Here are the Trump administration’s four most profound
failures in the pandemic
Opinion by
Columnist
Oct. 27, 2020 at 5:22 p.m. CDT
On
Election Day 2020, it is probable than more than 60,000 Americans will be newly
infected with covid-19, in a pandemic that has taken at least a quarter-million
lives and threatens many more.
This is
the main context for the presidential election. Interviews with senior
officials, who asked to maintain anonymity because they fear retaliation, offer
the picture of a largely functional government betrayed by a deeply
dysfunctional leader.
Taken
together, their testimony outlines four failures of judgment and leadership
that have worsened the trajectory of the pandemic in the United States.
···
The first
is a sin of omission — the failure to act when clear duties arise.
The
federal government’s response to covid-19 began poorly in early February. The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention produced a test for the virus that
was contaminated and initially useless. As errors go, this
was a serious one. No country can shape an adequate pandemic response without
some idea of the location and extent of infections.
Yet
errors in the initial response to a complex national challenge are to be
expected. Successful leadership adapts quickly and shifts course. But when
testing faltered, the Trump administration did not rise to the moment, even
though there were solutions at hand — employing the effective World Health
Organization test, or allowing labs to develop and use their own. Weeks passed
as the health bureaucracy churned.
The
cost of this testing disaster was immediate and high. In February, plans were
suggested for random testing in emergency rooms around the country. “It never
happened,” recalls a senior administration official. “Testing was not
available. We would have learned weeks earlier that this was out there in the
country. We lost at least a month.”
It is
doubtful that this information would have allowed for a comprehensive
test-and-trace response on the model of South Korea. But getting testing right
more quickly might have helped curb the spread early, saving many lives in the
process. The White House had the ultimate responsibility to make the system
work. But it didn’t.
···
The second
error was a sin of commission — the direct betrayal of a duty.
Even as
events rushed forward, the Trump administration actively and deceptively played
down the extent and seriousness of the crisis. As the danger became undeniable,
the president and others in his administration doggedly denied it. “It’s going to disappear,” said President Trump. “We have it so well under control.”
There
was never a proper sense of emergency at the White House — an attitude that
transferred downward across the administration. Some clearly viewed covid-19 as
a political problem that could be managed by public relations — as though
renaming it the “Wuhan virus” could shift responsibility away from the
president. Instead of disease control, they focused on damage control.
This
made little sense as a long-term political strategy. The reality of mounting
deaths would inevitably intrude. But there was something else at work here — an
attribute of Trump himself. He scorns the bearers of unfavorable tidings. He
banishes uncomfortable truths. With Trump, a senior administration official
told me, there is “punishment for delivering bad news.”
This
creates a bubble of happy talk around the president. “It is sort of like being
in an alternate reality,” another administration official said. “The numbers
would tell us that 15 cities were on fire, and two were turning things around.
The entire focus was on the two doing good. No focus on the 15 doing poorly.”
How do
you successfully manage an unfolding crisis if you refuse to hear bad news? You
don’t.
···
The third
major error was the Trump administration’s early decision to shift burdens and
blame to the states.
By
April, an administration strategy had solidified: hand off responsibility for
pandemic response to the governors and cease to “own the problem.” With the
death toll around 58,000, the administration hoped to declare victory and be
done with it. “We have met the moment, and we have prevailed,” Trump said on May 11.
The
official handoff involved creating federal guidelines for the safe and careful
reopening of states that had closed to fight the pandemic. Trump agreed to the
CDC guidelines in an Oval Office meeting on April 15, and they were announced broadly the next day. “If they had been adopted
universally,” a senior administration figure told me, “it would have saved tens
of thousands of lives.”
The
unofficial handoff came on April 17, when Trump tweeted calls to “LIBERATE”
Michigan, Virginia and Minnesota. It was, according to one administration
official, “the most profound shock of all.” Trump had cast his lot with the
shutdown’s populist critics, some of them armed. He began criticizing governors
for lacking courage and speed in the process of reopening. And he shelved a
second round of more detailed guidance from the CDC.
Blaming
the states gave Trump a convenient excuse not to have his own comprehensive,
national plan. And sabotaging the reopening standards had the rebounding
influence of politicizing public health itself. In a highly polarized
environment, reckless behavior became viewed as patriotism. In a crisis
requiring behavioral change on a vast scale — wearing masks, social distancing
— Trump consistently treated behavioral change as a sign of weakness. “It was
increasingly destructive,” a senior administration official said. “It led to
thousands of deaths.”
···
The fourth
mistake was the administration’s undermining of expertise.
The
tendency is most obvious in Trump’s elevation of quack cures.
He suggested hydroxychloroquine would be “one of the biggest
game changers in the history of medicine.” It has become one of the greatest
jokes, with real damage done in the wasted time and resources that could have
gone to productive medical purposes.
A
greater danger in the midst of the pandemic has been Trump’s irrational trust
in outliers. Neither Peter Navarro nor Scott Atlas is an expert in public
health or infectious disease. But both gained influence with the president by
massaging a portion of his preexisting beliefs — Navarro on rapid reopening,
Atlas on herd immunity. These anti-experts have provided bad advice and sought
to sabotage rival sources of information.
“Not
only does the president want to surround himself with yes-men,” a senior administration
official told me, “he wants to use yes-men to discredit the reputations of
truth tellers.”
Attempting
to argue with Trump on scientific matters is a difficult enterprise. He doesn’t
distinguish between anecdote and evidence, and political need outweighs actual
science. “He only sees through the lens of his political fortunes,” said one
official. “Nothing else counts.”
···
The
past several months have not been without successes in the fight against
covid-19. Because of improvements in treatment, fewer who get the disease die.
Progress on vaccines has come more quickly than any precedent. These
achievements may eventually mitigate some of the failures of the first eight
months.
But
today we start from a shockingly high level of new infections. Coming are
holiday travel and increasing time spent indoors in winter. On Election Day
2020, the United States will be in another precarious place. Once again, Trump
is insisting we are turning the corner on covid-19. One administration official
responds: “We are turning the corner — into a dark alley.”
The
covid-19 crisis does not have a single cause, but it has revealed Trump as he
is. His leadership skills are nonexistent. He is not talented, effective or
even particularly cunning. He is simply outmatched, and eager to shift the
blame. In the past eight months, the United States has led the world in
deaths from covid-19. Trump has led the world in the production of alibis. His
failures of wisdom and judgment have imposed massive, tragic costs on our
country. And justice will be served if they cost him reelection.
