Swing States that Have Been Two Biggest Failures
Get Special Trump Treatment as 48 Others Punished

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor
August 6, 2020

President Donald Trump has made Governor Greg Abbott and his counterpart in Florida look like his top two lap dogs with a mind-boggling decision to reward the two states that have done the worst jobs by far in the pandemic in the allocation of federal support for testing.

The move smacks of blatant favoritism and makes it appear like Trump might be in worse shape than his terrible polling numbers suggest in light of the fact that Texas and Florida are the two states he can least afford to lose to have any chance at all of a second term.

But Trump is trying to make it sound like the singling out of the nation's second and third largest states is purely coincidental and based on direct appeals from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Abbott on the need for as much federal money as they can possibly get.

The Trump White House suggested on Thursday that the president would consider the resumption of full funding for states with governors who follow the lead of Abbott and DeSantis by making direct cases to him personally. Governors on both sides of the aisle in the 48 other states will see this as an invitation to beg for help from a president who's trailing Democrat Joe Biden leading him in almost all of the crucial swing states including Florida.

Trump in the meantime plans to dangle money for testing as a ring-kissing incentive with his current plan to slash National Guard funding by 25 percent everywhere but the two states where the virus has been more out of control this summer than anywhere else in the USA.

Trump could have been slightly less disingenuous if he'd based the decision to play favorites with Texas and Florida on the fact that they lead the nation in the number of new COVID-19 cases in the past week with 110,214 combined. Texas has been the hottest spot in the nation by far in the past seven days with 58,898 positive tests here in that span of time.

The nation's two largest blue states - California and New York - have recorded less than half as many new infections in the past week than Texas and Florida with 51,370 collectively. New York and California were the two most vulnerable states without competition at the outset of the pandemic as a result of population size and density and their positions as international travel hubs.

Texas has sought to make the case count appear smaller with a new definition for what qualifies as a COVID-19 infection with a methodology that is widely viewed as less reliable in the eyes of true experts. But the more respected New York Times tally today showed Texas and Florida with 983,520 cumulative cases combined since the initial outbreak more than five months ago. California and New York had recorded a total of 955,711 by early afternoon Thursday.

The numbers are a direct reflection of lackadaisical initial leadership strategies that let the virus get out of control for the past two months in Texas and Florida.

Texas also leads the nation in the number of coronavirus fatalities that it's recorded in the past week with 1,312 and Florida as a close second at 1,294. California has reported 982 fatalities during the same span of time despite the fact that it has more than 10 million more residents than Texas. The virus has claimed 89 lives in New York in the past week.

But the president has shown no sign of awareness or concern on the severity of the crisis in individual states or the nation as a whole - simply promising that the virus is in the process of vanishing on its own despite the need for more federal funds in the two southern epicenters where the governors have curried the most favor with him.

more to come ...