'A tweet
can't knock over a pandemic': has Trump met his match in coronavirus?
Trump’s
efforts at denial and distraction may come back to haunt him as he faces a
different kind of enemy
David Smith
David Smith
in Washington
@smithinamerica
Tue 10 Mar
2020 06.00 GMTLast modified on Tue 10 Mar 2020 06.06 GMT
It has
killed thousands, sown widespread fear and disruption and caused the worst day
for Wall Street since the 2008 financial crisis. One man, however, is not
panicking about the coronavirus. Donald Trump just spent two successive days on
the golf course.
Even for a
US president who has made a habit of denialism – from global heating to the
size of Barack Obama’s inauguration crowd – the current crisis is raising the
bar. One headline on Monday described it as “Trump’s Chernobyl”, a reference to
the Soviet nuclear disaster that authorities could not censor away.
The
commander-in-chief’s past attempts to bend reality to his will have often been
met with derision or mirth. But this time it is hardly an exaggeration to say
thousands of lives are at stake. The international crisis that many feared
would test his norm-busting presidency has arrived.
“Denial,
accusation, distraction, lies – these are his four principal responses to any
rival,” said Gwenda Blair, a Trump biographer. “Only this time it’s not a
person. When you think of that model, it doesn’t work with germs. A tweet
doesn’t knock over a potential global pandemic.”
At a Fox
News town hall last week, Trump was reminded that he is a “self-proclaimed
germaphobe”. Blair added: “He’s been quite the germaphobe for many decades. One
time I interviewed him he said, ‘You’re lucky I shook your hand.’ In the
election campaign and Oval Office, it was hard for him to not shake hands but
we can be sure there was a bottle of Purell nearby.”
Trump has
contradicted experts to downplay the coronavirus threat, perhaps not least
because it could hurt him in a presidential election year. He has inaccurately
claimed that a vaccine will be available soon, that anyone who wants a test can
get one and that the virus will be killed off by the spring weather. “A lot of
people think that goes away in April with the heat – as the heat comes in,” he
said last month. “Typically, that will go away in April.”
And despite
years of warnings from scientists that a pandemic would come someday, Trump has
reduced the the White House national security staff and cut jobs addressing
global pandemics. He has sought to portray the coronavirus as a bolt from the
blue. “Who would have thought?’ he asked during a visit to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. “Who would have thought we
would even be having the subject?’”
When
reality does not fit, Trump tries to find a workaround. Visiting the CDC while
wearing a red “Keep America Great” cap, he suggested he would prefer that
people exposed to the virus on a cruise ship be left aboard so they would not
inflate the national total. “I like the numbers being where they are,” he said.
“I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our
fault ... I’d rather have them stay on, personally.”
The blasé
president spent the weekend playing golf in Florida, then began Monday
fundraising for his re-election before making a fleeting appearance at a White
House briefing. On Twitter, he continued to deny the impact of the virus on
tumbling stocks: “Saudi Arabia and Russia are arguing over the price and flow
of oil. That, and the Fake News, is the reason for the market drop!”
He also
continued to express “nothing to see here” views out of step with the public
mood. “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu,” he wrote. “It
averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life &
the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus,
with 22 deaths. Think about that!”
Trump has
also accused Democrats of seeking to exploit the virus for political gain. Such
comments have caused dismay among public health officials. Critics say the
president is clearly out of his depth.
Rick
Wilson, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project and author of Everything Trump
Touches Dies, said: “When Trump is confronted with something that doesn’t
follow him on Twitter, that doesn’t watch him on Fox News and doesn’t come to
his rallies, he’s lost.
“Trump is a
day trader. He runs out every morning and throws whatever he’s got in his head
against the wall. It does not do the country a service when he is strongly
inclined to believe his own bullshit.”
Wilson, who
has experience in crisis management, described the president’s response so far
as “the usual Trumpian irresponsibility and mendacity in one package”. He
added: “Presidents get judged not on the easy stuff but the hard stuff. He’s
going to have people judging him on how he’s handled this. He has not inspired
confidence.”
Trump
previously appeared blasé and uncaring when Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto
Rico. He memorably tossed paper towels into a crowd. But the coronavirus is on
another scale altogether.
Larry Jacobs,
director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the
University of Minnesota, said: “Trump has had a history of defying political
conventions but the game is up. He has made a colossal mistake with how he’s
handling the coronavirus. He has put himself front and centre.
“He has
belittled experts, his administration has not made adequate preparations and he
undermined existing precautions and steps that had been taken for just this
emergency. His fingerprints are all over this.”
Jacobs
added: “Trump appears disconnected from reality. While every American is
thinking about precautions and wondering about keeping their children home from
school, Trump, by underplaying what’s going on, is detached from the reality
that middle America is struggling with.”
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