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President Donald Trump speaks during the daily briefing on the coronavirus pandemic at the White House on April 15, 2020. (Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
'An Utter Sh*t Show': Trump Effort to Enlist Private Companies to Reopen Economy Derided As a Disaster
Business leaders who took part in a series of calls with the president expressed fears they could be liable if employees went into work too early and got sick.
Apr 16, 2020
An attempt by President Donald Trump to enlist the assistance of private business leaders in his efforts to reopen the U.S. economy by early May was panned as a failure by participants and observers alike as the White House response to the coronavirus pandemic appears set to make an economic crash worse.
"He's got to stop talking about turning the economy back on and start talking about making people feel safe, things that are happening around testing, and the health care system," one CEO who commented anonymously for fear of White House reprisals toldPolitico. "That's the only way you will really get the economy reopened over a period of time."
The meetings and rollout of the president's "Opening Our Country Council" were reportedly beset by confusion and chaos as the White House announced a series of calls with executives on Tuesday night without consulting participants, many of whom had preexisting commitments on quarterly earnings they could not reschedule.
\u201cSome business leaders had no idea that Trump was placing them on his 'Opening Our Country Council\u2019 until they heard him announce it.\n\nhttps://t.co/uoGLY3i6tC\u201d— Mike Baker (@Mike Baker) 1587014215
According to the New York Times, CEOs on a series of White House calls were most concerned about the lack of testing, which would make people feel less safe even in the event of a reopening, and the possibility company leadership could be held liable for putting employees back to work before it was safe:
Mr. Trump opened the call by saying that "testing is under control" in the country. But after each executive was given a minute or two to provide his or her overview of what was needed to reopen the economy, there was a wide consensus that more testing was needed before the economy could reopen, according to two people who participated on the call. Among those who made the point that the testing was necessary to track who was infected and who might have immunity before returning employees to work sites was Jeffrey P. Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon.
Another issue of great concern to the executives on the call, one participant said, was the need to address the liability companies could face if employees got sick after returning to work, given the possibility that workers who felt that they were brought back too soon--or were not placed in a safe environment--could sue en masse.
"CEOs will go along with Trump's plan to force employees into workplaces against the advice of public health experts, killing many--for the sole purpose of juicing the stock market and his re-election effort--but only if workers have no legal recourse," Crooked Media editor-in-chief Brian Beutler noted on Twitter.
As Vanity Fair reported, Trump's council on reopening the economy has already gone through a number of changes in just days:
Earlier this week, it looked as though Donald Trump, in all his infinite wisdom, had put his daughter and son-in-law on the council advising the White House on when to "reopen" the country. Given the president's long history of putting the dynamic duo in charge of matters they have literally no business being anywhere near, and his claim that Ivanka has single-handedly created 15 million jobs, the development appeared unsurprising if not completely absurd. Luckily, it seems that someone with some ounce of sense intervened, and told Trump he should probably speak to a few actual business executives, if not real-life economists. And what do you know? Those people have apparently told him it would be absurd to get back to regular life before the government has hugely increased testing capabilities.
Progressives derided the latest failure by the president to put together a coherent response to the ongoing economic and public health crises brought on by the pandemic and noted the reporting from the Times on the calls and task force had highlighted concerns from CEOs that they could be liable for forcing employees back to work.
"An utter shit show described here," tweetedTalking Points Memo's Josh Marshall, adding readers should note the desire from CEOs "to be immune from liability if employees are forced to go back to work and get sick and die."
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An attempt by President Donald Trump to enlist the assistance of private business leaders in his efforts to reopen the U.S. economy by early May was panned as a failure by participants and observers alike as the White House response to the coronavirus pandemic appears set to make an economic crash worse.
"He's got to stop talking about turning the economy back on and start talking about making people feel safe, things that are happening around testing, and the health care system," one CEO who commented anonymously for fear of White House reprisals toldPolitico. "That's the only way you will really get the economy reopened over a period of time."
The meetings and rollout of the president's "Opening Our Country Council" were reportedly beset by confusion and chaos as the White House announced a series of calls with executives on Tuesday night without consulting participants, many of whom had preexisting commitments on quarterly earnings they could not reschedule.
\u201cSome business leaders had no idea that Trump was placing them on his 'Opening Our Country Council\u2019 until they heard him announce it.\n\nhttps://t.co/uoGLY3i6tC\u201d— Mike Baker (@Mike Baker) 1587014215
According to the New York Times, CEOs on a series of White House calls were most concerned about the lack of testing, which would make people feel less safe even in the event of a reopening, and the possibility company leadership could be held liable for putting employees back to work before it was safe:
Mr. Trump opened the call by saying that "testing is under control" in the country. But after each executive was given a minute or two to provide his or her overview of what was needed to reopen the economy, there was a wide consensus that more testing was needed before the economy could reopen, according to two people who participated on the call. Among those who made the point that the testing was necessary to track who was infected and who might have immunity before returning employees to work sites was Jeffrey P. Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon.
Another issue of great concern to the executives on the call, one participant said, was the need to address the liability companies could face if employees got sick after returning to work, given the possibility that workers who felt that they were brought back too soon--or were not placed in a safe environment--could sue en masse.
"CEOs will go along with Trump's plan to force employees into workplaces against the advice of public health experts, killing many--for the sole purpose of juicing the stock market and his re-election effort--but only if workers have no legal recourse," Crooked Media editor-in-chief Brian Beutler noted on Twitter.
As Vanity Fair reported, Trump's council on reopening the economy has already gone through a number of changes in just days:
Earlier this week, it looked as though Donald Trump, in all his infinite wisdom, had put his daughter and son-in-law on the council advising the White House on when to "reopen" the country. Given the president's long history of putting the dynamic duo in charge of matters they have literally no business being anywhere near, and his claim that Ivanka has single-handedly created 15 million jobs, the development appeared unsurprising if not completely absurd. Luckily, it seems that someone with some ounce of sense intervened, and told Trump he should probably speak to a few actual business executives, if not real-life economists. And what do you know? Those people have apparently told him it would be absurd to get back to regular life before the government has hugely increased testing capabilities.
Progressives derided the latest failure by the president to put together a coherent response to the ongoing economic and public health crises brought on by the pandemic and noted the reporting from the Times on the calls and task force had highlighted concerns from CEOs that they could be liable for forcing employees back to work.
"An utter shit show described here," tweetedTalking Points Memo's Josh Marshall, adding readers should note the desire from CEOs "to be immune from liability if employees are forced to go back to work and get sick and die."
An attempt by President Donald Trump to enlist the assistance of private business leaders in his efforts to reopen the U.S. economy by early May was panned as a failure by participants and observers alike as the White House response to the coronavirus pandemic appears set to make an economic crash worse.
"He's got to stop talking about turning the economy back on and start talking about making people feel safe, things that are happening around testing, and the health care system," one CEO who commented anonymously for fear of White House reprisals toldPolitico. "That's the only way you will really get the economy reopened over a period of time."
The meetings and rollout of the president's "Opening Our Country Council" were reportedly beset by confusion and chaos as the White House announced a series of calls with executives on Tuesday night without consulting participants, many of whom had preexisting commitments on quarterly earnings they could not reschedule.
\u201cSome business leaders had no idea that Trump was placing them on his 'Opening Our Country Council\u2019 until they heard him announce it.\n\nhttps://t.co/uoGLY3i6tC\u201d— Mike Baker (@Mike Baker) 1587014215
According to the New York Times, CEOs on a series of White House calls were most concerned about the lack of testing, which would make people feel less safe even in the event of a reopening, and the possibility company leadership could be held liable for putting employees back to work before it was safe:
Mr. Trump opened the call by saying that "testing is under control" in the country. But after each executive was given a minute or two to provide his or her overview of what was needed to reopen the economy, there was a wide consensus that more testing was needed before the economy could reopen, according to two people who participated on the call. Among those who made the point that the testing was necessary to track who was infected and who might have immunity before returning employees to work sites was Jeffrey P. Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon.
Another issue of great concern to the executives on the call, one participant said, was the need to address the liability companies could face if employees got sick after returning to work, given the possibility that workers who felt that they were brought back too soon--or were not placed in a safe environment--could sue en masse.
"CEOs will go along with Trump's plan to force employees into workplaces against the advice of public health experts, killing many--for the sole purpose of juicing the stock market and his re-election effort--but only if workers have no legal recourse," Crooked Media editor-in-chief Brian Beutler noted on Twitter.
As Vanity Fair reported, Trump's council on reopening the economy has already gone through a number of changes in just days:
Earlier this week, it looked as though Donald Trump, in all his infinite wisdom, had put his daughter and son-in-law on the council advising the White House on when to "reopen" the country. Given the president's long history of putting the dynamic duo in charge of matters they have literally no business being anywhere near, and his claim that Ivanka has single-handedly created 15 million jobs, the development appeared unsurprising if not completely absurd. Luckily, it seems that someone with some ounce of sense intervened, and told Trump he should probably speak to a few actual business executives, if not real-life economists. And what do you know? Those people have apparently told him it would be absurd to get back to regular life before the government has hugely increased testing capabilities.
Progressives derided the latest failure by the president to put together a coherent response to the ongoing economic and public health crises brought on by the pandemic and noted the reporting from the Times on the calls and task force had highlighted concerns from CEOs that they could be liable for forcing employees back to work.
"An utter shit show described here," tweetedTalking Points Memo's Josh Marshall, adding readers should note the desire from CEOs "to be immune from liability if employees are forced to go back to work and get sick and die."
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LATEST NEWS
Sanders, AOC Draw Biggest Crowd of Their Careers at Rally to Fight 'Oligarchy' in Denver
"The American people will not allow Trump to move us into oligarchy and authoritarianism. We will fight back. We will win," said Sanders.
Mar 22, 2025
On the heels of record-breaking attendance at a "Fighting Oligarchy" event in Tempe, Arizona earlier this week, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York held a rally in Denver, Colorado on Friday evening that drew more than 34,000 people—making it largest event that Sanders or Ocasio-Cortez have ever held.
Sanders, an Independent, wrote on social media on Friday that the turnout is a sign that "the American people will not allow Trump to move us into oligarchy and authoritarianism. We will fight back. We will win."
According to Anna Bahr, Sanders' communications director, the senator's largest rally prior to Denver took place in Brooklyn, New York in 2016, when he was running for president.
Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, wrote online that "something special is happening... Working people are ready to stand together and fight for our democracy. Thank you Colorado!"
At the rally, which took place at Denver's Civic Center Park, the two lawmakers hit on the same themes they spoke about in Arizona.
"The American people are saying loud and clear, we will not accept an oligarchic form of society," Sanders said, according to Colorado Public Radio. "We will not accept the richest guy in the world running all over Washington, making cuts to the Social Security Administration, cuts to the Veterans Administration, almost destroying the Department of Education—all so that they could give over a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest 1%."
"If you don't know your neighbor, it's easier to turn on them," said Ocasio-Cortez, per CPR. "That's why they want to keep us separated, alone, and apart. Scrolling on our phones thinking that the person next to us is some kind of enemy, but they're not."
Sanders launched his "Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here" tour in February, with the aim of talking to Americans about the "takeover of the national government by billionaires and large corporations, and the country's move toward authoritarianism."
The series of "Fighting Oligarchy" events have been taking place as some Democrats have gotten an earful at town halls back home, where constituents have come out to implore them to do more to counter efforts by the Trump administration.
Earlier in the day, Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders also held a rally in Greeley, Colorado—which is represented by Republican Gabe Evans in the House of Representatives—which drew more than 11,000 people.
Semafor reporter David Weigel, who attended both the Greely and Denver rally, posted online that at the Greeley rally it wasn't easy to find people in the crowd who had voted for Sanders in the 2020 presidential primary. Weigel also wrote that the Sanders team told him that half of the RSVPs to the rallies were not from the lawmaker's supporter list.
Eric Blanc, an assistant professor the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University, wrote on Bluesky on Saturday that it is "pretty remarkable how AOC and Bernie have become leaders not just of lefties, but of the Democratic Party's mainstream liberal base."
While its dangerous that "establishment liberals" are yielding to Trump, he wrote, "the silver lining is that this has enabled anti-corporate forces such as labor unions and AOC-Bernie to set the tenor of Resistance 2.0."
"Because today's anti-Trump resistance is more focused on economic concerns, more rooted in labor unions, and more anti-billionaire, it has the potential to sink much deeper roots among working people and, in so doing, to definitively overcome MAGA," wrote Blanc.
'Columbia Has Lost Something It May Never Regain': Outrage as the University Yields to Trump's Demands
"Columbia's capitulation to fascist government intervention is so severe when you really look at the details," wrote an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Mar 22, 2025
Columbia University received a wave of criticism on Friday after it agreed to a number of demands from the Trump administration as part of negotiations over $400 million in federal grants and contracts that the Trump administration had pulled due to the school's alleged "inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students."
The school agreed to a ban on masks and to appoint a senior vice provost with broad power to oversee both the department of Middle East, South Asian, and African Studied and the school's Center for Palestine Studies, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news. Also, Columbia has hired over 30 "special officers" who will have the ability to remove individuals from campus and arrest them, per the memo from the school announcing the update.
On Friday evening, writer Ross Barkan wrote on X, "I confess I don't get Columbia folding. Don't they have an endowment worth many billions? Very rich alumni? Alumni who hate Trump? They could do a massive 'resistance' fundraiser to make up for lost federal dollars. Very odd and very weak." Others echoed this sentiment.
"Columbia's capitulation to fascist government intervention is so severe when you really look at the details," wrote Nour Joudah, an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, on X. "This is pathetic."
Leaders at Columbia's Knight First Amendment Institute expressed sadness. "The administration held up the university at gunpoint, but I can't help but feel that Columbia has lost something it may never regain," wrote the litigation director at the Knight Institute, Alex Abdo, on Friday.
Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight Institute, wrote on Bluesky that it is "a sad day for Columbia and for our democracy."
The episode highlight's the Trump administration's escalating scrutiny of higher education.
In February, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order with the purported aim of rooting out antisemitism on college campuses, and has vowed to go after foreign-born students who have engaged in pro-Palestine protests, which he has deemed "anti-American activity." The Department of Education—which the Trump administration is endeavoring to shut down—has also launched investigations into dozens of universities over alleged "race-exclusionary practices."
But Columbia has so far been at the center of the administration's feud with universities. In a March 7 press release, members of Trump's Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced the cancellation of $400 million, and a day later immigration agents arrested a recent Columbia University graduate who played a major role in pro-Palestine demonstrations last year. The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident, has been widely decried.
On March 13, the Trump administration sent a letter to Columbia University Interim President Katrina Armstrong outlining a series of steps that Columbia must comply with in order to maintain a "continued financial relationship" between the school and the government.
Among the nine demands was a call for disciplinary proceedings for students involved in last year's Gaza Solidarity Encampments and occupation of Hamilton Hall. The same day Columbia received the letter it issued expulsions, multi-year suspensions, and temporary degree revocations for students involved in the Hamilton occupation.
An senior administrator at Columbia told the Journal that the university had considered legal challenges to resist the demands, but decided that the federal government had too many ways to take back money from the university. Columbia has an endowment of about $15 billion, though according to the outlet it would not "take long for it to cease to operate in any recognizable form without government money."
"Additionally the school believed there was considerable overlap between needed campus changes and Trump's demands," according to the Journal.
Israel Bombs Gaza's Only Cancer Hospital in 'US-Backed War Crime' as Death Toll Grows
One group noted that Israel "bombs hospitals, kills healthcare workers, blocks medicine, and destroys clinics—leaving Palestinians without treatment as disease spreads, starvation worsens, and people suffer."
Mar 21, 2025
U.S.-backed Israeli forces drew international condemnation Friday after bombing the only cancer hospital in the Gaza Strip, where more than 700 Palestinians including over 200 children have been killed this week and where the death toll from 532 days of genocidal assault is approaching at least 50,000.
Israel Defense Forces troops carried out an airstrike on the abandoned Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in Gaza's Netzarim Corridor, where the IDF launched what it called a "limited ground operation" earlier this week amid a ferocious wave of airstrikes that have killed at least 700 Palestinians, including 200 children and 112 women, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. More than 900 other Palestinians have been injured since Israel unilaterally broke a cease-fire.
Today, Israeli occupation forces blew up Gaza’s Turkish Friendship Hospital. It was the last hospital in Gaza that was able to treat cancer patients. This is a US-backed war crime.
[image or embed]
— CODEPINK ( @codepink.bsky.social) March 21, 2025 at 8:01 AM
"The ministry emphasizes that this criminal behavior of the occupation comes in line with the systematic destruction of the health system and the completion of the episodes of genocide," the Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement, adding that the renewed Israeli slaughter has brought the overall Gaza death toll since October 2023 to at least 49,617, with upward of 112,950 others injured, and approximately 14,000 more missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble.
The effects of Israel's bombing and invasion—which include widespread starvation and sickness—have been exacerbated by the "completem siege" imposed on Gaza in October 2023 and the forced displacement of around 2 million Palestinians.
The IDF said it bombed the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital because Hamas, which rules Gaza and carried out the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, was using the facility as "terrorist infrastructure." No evidence was provided to support this allegation; past Israeli claims of this nature have been
debunked.
In fact, the IDF had used the facility as a base from which snipers indiscriminately shot Palestinians including women and children who tried to cross what Israeli soldiers and veterans described as a "kill zone." One IDF veteran said that these random slayings have become "a competition between units" to see who can kill more people.
Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital—which was built using a $34 million donation from Turkey—was the only one in Gaza equipped to treat cancer patients, although the facility had not been used as a hospital for over a year. Prior to Israel's onslaught, the hospital provided critical treatment to thousands of cancer patients.
In a statement Friday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry condemned Israel's latest hospital bombing.
"The deliberate targeting of a hospital providing healthcare services to civilians in Gaza is part of Israel's policy to render Gaza unlivable and force the Palestinian people into displacement," the ministry asserted, according to Hürriyet Daily News. "We urge the international community to take firm and effective steps against Israel's unlawful attacks and systematic state terrorism."
Israeli forces have obliterated Gaza's medical infrastructure along with the rest of the densely populated strip. Last year, an independent United Nations commission found that "Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza's healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities."
The report detailed hundreds of IDF attacks on Gaza healthcare facilities and the killing or wounding of around 1,700 medical workers, calling such killings "widespread and systematic."
Israel is the subject of an ongoing
genocide case brought before the International Court of Justice in The Hague by South Africa. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are also wanted by the International Criminal Court, also in The Hague, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
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