When I casually speculated that states would take matters into their own hands once Trump's grand "plans" for reopening the economy collapse, I did not necessarily think that would happen later on the same day.
There is no clear direction from Trump's White House and it's a fairly safe bet that there never will be so, to that end, groups of states are now forming their own consortiums for reopening their economies.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced during this daily press briefing yesterday that he was forming a pact with five other states.
(Reuters) - The governors of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Delaware said on Monday that they planned to coordinate on a plan to reopen businesses and schools after getting the novel coronavirus pandemic under control.
The governors, who all spoke to the press via conference call, did not provide specifics on the timing of any reopening and indicated that while coordinating they would alter their approaches based on the needs of each state.
California Governor Gavin Newsome also announced that's forming a similar group.
"Our residents' health comes first," Govs. Gavin Newsom of California, Kate Brown of Oregon and Jay Inslee of Washington said in a joint statement. "As home to one in six Americans and gateway to the rest of the world, the West Coast has an outsized stake in controlling and ultimately defeating COVID-19."
"Health outcomes and science — not politics — will guide these decisions," the Western governors said.
These groups of states probably have only vague ideas about how they will proceed at this point because so much is still uncertain, but that's more than anyone is getting from Trump and his task force of idiots.
I expect Trump is infuriated by the existence of these groups and will be even more so when they don't listen to him next month when he calls for immediately reopening the economy.
I would not be surprised to see Republican-controlled states form their own groups that will actually take dictation from Trump. You know, to own the libs.