CBP Incompetence Results in Airport Chaos as U.S. Cases Spiral Out of Control

As the number of U.S. confirmed coronavirus cases continue to spiral upward, President Trump announced that he was expanding his European travel ban-- adding the United Kingdom and Ireland to its list less than 24 hours since initially excluding them.  The Trump administration did not coordinate the move with European governments or the airline industry, resulting in panic and chaos at European airports as American rushed to book return flights, not knowing if they would be allowed back.

Customs and Border Protection (which is part of Homeland Security), failed to staff up and prepare for the sudden influx of Americans coming home.  The result was shockingly long lines for customs at JFK, Dallas-Fort Worth and O'Hare airports.  People were jammed into airport hallways and terminals, which resulted in many additional American being exposed to risk of catching the virus.

While this shit-storm was playing out, Google was forced to admit that it was not actually building the website Trump described. Not with 1,700 engineers. Not at all. Another company owned by the same parent company as Google is working on a site connected to the coronavirus, but it is absolutely nothing like what Trump described. In a press event that was entirely designed to make Trump’s disastrous handling of this crisis look better, Donald Trump decided the best approach was to simply lie his ass off.

Donald Trump's credibility was quickly called into question-- yet again-- when he originally announced that Google was working on a website to be “very quickly done”—a claim that was refuted the next day by the tech giant, which said the tool is still “in the very early stages of development.”   The company gave no indication of a timeframe and said the tool, still in early development by Google and Verily, would be tested in the Bay Area “with the hope of expanding more broadly over time.”

Trump also said the website would help members of the public “determine whether a [coronavirus] test is warranted.”  The head of communications at Verily, an Alphabet subsidiary, admitted that the website was actually a “triage website” that was intended for health workers rather than the general public.

It was also not immediately clear where Trump got the “1,700 engineers” figure, but an employee at Google told reporters that number was blatantly incorrect.   “There's absolutely not 1,700 engineers at Verily-- fewer than 1,000 people work at the biosciences company, the employee said.