How Trump Blew The Coronavirus Response
Seated at his desk in the Oval Office for a prime-time address on Wednesday, President Donald Trump faced a pivotal moment. The global coronavirus pandemic had claimed thousands of lives and reached U.S. shores as global markets took historic plunges. In a normal world, Trump would look presidential, stick to the teleprompter, and assure Americans that his administration understood the threat facing the country and would take dramatic action to curb the spread of the deadly virus.
That didn’t happen. Trump bungled key facts about the administration’s response — three assertions had to be immediately walked back by White House staff — congratulated himself on his supposedly excellent work so far, and blamed other countries for letting the disease spread.
As Trump spoke, global stocks and U.S. futures tumbled further. At almost the same moment, police were shutting down a basketball arena in Oklahoma City after a player on the Utah Jazz tested positive for the coronavirus — which immediately sparked a suspension of the entire NBA season. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announced they had contracted the virus. By Thursday morning, major sports leagues had suspended operations, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Broadway theaters shut down, and the Democratic presidential debate was relocated from Arizona to a studio in Washington, D.C.
By the morning after Trump’s speech, administration officials were grumbling anonymously to reporters about having to clean up the president’s mess. It was emblematic of his administration’s entire bumbling, self-serving approach to the pandemic. Trump has shown that his ultimate priority is to evade blame. The president has shown he has no qualms about peddling false information to make himself look good, even when downplaying the threat discourages Americans from taking steps to contain the virus. And when the threat could no longer be ignored, Trump fell back on a familiar strategy: exploit the country’s legitimate fears to justify a racist, nativist response. Meanwhile, his administration’s failures to effectively test for the coronavirus and contain its spread was costing lives.
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