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"Roid Rage" Trump crashes markets by tweeting that there will be NO stimulus until after election - as doctor voices fear his COVID medication causes mania, aggression and psychosis
Daily Mail
Tue Oct 6, 2020
Category: Politics
Area: Washington, DC (Hagerstown)
Donald Trump sparked a panicked stock market sell-off Tuesday afternoon as he tweeted that he would not allow talks on a stimulus plan to go on before the November election.
In a series of tweets sent from the White House residence where he is still on drugs to fight his COVID, Trump canceled talks with Nancy Pelosi over a multi-trillion relief package and said: 'Immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business.'
He banned White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin from cutting the deal - and instead told Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, to focus on seating the Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.
The Dow Jones crashed more than 300 points within minutes and closed down 375 points. Traders had thought a deal was close - and the Federal Reserve chair had earlier in the day called more stimulus essential.
Pelosi slammed Trump saying he was 'putting himself first at the expense of the country, with the full complicity of the GOP Members of Congress.'
She was on a conference call with the House Democratic caucus when Trump's tweet cancelling the stimulus talks hit.
The Speaker suggested Trump may be affected in his thinking by the steroids he is on Doctors also raised concerns over their side-effects.
'There are people who thought, who think that steroids have an impact on your thinking. So, I don't know,' Pelosi said, according to Politico. 'I do practice medicine on the side without benefit of diploma, as a mother and a grandmother, but I hadn't gone into mental health yet.'
She and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin were last known to have spoken about the negotiations on Monday in an hour-long phone call. They spoke again briefly at 3:30 pm on Tuesday, where Mnuchin informed the speaker that 'the President has walked away from COVID talks,' according to Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill. Pelosi expressed disappointment 'in the President's decision to abandon the economic & health needs of the American people,' he added.
Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, slammed Trump's decision in a statement, saying the president showed he didn't care about people who are suffering.
'Make no mistake: if you are out of work, if your business is closed, if your child’s school is shut down, if you are seeing layoffs in your community, Donald Trump decided today that none of that - none of it - matters to him. There will be no help from Washington for the foreseeable future. Instead, he wants the Senate to use it’s time to confirm his Supreme Court Justice nominee before the election, in a mad dash to make sure that the Court takes away your health care coverage as quickly as possible,' he said.
'He never even really tried to get a deal for these Americans. Not once did he bring Republicans and Democrats together in the Oval Office, on the phone, or by Zoom, to get a relief package,' he noted.
Meanwhile, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said he agreed with the president's decision.
'Well, I think his view was that they were not gonna produce a result, and that we needed to concentrate on what's achievable,' he told reporters on Capitol Hill.
Most Republican senators were unhappy with the more than $1.5 trillion price tag or higher that was in the works.
But one GOP Senator, Susan Collins of Maine, said the president's decision was a 'huge mistake.'
'Waiting until after the election to reach an agreement on the next Covid-19 relief package is a huge mistake. I have already been in touch with the Secretary of the Treasury, one of the chief negotiators, and with several of my Senate colleagues,' she said in a statement.
Collins is in an uphill battle for re-election. The moderate Republican has distanced herself from the president in recent weeks. She also criticized his decision to nominate a replacement to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court before the election although she didn't rule outing voting for that person should the vote make it to the Senate floor ahead of November 3.
Inside the White House, Trump had spent the morning tweeting that he was 'feeling great' and claiming he would hit the campaign trail.
But he also posted a comparison between coroanvirus and flu which claimed COVID could be 'less lethal' than the seasonal virus and saying 'we don't shut our country down.'
It was deleted by Facebook - prompting an angry reaction from Trump - and flagged as misleading and potentially harmful by Twitter.
He seemed to be promoting 'herd immunity' but as the day went on it seemed his own federal government was at the center of a one-man attempt to create it.
All but one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was revealed to be in quarantine after the Coast Guard member - Admiral Charles Ray - tested positive after attending a White House reception for Gold Star families at the start of last week.
In the West Wing, Ivanka Trump stayed away from work, and in the East Wing, her stepmother Melania announced 'hospital level' disinfection.
But Trump, Bloomberg News reported, was demanding to go to the Oval Office - feet from the press briefing room which had to be disinfected by staff in hazmat gear after Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who persistently refused to wear a mask at her briefings, and two of her aides, tested positive.
The atmosphere of frenzy and fear spread across Washington D.C. but it was Trump's mental state which dominated conversation.
Trump is on a heavy cocktail mix of drugs as part of his treatment plan, including the steroid dexamethasone, which is typically not used unless someone needs a ventilator or supplemental oxygen.
He's taking remdesivir, an antiviral medication that is believed to help in recovery.
And he got an 8 gram dose of Regeneron's experimental antibody therapy on Friday before he entered the hospital.
Doctors on Tuesday warned that the steroid he is being treated with for COVID comes with risks of serious side effects, including mood swings, aggression and confusion.
Trump's medical team on Sunday said the president was started on dexamethasone, a generic steroid long and widely used to reduce inflammation associated with other diseases. The steroid was begun after Trump experienced low oxygen levels.
Dr Ashish Jha, Dean of Brown University's School of Public Health, told Fox News: 'We definitely see in 30-40 percent of people pretty substantial effects...[of] the anxiety, the agitation.'
Since Sunday, Trump has gone on a drive-by motorcade outside Walter Reed hospital, been released from hospital then flown back to the White House on Marine One, ripping off his mask when he arrived and recording a video telling people of his COVID treatment: 'Maybe I'm immune.'
On Tuesday he launched a fusillade of tweets and was reported by Bloomberg to be demanding he be allowed to go to the Oval Office.
Yards away from the Oval Office, the press briefing area of the White House was being deep cleaned as a mounting number of staff tested positive for the virus and across the Potomac, the Pentagon was in chaos as all but one of the Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff quarantined because one tested positive - after going to a White House event on Sunday.
The crisis raises questions over national security and even one of the military aides who follows Trump with the nuclear football tested positive.
As his daughter Ivanka stayed home 'out of an abundance of caution,' Mike Pence was in Salt Lake City getting ready for a vice-presidential debate. His doctor claimed
Research has shown that just a few days on dexamethasone can leave patients with memory and cognitive deficits. Corticosteroids - the class of drugs dexamethasone belongs to - may cause psychiatric side effects in anywhere from 1.8 to 57 percent of patients taking them.
Experts' first worry was that the use of dexamethasone to treat Trump suggested he was very sick, since the $6 steroid may be dangerous to people with mild COVID-19.
But because it's been linked to everything from mania to memory problems, and aggression to psychosis, some are also concerned that the president's judgement could be impaired as he reportedly continues to work through his illness.
Ending stimulus talks however goes deep into the most damaging territory possible for a president whose only path to re-election had been on high stock market numbers and a belief in his economic record among swing state voters.
Pelosi accused him of being 'unwilling to crush the virus,' saying: 'He shows his contempt for science, his disdain for our heroes - in health care, first responders, sanitation, transportation, food workers, teachers, teachers, teachers and others - and he refuses to put money in workers' pockets, unless his name is printed on the check.'
Earlier in the day Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell had said recovery from the pandemic downturn would be 'stronger and faster' with more government aid to protect against the possibility of accelerating job losses.
'Too little support would lead to a weak recovery, creating unnecessary hardship for households and businesses,' Powell said in an address to an economics conference.
'Even if policy actions ultimately prove to be greater than needed, they will not go to waste.'
Powell, who has long said more economic support is likely needed, warned that if economic improvements slow, that 'could trigger typical recessionary dynamics, as weakness feeds on weakness.'
A long period of 'unnecessarily slow progress' could continue to exacerbate existing disparities in the economy, he said, which 'would be tragic.'
In Congress, Pelosi had proposed an economic stimulus measure costing $2.2 trillion but President Donald Trump's administration wants to spend no more than $1.6 trillion.
While Pelosi last week again began talking regularly with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, her Republican counterpart in the negotiations, the two sides have yet to find a compromise weeks before Trump stands for a second term in office against Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
'Chairman Powell's warning could not be more clear: robust action is immediately needed to avert economic catastrophe from the devastation of the coronavirus pandemic,' Pelosi said on Tuesday.
The CARES Act passed as the pandemic struck in March included extra $600 weekly payments to the unemployed as well as a program of loans and grants for small businesses but those expired around the start of August.
Powell noted the positive effects of both programs on the economy, with a feared rise in bankruptcies among small firms not occurring and many consumers saying their financial well-being had improved during the pandemic.
'Still, since it appears that many will undergo extended periods of unemployment, there is likely to be a need for further support,' he said.
And despite the early success in protecting against job losses, there has been an increase in permanent job cuts and layoffs, Powell said.
'There is a risk that the rapid initial gains from reopening may transition to a longer than expected slog back to full recovery,' he added.
Limiting the continued spread of the virus will be key to sustaining the economy, the Fed chair said, including following medical advice about wearing masks and social distancing.
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