Las Vegas, Nevada mayor Carolyn Goodman is refusing to take any responsibility on managing the city during the coronavirus crisis but is actively pushing casinos to re-open – even though they are not in her jurisdiction. Wednesday afternoon Mayor Goodman’s interview with Anderson Cooper went off the rails, frustrating the CNN so much he was forced to call her remarks “really ignorant.”

Cooper showed the mayor a graphic of how coronavirus spreads, based on a study of one person who infected many others in China.

“This isn’t China,” Goodman declared, “this is Las Vegas.”

“Wow, that’s really ignorant,” Cooper was forced to respond. “Yes, it’s in China but they are human beings too.”

Mayor Goodman also told Cooper it’s not her job to issue guidelines on how businesses, like restaurants, should protect their workers, saying, “they better figure it out. That’s their job. That’s not the mayor’s job.”

Many mayors across the country likely disagree, given many have done exactly what Goodman refuses to do.

“I am not a private owner,” Goodman also told Cooper. “That’s the competition in this country. The free enterprise and to be able to make sure that what you offer the public meets the needs of the public.”

At one point Goodman displayed her clear understanding that germs and viruses spread, even citing historical precedent like Legionnaire’s Disease, the West Nile virus, and even “Typhoid Mary,” but also made clear it was of little to no concern to her.

“I’d love everything open because I think we’ve had viruses for years that have been here,” Goodman proclaimed.

Watch:

“Wow, that’s really ignorant.”@AndersonCooper clashes with Las Vegas Mayor Goodman after she justified her wish to quickly reopen casinos saying, “this isn’t China, this is Las Vegas,” after he showed her a graphic of how coronavirus could spread in a restaurant in China. pic.twitter.com/w3QscYmiIH

— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) April 22, 2020

A longtime Fox News contributor is falsely comparing the coronavirus pandemic to the seasonal flu, suggesting stay at home policies and temporary shuttering of the economy were unnecessary, and insisting the pandemic is “not a pandemic.”

Former Reagan Secretary of Education Bill Bennett told “Fox and Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade “we’re going to have fewer fatalities from this than from the flu,” noting “61,000 is what we lost to the flu in 2017 and 2018.”

He pointed to estimates from the University of Washington which currently project the coronavirus pandemic will kill 61,545 in the U.S. through August 4. Bennett is not offering a valid comparison as the pandemic does not end on that date.

But he does inadvertently prove the very tactics he wants to rescind – social distancing and shutting down the economy – are working. And then falsely says, “if you look at those numbers, and see the comparable, we’re going to have fewer fatalities from this than from the flu.”

Bennett then offers up an astonishing, angry lament over the necessary actions taken.

“For this, we scared the hell out of the American people, we lost 17 million jobs, we put a major dent in the economy, we closed down the schools — you heard Dr. Oz say we probably didn’t have to do that — shut down the churches, and so on.”

Dr. Oz, accused of being a promoter of “pseudoscience,” is not an immunologist, public health expert, or infectious diseases expert.

“You know, this was not, and is not a pandemic,” Bennett said, falsely. “But we do have panic and pandemonium as a result of the hype of this. And it’s really unfortunate. Look at the facts.”

Bennett has a curious relationship with facts.

In 2005 Bennett defended his racist remarks about abortion as a “thought experiment,” ABC News reported at the time.

“If you wanted to reduce crime, you could—if that were the sole purpose—you could abort every black baby in this country and the crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.”

ABC News’ report on Bennett’s remarks at the time called called him a “self-styled ‘Values Czar.'”

Here’s Bennett on Fox News Monday morning:

Bill Bennett: Now they say 60,000 people will die. 61,000 is what we lost to the flu in 2017. Now we all regret the loss of 61,000 people if that’s what it turns out to be … we’re gonna have fewer fatalities from this, for this we scared the hell out of the American people. pic.twitter.com/juxrriQjt9

— Lis Power (@LisPower1) April 13, 2020

Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly on Monday visited the coronavirus ravaged crew of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, and told them to their faces their just-fired commanding officer, Capt. Brett Crozier, was “too stupid” to helm their ship, as CNN reported.

Modly fired Captain Crozier after a letter Crozier sent to his superiors desperately asking for help with the then-100 or more sailors infected by the coronavirus leaked to the press. The number has skyrocketed to 173 or more, and Crozier on Sunday was diagnosed with COVID-19 as well.

Captain Crozier, Modly told the crew, was either “too stupid or too naive to be a commanding officer of a ship like this,” according to a transcript (below).

Last week after Modly fired Crozier, the crew gave a dramatic and supportive sendoff, cheering him and chanting his name in thanks.

Crozier’s letter was “a betrayal of trust with me, with his chain of command, with you, with the 800 to a thousand people who, with your shipmates on shore right now, like you [are] busting their asses,” Modly told the sailors Monday.

He also told the sailors to never go to the press.

Related–
Leaked Audio: Sailor Responds With Astonished Expletive as Acting Navy Secretary Blasts Fired Captain as ‘Too Stupid’

“I’m gonna tell you something, all of you,” Modly warned, “there is no, no situation where you go to the media.”

The media has “an agenda,” he claimed, which they use to “embarrass” the Navy “and to embarrass you.”

Capt. Crozier’s letter to his superiors in part stated: “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset: our Sailors.”

Ward Carroll, the former editor of Military.com, now at an independent forum known as the US Naval Institute posted a transcript of Sec. Modly’s remarks:

Transcript of Acting SECNAV’s recent 1MC remarks to the crew of Theodore Roosevelt. (He’s aboard.) Long story short, he’s convinced he did the right thing. pic.twitter.com/uAbSV6QfjJ

— Ward Carroll (@wardcarroll) April 6, 2020