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Comment by rriepe | Hacker News Reader

We're not. It's the same article about Trump that has come out every weekend for the last four years.

Here's the formula: He's literally a Saturday morning cartoon villain. There are no sources, but it's bad. We only have one half of the story so far but it's a real scorcher. Surely he's finished this time!

By the time the clarification comes out, they will be on to the next villainous plot. You'll get that sweet rush of denouncing him as an asshole and then we'll be off to next week's villainous plot.

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Do you have examples of where Trump isn’t that bad? And do you have them where it’s actually for sure he who is the one who makes the situation better? Not his advisors and others pushing it or him reacting to the backlash.

IE Europe flights ban not including U.K. but then including U.K. later. Based on your comment, I assume you could say that was all trump fixing to include the U.K. with no effect of others or the backlash affecting him. But maybe I’m wrong.

I'm pretty sure he is good at filling his own pockets, but not through normal means.

The wall - since he is in real estate, he would earn a lot of money by choosing the constructor

Oil - sidestepping official channels and trying to put known friend in place ( Ukraine) + Big fossile companies trying to change the path forward, protecting their current investments through all means

Russia - at least one country that is obvious to try to manipulate things with bribery

Tax cuts - guess why

Stocks - he is known for trying to manipulate stocks well before he was the president

Trump name in license - since almost all the rest of his business failed, he needs to act like he is a legend ( ps. He's just a dumb guy with a life-time of manipulation experience)

Daddy - since he is not smart enough to get it from zero

Is the German Health Ministry a good enough source for you?

"Contacted by Reuters, a spokeswoman for the German Health Ministry said: "We confirm the report in the Welt am Sonntag.""

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/15/coronavirus-germany-trie...

They confirmed they Trump offered them money to research in Vaccine in the US

Not that Trump wants the Vaccine "only for the US"

The truth, like with anything, is probably in the middle. In that what ever nation developed the vaccine their citizens will be the ones to get access to it first, logic dictates that if the vaccine is develop in Germany it will be distributed around Germany first, then other nations shortly there after (probably EU nations next, then the UK, then the US which could be weeks later). Most likely The American government would want that to happen in the US first.

If that weren't the case, so if the Trump administration just wanted to invest and also have access to the vaccine, this wouldn't be news and just business as usual, and everybody would benefit from it. Also, that would not get the CEO fired, and the German government wouldn't engage in talks in this case. So the evidence strongly suggests that the reports from multiple sources are indeed correct.

What logic ACTUALLY dictates is that once the vaccine is developed, the license to produce it is sold to all countries so that each country affected can begin mass producing it for their populations, and the global vaccine production capacity is utilized.

> The truth, like with anything, is probably in the middle

The story, really, isn't about truth. It's about trust. The German government clearly does not trust the USA to share a vaccine. And why would they? Everyone who's been watching US foreign policy for the last three years knows the "America First" bent of its chief executive. They know the kind of xenophobic stuff that gets said on its "state television station" every day. They can read polls, and know that the political base of the ruling party would genuinely cheer for a situation where the USA had exclusive access to a vaccine.

So they don't trust the US to control a biochem company. That's a problem, but it's not a problem with this particular event (realistically we're going to get a ton of vaccine variants from different labs -- vaccine development is hardly rocket surgery, as it were). It's a problem with the way US (really republican) foreign policy has been positioned in the modern world.

And it's kind of a disaster.

Trust is a key commodity in times of crisis. A commodity that, sadly, has been squandered all to readily in recent years.

Well then I guess we are going to disagree on foreign policy, while I am not 100% on board with the "America First" train, I am also opposed to Globalism and losing American Sovereignty, trade deals that favor corporations and disfavor American Citizens, I also dont like my tax money being used to Secure and police other nations.

So far there is not much Trump as done in regards to foreign policy that I disagree with

> So far there is not much Trump as done in regards to foreign policy that I disagree with

Except for culturing a situation where one of our closest allies justifiably doesn't trust us to help them out, even in straightforward ways, in the biggest international crisis of the last 70 years, you mean.

We've come a fucking long way from the Berlin airlift, huh? The biggest disaster isn't Trump, really. It's the realization that his poison goes so deep in the american psyche. No one will think of us the same again.

> No one will think of us the same again.

Offer a few thousand green-cards at random at embassies around the third world.

You will be forgiven in less than 5 minutes.

This is more or less exactly what I meant. Once upon a time, the US was perceived as a world leader and a savior of last resort, by our own citizens as well as the world community. Now we're seeing another crisis, and our leaders and their followers insist, like you do, on viewing the whole thing through the lens of... unwanted immigration. Seriously?

Basically, we used to be the teachers in the schoolyard. Now we're a ramshackle fort of sneering kids trying to keep people out of "our" stuff.

> the lens of... unwanted immigration. Seriously?

That is not the lens I am seeing it through.

Rather, where I live NO ONE could care less about your world leadership or whether you are or ever were the teachers, blah, blah, blah.

All of us out here will bitch and moan about the USA, but give anyone of us a ticket to the USA (especially if our family can come along) and we'll take it in a heartbeat.

You aren't our teachers, you are the bank.

Seriously.

The Welt am Sonntag report says "US-Präsident Donald Trump versucht offenbar, deutsche Wissenschaftler, die an einem potenziellen Corona-Impfstoff arbeiten, mit hohen finanziellen Zuwendungen nach Amerika zu locken beziehungsweise das Medikament exklusiv für sein Land zu sichern." which Google Translate assures me means "US President Donald Trump apparently tries to lure German scientists working on a potential corona vaccine to America with high financial donations or to secure the drug exclusively for his country."

https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article206555143/Corona-USA-w...

The idea that Trump wants the vaccine only for the United States is completely insane. It is beyond stupid.

The scenes in O'Hare last night were completely insane and the policy, beyond stupid. "Too stupid to be true" does not seem to be a valid rubric for this administration.

Some stupid and insane stories about him are certainly false, but many of them appear to be true.

It fits with everything we know about Trump, especially his xenophobic politics.

Worse, given his tendencies to punish his perceived political enemies, if such a vaccine were available before November 2020, it is very likely he would have restricted the drug to his supporters (i.e., political officials, donors, and Red states) in a blatant attempt to control the outcome of the election.

For starters, his croneys seem to be able to get tested for it, even though other people can't. Ronna McDaniel got tested but you and I won't be.

It isn't good enough for me, no. This is conjecture at best. Unidentified sources, quotes from a person paraphrasing what they heard Donald Trump say personally (or wanted to hear). This report does not meet the lowest standard for something I might consider believing.

In my humble opinion, given the gravity of the current situation, such "news stories" are in very poor taste. Im personally a whole lot more concerned about the oldest and youngest members of my family. What I don't need is some for-profit media entity trying to drive clicks like this right now.

Until January of 2021, Donald Trump is the President we have, for better or worse. The time to stop political nonsense has passed. This is not a time for division. There will be plenty of time for this BS later.

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