As America continues its summer fun waterslide into the apocalypse, it's easy to put all
the blame on President Trump. Mostly because it is his f— fault. But if there's one small
comfort, it's the fact that even Fox News is starting to roast his ass.
- Incidentally, I took the test too when I heard that you passed it.
- Yeah, how did you do? - It's not—, well, it's not the hardest
test. They have a picture and it says "what's that," and it's an elephant.
- Mr. President, you'll be happy to know that Fox News has a new poll out today and you're
going to be the very first person to hear about it. In the national horse race, Joe
Biden leads you by 8 points. Wallace then pulled out a basketball and shattered
the backboard while dunking over Trump. In the interview, Wallace also confronted the
president with data showing the U.S. was ranked seventh in COVID-19 mortality rates at the
time. It was bleak. At this point, controlling coronavirus in the U.S. feels like a terrible
game of whack-a-mole, only instead of winning a spider ring, you're trying to not die. And
win a spider ring! Part of the reason our pandemic response feels like a game of chance
is because the Trump administration has left it up to individual states.
- He put the ultimate decision on when to reopen in the hands of the states’ governors.
And many of the governors say they need help from the federal government to institute widespread
testing in our country, something we now do not have.
While some say the reason for the president's hands-off approach is that he's completely
inept, other more beautiful people say it's because accepting any sort of responsibility
could hurt his election chances. The Trump administration has made only sparing use of
the Defense Production Act, leaving frontline workers still in dire need of PPE. Their lack
of leadership has resulted in a jumble of state pandemic policies that fit together
about as well as a pre-owned IKEA bed. - We ran an experiment over the last four
months where we looked at how states—state by state by state—could manage this crisis.
And they can't do it. They can't do it individually, and what we see is governors making different
decisions about reopening and closing that have led us to this point.
C'mon, governors! You've got to pull together and work as a team to win this thing! Quack!
Quack! Quack! Quack! Quack! Quack! Oh, who am I kidding? We’re never gonna Mighty Ducks
our way out of this. Given that cash-strapped states are responsible for creating their
own testing strategies, contact tracing, and mask mandates, most Americans' only hope is
to have a governor who didn't get to skip their high school science classes for "God"
reasons. So let's check in on how the governors are doin' the pandemic their way! This is
Deniers, Dimwits, and Lies: Governors Edition! First, we go deep in the bowels of Texas,
where everything's bigger, including their hospitalization rate. That's thanks to Governor
Greg Abbott, who confused everyone by issuing a stay-at-home order that he said did not
amount to a stay-at-home order, before clarifying the next day that it did. He later added,
"One of us always tells the truth, and one of us always lies." Abbott has been mixing
his messaging since March, when he said local officials who thought the state was being
too lax in its safety measures could apply stricter ones as they saw fit. But when those
local officials threatened fines for ignoring mask rules, Abbott undermined them, insisting
that simply recommending masks is enough. You can't expect people to wear something
just because you recommend it. I've recommended that every guy I've ever slept with dress
up like Smokey the Bear, and they've all refused. Except for Gordon. But then Gordon started
to blur the line between Smokey World and Gordon World, and I had to move on. I’m
just kidding. I’m a virgin. Abbott didn't issue a statewide mask order until the virus
had infected 175,000 Texans. It's insane that it took that long, but at least Texans eventually
gave in to reality, unlike some other states. Speaking of which, let's see what's happening
as of late in the Sunshine State. - Tonight Florida shatters the record for
the most new daily cases of any state throughout the pandemic. More than 15,000.
- 56 hospitals in Florida are at their ICU capacity.
- DeSantis, while encouraging mask wearing, has issued no state-wide mandate on masks
in Florida. - Ultimately, we've gotta trust people to
make good decisions. If Floridians were capable of making good
decisions, they wouldn't live in Florida. You've got to hand it to DeSantis, though,
for pulling a George W. by declaring "mission accomplished" two months before everything
in his state went to shit. - You got a lot of people in your profession
who waxed poetically for weeks about how Florida is going to be just like New York. Well, hell,
we're eight weeks away from that and it hasn't happened. I was the number one landing spot
for tens of thousands of people leaving the number one hot zone in the world to come to
my state. It's true, DeSantis was the number one landing
spot. And he had his landing strip waxed accordingly. From April to July, daily new cases in Florida
increased roughly 1200%. 1200%! The only thing in Florida that should rise 1200%, honestly,
is the ocean. It's time to wash it all away.