Trump was worrying about the football season

Uh oh, Prince Jared’s in trouble.

(Kidding about the uh oh. I’d love to see him kicked back to New Jersey.)

Last Thursday, as the stock market was on the way to losing nearly 2,400 points—its biggest single-day plunge since the 1987 Black Monday crash—Donald Trump was worrying about the fate of the football season. NFL players aren’t scheduled to report to training camp for months, but according to a source, Trump feared that the league might preemptively announce it was following the NBA and NHL and suspend or delay operations due to the coronavirus. So Trump called NFL owners to see if any action was on the horizon. “Trump begged them not to cancel the season,” a source briefed on the call said.

That’s so Trump. Never mind the safety of the players and the people who go to watch them play, focus on the season. Save our football!

It reflected Trump’s magical thinking that he could manage the coronavirus pandemic by convincing people life would remain normal and sports would be played. (Last week, Trump also spoke with Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White and advised him not to cancel UFC events.) “Trump thinks this is a media problem,” a Republican close to the White House told me. Treating COVID-19 as a public-relations crisis put Trump at odds with the medical community…

And with rational human beings in general.

Trump is waking up to the reality that’s been clear to everyone: Coronavirus poses a once-in-a-hundred-years threat to the country. “In the last 48 hours he has understood the magnitude of what’s going on,” a former West Wing official told me. As Trump processes the stakes facing the country—and his presidency—he’s also lashing out at advisers, whom he blames for the White House’s inept and flat-footed response. Sources say a principal target of his anger is Jared Kushner. “I have never heard so many people inside the White House openly discuss how pissed Trump is at Jared,” the former West Wing official said.

Yes, it’s all Prince Jared’s fault, it’s nothing to do with Trump’s stupidity and ignorance and selfish indifference to everyone who isn’t Trump.

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