crisis. More people will lose their jobs than if somebody else were in charge. More businesses will be pushed into bankruptcy than if somebody else were in charge. More savers will lose more savings than if somebody else were in charge. The damage to America’s global leadership will be greater than if somebody else were in charge.”

The Shopping List: In New York City, the line at some grocery stores has run down the block. Americans are laying in emergency supplies. Don’t think you can go to the store today and buy toilet paper. The shelves are empty.

  Also on the list of goods the stores have trouble keeping in stock; water, soup, condensed milk, tuna fish, macaroni and cheese, canned vegetables, pasta and spaghetti sauce, yogurt, and frozen pizza.

The Bulletin Board: Fox Business  has removed host Trish Regan from her prime time slot following an uproar over her rant earlier this week in which she dismissed concerns over the coronavirus as “another attempt to impeach the president.” Regan is not the only right wing newsie who has claimed the coronavirus is a political creation, not a health crisis. — Microsoft founder Bill Gates says he’s stepping down from the board of his company “to dedicate more time to philanthropic priorities including global health and development, education, and my increasing engagement in tackling climate change.” — Musician R. Kelly, who’s been accused of having sex with underage girls, has also been accused of spreading  ….  No, wait, we’re just not going to get into it.

-30-