After Trump’s Failures, Governors Step Up But Find Emergency Powers Don’t Last Forever

One year into the coronavirus pandemic, and leaders in government have made decisions trying to balance Americans’ individual freedoms against the health and safety of everyone else. MSNBC’s Ari Melber explores if this decision-making power should really be up to one person by detailing how different governors across the country handled the coronavirus and by looking to lessons that can be gleaned from “The Dark Knight Rises” in this special report. (This interview is from MSNBC’s “The Beat with Ari Melber, a news show covering politics, law and culture airing nightly at 6pm ET on MSNBC. ). Aired on 03/16/2021.
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After Trump’s Failures, Governors Step Up But Find Emergency Powers Don't Last Forever

81 comments

    1. @Brian Jones 100% wrong on all three; not anti-American, not radical, not leftist. You really do seem to be lacking any cognitive ability.

    2. Meanwhile from the other side of the world …sitting back watching America slowly destroy itself ….I used to think it was funny…now its just sad smh

  1. For supposedly being a forward thinking democracy, America has the most convoluted and ridiculous political system.

    1. Trump did everything in his power to delegitimise our covid response, disbanding our emergency agencies, disavowing our CDC and the World Health Organization. Blaming China and yet, telling us, the American people, that the pandemic was like the Flu. ‘It’s going to simply go away, like magic!’
      Never forget!

    2. Yea apparently they can be bribed or bought thats why the retrumplicans back track and change opinion on a whim. Hes got some dirt on them obviously

    3. @Brian Jones actually we had no vaccinations under trump…HE LIED. doctors and nurses proved there was no reserve so BIDEN ordered 400 million doses…so check your facts even Trump media reported THAT big lie….

    4. @Andrew Flowers thats 100 percent correct. I wouldnt be surprised if Trump allowed China to poison usm.hoping only the poor would die…China is big on population control ….Trump only loves rich people….Id believe he caused the pandemic with Kim and China before I would believe he ever HELPED US.

  2. Trump: “I want to see Biden in prison.”
    Biden: “What on Earth gives Trump the idea that I’ll come visit him in prison?”

    1. @Omni Service literate people understand that President Trump was acquitted twice and move on with it. Looks like you love him so much you can’t help but think about him every day! #MAGA! #KeepAmericaGreat!!!

    2. @Gabriel Chambers
      No Gabe its called,” M.A.G.A.T.”, i,e. Make America Grieve, Agent, Trumpski!. Now just go ask a mr v putin, his democracy wrecking trainer O-kay.👌

  3. How many jobs saved justifies a life lost? When it truly isn’t you at risk in that situation, should you be allowed to decide? When one life lost can destroy a whole family. What is their price for a human life?

    1. What do you feel an acceptable amount of people should die to keep businesses open. Two or three million?

    2. Considering the facts that the Republicans forced meat packing plants to stay open and tried to pass legislation that would bar people from suing their employers when they contract COVID-19 at work and weren’t given proper protective equipment, the answer is clear — Republicans place absolutely zero value on human life (except their own, of course).

    3. @No More don’t forget they also sped up the processing speeds even faster making things even more complicated. My mom is a Portuguese immigrant who a long time ago worked at a foster farms processing chicken but quit because of the increasing speeds of conveying chicken at the time. Cutting 10 chickens per minute is harder than it appears and then move it up to 12 then 14. Somethings gonna give.

  4. People want to live… I admire the Governors who have listen to scientists and did their best to protect the people in their states…Unfortunately there are several Republicans who refused to put people first

    1. @Donna Brockbank yes, and we saw how that was handled when tRump had all his conventions and parties with no social distancing and very few people wearing masks. Then there would be a surge in cases. Yeah, right! Common sense👎not!

    2. @Tami Wollander ABSOLUTELY, THE TRUTH! What most people are afraid to say/ tell/ reveal…is the Controlling majority is the one’s leading the rebellion against the VIRUS.

      Based on the classic tactical Privelage and personal ” bigotry” disguised as well educated rhetoric!!! Not new! Same old crap!!!!!

    3. @MG Learn What?? What we already have known? Or the fact that the most powerful men are WHITE? Or The fact that ” men ” shall become ” controlled slaves”??

    4. @Andrew L PickfordIII you either…..1. really believe what you saying or 2. You are one of those lazy sjw that uses that rhetoric to justify the inevitable coming your way…..either way you screwed man

    1. @Altrusian WolfDog I agree however, we are seeing fewer and fewer ‘real people’ in the USA. I think more people are looking for a free ride, some sort of a government handout or assistance. Even during times of disaster people are no longer self-sufficient. For many years we have had a generator to provide power window the power company fails to deliver. We have a filter system to provide drinking water that I can carry in buckets from the creek. We have plenty of dried food to last several weeks. I don’t believe many people can manage on their own.

    2. @T. R. Campbell Makes sense, people have become weak offset by their supposed superior intellect and lack of common sense..I’m also a mountain boy who is prepared and capable of handling absolute worst case scenarios..All I can say is my day we didn’t have to put warning labels on laundry detergent to keep people from eating it…

    1. Your rights end at the tip of your own nose. My grandma said the same.
      Meaning you don’t have the right to infringe on the rights of others.
      People seem to forget they aren’t alone in the universe.
      We’re supposed to outgrow that at age 3.

    2. @grannypantsification wrong. Op had it right. What it means is you can do whatever you want until it hurts others. Its another way of saying “your right to swing your arms around ends at my face.” Eg: As soon as you punch my nose, you’ve crossed the line from freedom to assault.

    1. @Julie James illiterate means you can’t read. He can clearly read as he is writing so accurately that he only missed one letter. You are what is known as an ignorant asshat.

    2. @Julie James Do you want to dial down the aggression? So maybe the O.P. is not great at spelling, or maybe it was a typo, no one cares. We all understood his sentence, you jerk.

    3. @Pat Robbins I think the O.P. is referring to yours! You should probably check your post before making fun of others. 😀

  5. Voted against him, but as an ohioan I’ll say governor dewine is a good man. Will vote for him in the future

  6. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” Kris Kristopherson

    Mostly, “freedom” is a cover for putting the wealth of the individual before the health of the community.

    1. Freedom will always have to fight against those who choose to manipulate the masses. If you want freedom and intend to keep it-you have to participate. No one said it is yours on a silver platter. It’s like laws. They matter. Get up on them. Get involved. If you sit and watch then you make it easy for dark influence.

    2. Thanks Mark… I learned something today. I never knew Kristopherson wrote ‘Me and Bobby Mcgee’, nor that it was originally performed by Fred Miller….. I always thought it was all Joplin.
      As for your take on ‘freedom’ I would also add that it is a shield used by those that want to do something they know they shouldn’t ( or don’t want to do something they know they should). It’s invocation absolves them from having to actually think about the ramifications and they can discard any reasoning behind their decision.

  7. Just about everyone is feeling financially stressed and that doesn’t give anyone the right to put others at risk. People can’t spend down the road if they’re dead.

    1. Alot of people don’t care,but let someone close to them die then they will sing a different tune.

    2. If they hadn’t been crying and throwing tantrums over their “freedom”, we’d have gotten through this far FASTER and with far less death. But try telling that to snowflakes who can’t stand to be told “no” about anything.

  8. This all falls on Trump’s Lap people Remember . Where Is the Testing ? !!!!!!!!!!!!! He never put out enough testing , He had no idea how to . Businessman ? My ******* .

    1. @Robert Kunferman that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve read today. You people never look at facts.

    2. Don’t forget Trump’s brilliant idea — slow down the testing because if you don’t test people, they won’t get the virus. That was right up there (intellectually) with injecting disinfectant into the body.

  9. Dewine has been a good gov. He never sold his soul to trump and always had the safety of the people of ohio in mind.

    1. @MG If you’re taking about a standard election then yes. But politicians can be responsible for doing horrible things which in certain cases should result in removal, resignation, charges.

  10. They want all these freedoms but don’t act like adults enough to wear masks, do some social distancing and simply take care of themselves!

    1. I tend to agree. Although for many elderly people that is their Only community. Still, there are craven churches, mega-churches that tell people how to vote. Organized religion is a rising threat to our democracy. It used to be “the poor will get their rewards in heaven” (keeping them down) and the rich will have their rewards now. It was quite successful.

    2. @Kate M. In the early middle ages the black death revisited Europe every twenty years or so, with devistating concequences. Which, over time, challenged people’s concepts of belief. TRUMP, the denier and self appointed chosen one (lol) acted in the same way kings of old did, IGNORE it and it will disappear. The upshot though was labour was in such high demand the working peasants could charge higher and higher prices for their labour. Religion is a highly over rated man made concept!

    3. It is sad. Unfortunately, you have millions of idiots (if not tens or hundreds of millions) who think they need to step into a specific building and listen to a specific person in order to validate their belief system, which, ironically, proves they have no belief system (or they have a truly corrupt version of one). On the other hand, most of these idiots claim to be Christian, yet they violate the Ten Commandments on a daily basis.

  11. As our parents said “life’s not fair” so if you want to run around exposing others and refusing to get vaccinated I say stay home and do whatever you want. In public everyone should be required to be vaccinated. With freedom comes great responsibility

  12. This was an emergency in February of 2020. It was election year so the president at that time decided his election was more important than saving American lives.

    1. Any President with half a brain would have done the right thing, saved lives, and used that as the main focus in his reelection campaign (and probably would have won easily). Sadly, we had a sadistic dictator who enjoys watching people die. Even more sadly, close to half of the voting population shares that trait.

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