Trump and his dumb voters must be sick of winning all the time
He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus The chaotic culture of the Trump White House contributed to the crisis. A lack of planning and a failure to execute,
combined with the president’s focus on the news cycle and his preference for following his gut rather than the data cost time, and perhaps lives.WASHINGTON — “Any way you cut it, this is going to be bad,” a senior medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Carter Mecher, wrote on the night of Jan. 28, in an email to a group of public health experts scattered around the government and universities. “The projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe.”
A week after the first coronavirus case had been identified in the United States, and six long weeks before President Trump finally took aggressive action to confront the danger the nation was facing — a pandemic that is now forecast to take tens of thousands of American lives — Dr. Mecher was urging the upper ranks of the nation’s public health bureaucracy to wake up and prepare for the possibility of far more drastic action.
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“You guys made fun of me screaming to close the schools,” he wrote to the group, which called itself “Red Dawn,” an inside joke based on the 1984 movie about a band of Americans trying to save the country after a foreign invasion. “Now I’m screaming, close the colleges and universities.”
a screen shot of a video game: “Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion,” President Trump said last month. He has repeatedly said that no one could have seen the effects of the coronavirus coming.© Erin Schaff/The New York Times “Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion,” President Trump said last month. He has repeatedly said that no one could have seen the effects of the coronavirus coming.
His was hardly a lone voice. Throughout January, as Mr. Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and focused on other issues, an array of figures inside his government — from top White House advisers to experts deep in the cabinet departments and intelligence agencies — identified the threat, sounded alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action.
The president, though, was slow to absorb the scale of the risk and to act accordingly, focusing instead on controlling the message, protecting gains in the economy and batting away warnings from senior officials. It was a problem, he said, that had come out of nowhere and could not have been foreseen.
a man wearing a suit and tie: Dr. Robert Kadlec with the Department of Health and Human Services ran an exercise with the White House Task Force in February that helped convince some in the administration to push for taking more urgent action against the virus.© T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times Dr. Robert Kadlec with the Department of Health and Human Services ran an exercise with the White House Task Force in February that helped convince some in the administration to push for taking more urgent action against the virus.
Even after Mr. Trump took his first concrete action at the end of January — limiting travel from China — public health often had to compete with economic and political considerations in internal debates, slowing the path toward belated decisions to seek more money from Congress, obtain necessary supplies, address shortfalls in testing and ultimately move to keep much of the nation at home.
Unfolding as it did in the wake of his impeachment by the House and in the midst of his Senate trial, Mr. Trump’s response was colored by his suspicion of and disdain for what he viewed as the “Deep State” — the very people in his government whose expertise and long experience might have guided him more quickly toward steps that would slow the virus, and likely save lives.
Decision-making was also complicated by a long-running dispute inside the administration over how to deal with China. The virus at first took a back seat to a desire not to upset Beijing during trade talks, but later the impulse to score points against Beijing left the world’s two leading powers further divided as they confronted one of the first truly global threats of the 21st century.
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The shortcomings of Mr. Trump’s performance have played out with remarkable transparency as part of his daily effort to dominate television screens and the national conversation.
But dozens of interviews with current and former officials and a review of emails and other records revealed many previously unreported details and a fuller picture of the roots and extent of his halting response as the deadly virus spread:
a park bench next to a fence: The president urged social distancing in mid-March but almost immediately began talking about reopening the economy.© Andrew Seng for The New York Times The president urged social distancing in mid-March but almost immediately began talking about reopening the economy.
■ The National Security Council office responsible for tracking pandemics received intelligence reports in early January predicting the spread of the virus to the United States, and within weeks was raising options like keeping Americans home from work and shutting down cities the size of Chicago. Mr. Trump would avoid such steps until March.
■ Despite Mr. Trump’s denial weeks later, he was told at the time about a Jan. 29 memo produced by his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, laying out in striking detail the potential risks of a coronavirus pandemic: as many as half a million deaths and trillions of dollars in economic losses.
■ The health and human services secretary, Alex M. Azar II, directly warned Mr. Trump of the possibility of a pandemic during a call on Jan. 30, the second warning he delivered to the president about the virus in two weeks. The president, who was on Air Force One while traveling for appearances in the Midwest, responded that Mr. Azar was being alarmist.
■ Mr. Azar publicly announced in February that the government was establishing a “surveillance” system in five American cities to measure the spread of the virus and enable experts to project the next hot spots. It was delayed for weeks. The slow start of that plan, on top of the well-documented failures to develop the nation’s testing capacity, left administration officials with almost no insight into how rapidly the virus was spreading. “We were flying the plane with no instruments,” one official said.
C. Douglas Mcmillon, Mike Pence are posing for a picture: Vice President Mike Pence visiting a Walmart distribution center in Gordonsville, Va. this month. He was put in charge of the coronavirus task force after Mr. Trump clashed with Alex M. Azar II, the health and human services secretary.© Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times Vice President Mike Pence visiting a Walmart distribution center in Gordonsville, Va. this month. He was put in charge of the coronavirus task force after Mr. Trump clashed with Alex M. Azar II, the health and human services secretary.
■ By the third week in February, the administration’s top public health experts concluded they should recommend to Mr. Trump a new approach that would include warning the American people of the risks and urging steps like social distancing and staying home from work. But the White House focused instead on messaging and crucial additional weeks went by before their views were reluctantly accepted by the president — time when the virus spread largely unimpeded.
a person wearing a suit and tie: Matthew Pottinger, left, the deputy national security adviser, was among those in the administration who pushed for imposing limits on travel from China.© Andrew Harnik/Associated Press Matthew Pottinger, left, the deputy national security adviser, was among those in the administration who pushed for imposing limits on travel from China.
When Mr. Trump finally agreed in mid-March to recommend social distancing across the country, effectively bringing much of the economy to a halt, he seemed shellshocked and deflated to some of his closest associates. One described him as “subdued” and “baffled” by how the crisis had played out. An economy that he had wagered his re-election on was suddenly in shambles.
a person standing in a room: An I.C.U. ward at Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital in Bergamo, Italy last month where critical Covid-19 patients were hospitalized.© Fabio Bucciarelli for The New York Times An I.C.U. ward at Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital in Bergamo, Italy last month where critical Covid-19 patients were hospitalized.
He only regained his swagger, the associate said, from conducting his daily White House briefings, at which he often seeks to rewrite the history of the past several months. He declared at one point that he “felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic,” and insisted at another that he had to be a “cheerleader for the country,” as if that explained why he failed to prepare the public for what was coming.
Mr. Trump’s allies and some administration officials say the criticism has been unfair. The Chinese government misled other governments, they say. And they insist that the president was either not getting proper information, or the people around him weren’t conveying the urgency of the threat. In some cases, they argue, the specific officials he was hearing from had been discredited in his eyes, but once the right information got to him through other channels, he made the right calls.
Anthony S. Fauci wearing a suit and tie: Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Robert Redfield, two leading members of the administration’s public health team, were ready to back a shift in administration strategy by late February.© Pete Marovich for The New York Times Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Robert Redfield, two leading members of the administration’s public health team, were ready to back a shift in administration strategy by late February.
“While the media and Democrats refused to seriously acknowledge this virus in January and February, President Trump took bold action to protect Americans and unleash the full power of the federal government to curb the spread of the virus, expand testing capacities and expedite vaccine development even when we had no true idea the level of transmission or asymptomatic spread,” said Judd Deere, a White House spokesman.
a bunch of items that are on a table: A temporary hospital for Covid-19 patients in Wuhan, China, where the virus originated. Crosscurrents in the administration’s China policy complicated its response to the outbreak.© Chinatopix, via Associated Press A temporary hospital for Covid-19 patients in Wuhan, China, where the virus originated. Crosscurrents in the administration’s China policy complicated its response to the outbreak.
There were key turning points along the way, opportunities for Mr. Trump to get ahead of the virus rather than just chase it. There were internal debates that presented him with stark choices, and moments when he could have chosen to ask deeper questions and learn more. How he handled them may shape his re-election campaign. They will certainly shape his legacy.
The Containment Illusion
By the last week of February, it was clear to the administration’s public health team that schools and businesses in hot spots would have to close. But in the turbulence of the Trump White House, it took three more weeks to persuade the president that failure to act quickly to control the spread of the virus would have dire consequences.
a man wearing a suit and tie talking on a cell phone: Peter Navarro, Mr. Trump’s trade adviser, warned that a pandemic could cost the United States trillions of dollars and put millions of Americans at risk of illness or death.© Doug Mills/The New York Times Peter Navarro, Mr. Trump’s trade adviser, warned that a pandemic could cost the United States trillions of dollars and put millions of Americans at risk of illness or death.
When Dr. Robert Kadlec, the top disaster response official at the Health and Human Services Department, convened the White House coronavirus task force on Feb. 21, his agenda was urgent. There were deep cracks in the administration’s strategy for keeping the virus out of the United States. They were going to have to lock down the country to prevent it from spreading. The question was: When?
a group of people looking at a man in a suit and tie: Traders at the New York Stock Exchange on March 9, when stocks suffered their worst single-day decline in more than a decade. Two days later, Mr. Trump announced restrictions on travel from Europe.© Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times Traders at the New York Stock Exchange on March 9, when stocks suffered their worst single-day decline in more than a decade. Two days later, Mr. Trump announced restrictions on travel from Europe.
There had already been an alarming spike in new cases around the world and the virus was spreading across the Middle East. It was becoming apparent that the administration had botched the rollout of testing to track the virus at home, and a smaller-scale surveillance program intended to piggyback on a federal flu tracking system had also been stillborn.
In Washington, the president was not worried, predicting that by April, “when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.” His White House had yet to ask Congress for additional funding to prepare for the potential cost of wide-scale infection across the country, and health care providers were growing increasingly nervous about the availability of masks, ventilators and other equipment.
What Mr. Trump decided to do next could dramatically shape the course of the pandemic — and how many people would get sick and die.
With that in mind, the task force had gathered for a tabletop exercise — a real-time version of a full-scale war gaming of a flu pandemic the administration had run the previous year. That earlier exercise, also conducted by Mr. Kadlec and called “Crimson Contagion,” predicted 110 million infections, 7.7 million hospitalizations and 586,000 deaths following a hypothetical outbreak that started in China.
a person wearing a mask: A worker at a Starbucks at an airport in Beijing in January checks a customer’s temperature.© Kevin Frayer/Getty Images A worker at a Starbucks at an airport in Beijing in January checks a customer’s temperature.
Facing the likelihood of a real pandemic, the group needed to decide when to abandon “containment” — the effort to keep the virus outside the U.S. and to isolate anyone who gets infected — and embrace “mitigation” to thwart the spread of the virus inside the country until a vaccine becomes available.
Among the questions on the agenda, which was reviewed by The New York Times, was when the department’s secretary, Mr. Azar, should recommend that Mr. Trump take textbook mitigation measures “such as school dismissals and cancellations of mass gatherings,” which had been identified as the next appropriate step in a Bush-era pandemic plan.
a man standing next to a woman: Dr. Deborah Birx eventually helped convince Mr. Trump that stricter measures needed to be taken.© Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times Dr. Deborah Birx eventually helped convince Mr. Trump that stricter measures needed to be taken.
The exercise was sobering. The group — including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci of the National Institutes of Health; Dr. Robert R. Redfield of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Mr. Azar, who at that stage was leading the White House Task Force — concluded they would soon need to move toward aggressive social distancing, even at the risk of severe disruption to the nation’s economy and the daily lives of millions of Americans.
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