Who is The Bigger Buffoon? Pence or Kushner?

Before I attempt to answer these two questions let me preface my comments by stating unequivocally that there is no bigger buffoon in the Trump Administration than President Trump himself. His comments a week ago about injecting ourselves with disinfectant to combat COVID-19 could very well be the defining moment of his presidency.

But when the President of the United States is a buffoon he is bound to surround himself with other buffoons. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and Vice-President Mike Pence have demonstrated buffoonery of their own within the past 24 hours.

During an interview with Fox & Friends yesterday, Kushner described the Trump Administration's response to COVID-19 as "a success story". Outside of the Trump Organization, in what other universe would 1 million Americans (and counting) with a deadly infectious disease with a death toll exceeding now exceeding 61,000 - several thousand more Americans than were killed in Vietnam - be considered "a success story"?

Kushner predicted that May would be a transition month, things would be back normal by June and that by July the country would be "really rocking". I do hope his prediction comes to pass, but from where I sit this is based on wishful thinking and delusions of grandeur rather than optimism. In three months time how many more Americans will have become infected? How many more will be dead? If 100,000 Americans are dead by the Fourth of July will this still be a success story? Even if summer sees a respite in infections and deaths, Dr. Fauci just last night warned of "a bad fall and a bad winter" if we remain unprepared. If one answers to the likes of Trump and Kushner then I have a bad feeling we will be woefully unprepared and end up with a second wave deadlier than the first.

Yet I think Vice-President Pence managed to top Kushner when he did not wear a mask during a visit to the Mayo Clinic yesterday. Pence defended his decision by saying he is regularly tested for COVID-19 as are the people around him. (If only the rest of us could be tested once.) Second Lady Karen Pence managed to make things worse for her husband by claiming he didn't know the Mayo Clinic had a mandatory mask policy until after he left the facility. Did Pence not notice he was the only one not wearing a mask? Anyone with a scintilla of common sense would know a mask at a health care facility, especially one as prestigious as the Mayo Clinic, would be mandatory. By not wearing the mask Pence came across as someone to whom to the rules do not apply. After his wife's intervention, Pence came off like a dumb fuck.

The bad publicity was sufficient for Pence to wear a mask when he visited a GM plant in his native Indiana today. But the image of Pence not wearing a mask surrounded by everyone else wearing one is not going to go away. As tempting as it might be to invoke the 25th Amendment against Trump we would still have someone in the White House where the lights are on but no one is home.

In which case, the best remedy would be to vote Trump-Pence out of office this November.