The Worst Thing Trump Did on 2/18/25

I could easily make this about Trump's Russian-directed stance on blaming Ukraine because they were so invadeable, but why not focus on one of the other Trump dumpster fires!

On Sunday, Trump Economic Advisor Kevin Hassett, in an effort to insist Biden's approach to dealing with Avian Flu was horrible, and how the Trump Administration is taking a much more rational and reasonable approach, went on Meet the Press to try to argue...I HAVE NO IDEA!  Read the gibberish for yourself:

Kevin Hassett: “so again, the Biden plan was to just kill chickens. and they spent billions of dollars just randomly killing chickens within a perimeter where they found a sick chicken. and so you go — I just went to the grocery store. I shop for our family in part because I love to look at prices, and there were no eggs at the store yesterday. just a few. and so that happened because they killed all the chickens. so what we need to do is have better ways. biosecurity and medication and so on, to make sure so that the perimeter doesn’t have to kill the chickens. to have a better, smarter perimeter. and so having a smart perimeter is what we’re working on, and we’re finalizing the ideas about how to do that with the best scientists in government, and that’s the kind of thing that should have happened a year ago, and if it had, the egg prices would be a lot better than they are now. but the avian flu is a real thing, and by the way, it’s spread mostly by ducks and geese. think about it. they’re killing chickens to stop the spread, but chickens don’t really fly.”

There is a lot to unpack here.  You have to cull the chickens because they are sick with bird flu, and the risk to humans eating eggs or meat from sick chickens is a big F-ing problem.  As far as vaccinating ALL the chickens, who would pay the astronimical cost of doing that, and how would you even begin to do that?  That's hundreds of millions of chickens, and they are being born pretty constantly. 

And then there is the insanely assinine "Chicken's don't fly, it's all those liberal ducks and geese who are the problem/perimeter" statements, which are stunning for their stupidity. Yes, Braintrust, chickens don't fly, but wild birds, not just ducks and geese, DO! It's impossible to raise chickens without them being exposed to other birds. Cows, cats, goats, sheep, and dogs are all getting avian flu, too.  Does this idiot think they fly?

But let's focus on the 'working with the best scientists in government' statement. At the same time Hassett was talking about the government's best scientists, the Trump Administration was firing them. On Tuesday, the Department of Agriculture said, "Oopsie!" and is now trying to rehire all the best government scientists that Elon and DOGE just fired! 

1) This shows their firing agenda has no plan; it's just removing names from the payrolls without seeing what those people actually do. 

2) The Trump Administration has ZERO plan to deal with Avian Flu, and are so incompetent they sent out "Did you know Chickens can't fly" Guy as their voice of reason.

The current flu epidemic is approaching a 5 per 100 death rate.  If the Avian Flu jumps to a human-to-human flu, it will be closer to 10 deaths per 100. COVID will look like a sniffle comparatively, and clearly, there's no one in the Trump Administration taking this seriously.