Despite Trump’s denials, he knew back in January of the upcoming epidemic in the US. He downplayed all of the warnings he received as his paranoia about a Deep State colored his response. His reelection chances were at risk. While advisors and experts within his cabinet and intelligence agencies sounded the alarm bells and advised him to take aggressive action, he continued to try to control the message so that he could protect his one claim to fame, the economy.
The only thing he has done even halfway right in his response was to limit some travel from China. He barred most foreign nationals who had recently been to China and placed returning American travelers under quarantine. This act alone caused the S&P 500 to fall 1.8%, its worst loss since October. Limited travel restrictions with China were the only actions Trump took at the end of January.
Throughout January Trump received dire pandemic warnings came from:
- The State Department’s epidemiologist
- The National Center for Medical Intelligence (within the Defense Intelligence Agency)
- The National Security Council biodefense experts (pandemic trackers)
- Alex Azar, Health and Human Services secretary
- Peter Navarro, trade advisor
- The group within the Red Dawn memo string (see below)
In fact, Peter Navarro wrote a memo to Trump in January predicting half a million American deaths and trillions of dollars in economic losses. Trump has tried to deny he saw the memo but his aides state that they discussed it with him and he was just pissed that Navarro put it in writing.
Alex Azar warned of a pandemic in a Jan. 30th phone call and this was the second warning he had issued in two weeks. Trump called him an alarmist.
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| Alarm and Warning Don't discharge garbage near US coast |
Late in February, while public health officials began planning for social distancing, school closures, and stay at home orders, the CDC went public and dropped the proverbial bomb that sent the stock market tumbling. It would be three more weeks before Trump took further action beyond pushing VP Mike Pence out in front of the oncoming pandemic bus. Trump was pissed at the announcement by the CDC. I guess he thought that, if he could keep it a secret, it might go away. The virus continued to spread unabated; people would die.
Medical advisors all around were telling him “the sky is falling.” Trump was so worried about the impact on the economy and his reelection bid, he failed to commit to recommending aggressive steps designed to mitigate the forthcoming disaster. It wasn’t until mid-March that he would actually recommend even social distancing. On March 16th, Trump gave himself a “perfect 10” for his response to the pandemic. When asked if the “buck stopped with him” he replied that it normally would, but that this whole thing was unprecedented. Three days prior Trump claimed, “I don’t take responsibility” when asked about delays in testing.
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| Trump points his Fickle Finger of Blame |
Trump would continue to claim that tests were readily available and that anyone who needed one could get tested. He continued with these claims during televised press conferences that were sandwiched in between conflicting video interviews and news reports from the medical front lines where doctors, administrators, and medical professionals were all saying they didn’t have proper testing available. Trump also said that he had plenty of ventilators in the pipeline and that all was well. When ventilator requests went unfilled Trump claimed that they really didn’t need the ventilators they requested. With those two blatant twisted logic responses, I am reminded of an old Dennis the Menace cartoon:
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| Trump must have been a Hank Ketcham fan. |
During this period of January through March, the chief medical officer at the Department of Homeland Security, Dr. Duane C. Caneva, was involved in a series of email messages with a Red Dawn themed subject heading. The Red Dawn reference was to the 1984 movie where a group of Americans retreats to a forest to fight a communist invasion. One of the participants in the exchange was Dr. Carter E. Mecher, a senior medical adviser at the Veterans Affairs Department. It was Dr. Mecher who helped develop a pandemic plan during the Bush administration. His Jan 28th comments are listed in the image below where he mentions the incredible risk with this new threat with its long incubation period and higher R0 (infection rate). His plan called for mitigation through the closing of schools, universities, and non-essential businesses when other controls were ineffective, eg., no vaccine. Such actions are referenced as non-pharmaceutical interventions or NPI’s.
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| Dr. Mecher from Veterans Affairs Department |
Another of the Red Dawn participants was Dr. Lawler who penned a Greatest Understatements analysis which read in part, “Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow - just a little stroll gone bad, Pompeii - a bit of a dust storm, and Wuhan - just a bad flu season.”
Elsewhere in the Red Dawn discussion string members concluded on February 24 to recommend mitigation (NPI’s) during a scheduled meeting with President Trump. Before that could happen, another public official went public with a warning and the stock market tumbled. This infuriated Trump, he cancelled the scheduled meeting, and it would be another three weeks before he would address mitigation. Trump’s temper along with his penchant to go with his gut and not scientific advice, would again delay our medical and financial recovery process. Chalk up another one to narcissism and a fragile ego.
On March 11th Trump announced a restriction of European travel but did not enact other mitigation methods. The travel ban was quickly modified as Trump hadn’t thought it through and/or couldn’t read his cue cards correctly. Most of the medical experts, as shown in the image from the Red Dawn memo string below, thought the travel ban was unnecessary and completely the wrong thing to do.
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| From Red Dawn memo string from early March |
The United States now leads the world in COVID-19 infections and deaths, even topping the reported numbers (perhaps questionable) from China, the source of the virus. While China may end up historically getting the “China-virus” moniker by association, the total mismanagement by the Trump administration that will result in a higher death and infection rate would put him in contention for honorable mention with the Trump-virus.
I will admit that all of these were tough calls that called for a true leader but countries like Germany, Singapore, and South Korea, found that leadership. President Trump has joined the ranks of Great Britain’s Boris Johnson, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who all ignored the threat and openly defied the science. If China gets back to work early enough, perhaps Trump can order some new red hats that will read, “Make America Well Again.”
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| We can only hope THIS virus ends November 3, 2020 |
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| As of May 12, 2020 |
“Wake me when it’s over.”
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