Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar received some support from a fellow previous holder of the cabinet position.
"When it comes to pandemics, anything that you say in advance of a pandemic sounds alarmist and anything you've done after it starts is inadequate," former Utah Governor and former U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt told Cheddar Monday.
Leavitt, who warned the nation was unprepared for a pandemic when he took over in 2005 under President George W. Bush, said the current secretary, Alex Axar, "is closely following a well-established plan that was laid out years ago and was used by two administrations before this." Azar reportedly warned in early January the potential new outbreak was a big deal, but the Trump administration had downsized the pandemic preparedness team that was part of the National Security Council and did not follow the NSC pandemic playbook.
"Candidly, there are limits to what the federal government can do because most of the resources to actually fight an emergency like this belong to the states," he said. But, a pandemic puts everyone on the front line, creating "a uniquely local emergency" that requires each family, business, church, and school to have a plan.
From political leaders to people staying home, Leavitt said "every American needs to understand that they have a role" in curbing the spread of the novel coronavirus by making sure they aren't accidentally spreading the virus to strangers or loved ones.
"Right now, everything is affected, everyone is affected, and therefore there is a role for everyone," he said. Leavitt, who said a close friend had died yesterday due to coronavirus, said experiences like that are "causing all of us to become much more understanding of the severity of this."
Pandemics fundamentally change the shape of the world, Leavitt said. He said he has studied pandemics throughout history and thinks "we're going to see profound impact on [politics, economics, and sociology]."
"There are very few times in the history of a nation where everyone's heart sort of beats together for the same purpose. And we are uniting and doing remarkable things as a country" he said.
A public petition for the British government not to go through with Brexit gained so many signatures that the Parliament website crashed on Thursday.
There's a phenomenon on the internet called the "Streisand Effect," whereby a person's attempt to suppress information ends up widely publicizing that very same information. It was named after a situation an incident when Barbra Streisand tried to keep images of her Malibu mansion off the web and inadvertently drew massive amounts of attention to it. And it's why Devin Nunes' mom was trending on Twitter Tuesday morning.
The Democratic National Committee stands by its decision not to allow Fox News to host a Democratic primary debate in the 2020 presidential election, a party official told Cheddar on Thursday. "Our role at the DNC is to make sure we have a fair process and we do not believe Fox News can have a fair debate,” the DNC communications director Xochitl Hinojosa said.
In a presidential field that's growing more crowded by the day, Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is looking to stand out by making foreign policy central to her campaign while her fellow Democratic candidates tussle over progressive moonshots like the Green New Deal or Medicare for All. At a campaign event in Concord, N.H., during the Presidents Day weekend, Cheddar's J.D. Durkin spoke with Gabbard, who said her agenda is based on her belief that the U.S. is "addicted" to regime-change wars.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019.
While New York City is mired in finger-pointing over the loss of Amazon's HQ2, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey urges the company to reconsider the bid that Newark made.
According to House Ways and Means Committee Member Judy Chu, the GOP "made false claims" about the tax bill that passed in December of 2017 and is taking effect this tax season. "They said things like the American public would get on the average a $4,000 per person increase. Well, that is certainly not the case," Chu, a California Democrat, told Cheddar.
Bradley Tusk, the founder and CEO of Tusk Strategies and former campaign manager of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, knows exactly why Amazon's HQ2 plans in New York City fell apart. "It's not that we didn't get it because of some geopolitical economic trend or something out of our control. We didn't get it because our own politicians and Amazon themselves were too incompetent and too arrogant and too tone deaf to get it right," Tusk told Cheddar.
Amazon's blog post announcing it will pull the plug on its New York City headquarters is nothing but a bluff to bring politicians back to the negotiating table, said D.A. Davidson Analyst Tom Forte. "Absolutely Amazon's bluffing," Forte told Cheddar Friday.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
