John Rachal's Blog

Sixteen months into his presidency, in May of 2018, Donald Trump told then National Security Adviser John Bolton to eliminate the National Security Council’s global health security unit, which he did.

By January 2020, Trump was told of the dangers of the coronavirus, and on January 22, he said he wasn’t worried, “not at all,” and that “we have it totally under control.” His see-no-evil approach meant weeks of delay in implementing social distancing and ramping up production of masks, protective medical gear, and ventilators.

On January 27, presumptive Democratic nominee for president Joe Biden wrote an op-ed in USA Today in which he stated “Trump’s demonstrated failures of judgment and his repeated rejection of science make him the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health challenge.”

On January 30, the World Health Organization declared the virus an international public health emergency.

On January 31, Trump closed U. S. borders to foreign nationals (but not Americans) who had been in China over the last 14 days. While probably a good move, it was also an easy decision in that it had little if any economic impact and was in keeping with Trump’s larger immigration policies.

Even Tucker Carlson, conservative host of a Fox News show and ardent defender of the president, began warning about the virus on his show as early as February 3. He had a two hour meeting with the president at Mar-a-Lago on March 7, trying to convince him of the health danger of the virus and how it might threaten the president’s re-election.

On March 5, the World Health Organization (WHO) implored world leaders to prepare for the outbreak, its leader stating that the “epidemic can be pushed back, but only with a collective, coordinated, and comprehensive approach that engages the entire machinery of government.” On the same day, Vice-President Pence states that there were not enough tests for the virus.

On March 6, Trump started the day signing an $8.3 billion bill for healthcare and vaccine research, noting that he had only asked for $2.5 billion, and stating that the virus “came out of nowhere” but that “we’re taking care of it.” Later in that same day he stated that “anyone that wants a test can get a test,” a statement not only false then but false over a month later. As of April 17 only 146,000 tests were being conducted daily, prompting one commentator to calculate that at that petty pace, it would be January of 2027 before the whole population could have been tested. Trump spent the rest of March 6 and much of the next two days going to fundraisers and playing golf, along with a visit to tornado victims in Tennessee and a visit to the CDC, at no time modeling or demonstrating any concern for social distancing. Trump himself shook hands numerous times at all of these venues, as many as one hundred in Tennessee alone.

On March 11, the WHO declared the outbreak to be a global pandemic.

On March 13, in response to a question concerning the wisdom of the closure of the National Security health office, Trump replied, “I didn’t do it. I don’t know anything about it.” On the same day, he was asked if he accepted any responsibility for the failure to begin testing for the contagion. The man who on the campaign trail said that he would be the greatest president in history, possibly excepting Lincoln, responded in classic Trump style, “No, I don’t take any responsibility at all.”

In a March 21 press conference, Trump touted some antiviral drugs that Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci said would require testing to determine their efficacy and safety. Trump replied, “I disagree. I feel good about them. That’s all it is. Just a feeling. You know, I’m a smart guy.”

Back in January, the president stated that “China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus,” and shortly after a conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump praised his counterpart as “strong, sharp, and powerfully focused on leading the counterattack on the Coronavirus.” But after a Chinese theory emerged that the U.S. planted the virus in China, the president flipped, saying that “it could have been stopped in its tracks” in China. Donald Trump Jr. also forgot what his father had said earlier about Xi being “powerfully focused on leading the counterattack,” tweeting on March 29 in a grammatically-challenged diatribe that “Anyone praising China’s ‘leadership’ in responding that the virus should be scorned for being the authoritarian/communist propagandist that they are.” At least the “authoritarian . . . propagandist” part was right.

On April 8, ABC News reported that the intelligence community submitted a report in November, over four months prior, and two months prior to the earlier reported date on which Trump was warned about the virus. The November intelligence report noted that the outbreak in China could have “cataclysmic” consequences. This information was a component of the daily briefing all presidents receive. Peter Navarro, a Trump economics adviser, also provided at least one memo to the president warning him of upcoming dangers posed by the virus. On April 7, Trump reported that he had not read the memo (“Peter sends a lot of memos”), and on April 8, he said that he did not remember being briefed on it. Yet he also said on April 8 that “people were shocked that I reacted so quickly.” He has also stated that he knew “months ago” that the virus would become a pandemic.

On Friday night, April 3, Trump fired the intelligence community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, whom Trump had appointed, for doing his job; namely, turning over the whistleblower report to congress that ultimately led to Trump’s impeachment trial. Trump said “this man is a disgrace to IGs.” Michael Horowitz, Justice Department IG and chair of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, praised Atkinson’s “professionalism, integrity, and commitment to the rule of law.” On April 6, Trump continued his war against inspectors general, whose roles are designed to be independent of political influence, by lambasting Christi Grimm, principal deputy inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services. Her crime was to have surveyed 46 hospitals and reported that they claimed significant shortages of equipment to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. Calling her an Obama holdover, despite her having also served in two Republican administrations, her report revealed a lack of hospital preparedness and thus was “another fake dossier.”

On April 4, the president who had been ignoring and downplaying the dangers of the virus now indicated that it was “the worst thing the country has probably ever seen,” apparently forgetting that we endured over four years of civil war, two world wars, an influenza epidemic in 1918 estimated to have killed 50 million world wide, and a great depression.

In March, the president stated, uncharacteristically, “I think the media has been very fair.” By April 13, a total flip flop: “I wish we had a fair media in this country, and we really don’t.”

On Tuesday, April 14, Trump stated that “We’re going to put a hold on money spent to the W.H.O., we’re going to put a very powerful hold on it.” A reporter asked him a few minutes later if this were a good time to do that, and Trump replied, “I’m not saying we’re going to do it, but we’re going to look at it.” The reporter pushed back, saying, “You did say you were going to do it,” to which Trump replied, “No I didn’t. I said we’re going to look at it.”

On April 13, in his characteristic way of assuming authority without responsibility, Trump stated that only he had authority to relax social distancing policies and to determine when the economy could re-open. “The president of the United States calls the shots. When someone is president of the United States, the authority is total.” Governors of both parties made clear that they were not ceding control of decision-making in their states to a president seeking to portray himself as their boss. By the next day, Trump flipped, saying “The governors are going to be running their own states,” and “I’m not going to be putting any pressure on any governor to re-open.” But without the least sense of self-contradiction, and unable to see himself as anything other than master of all he surveyed, he flopped back, saying, “I will then be authorizing each individual governor of each individual state to implement a re-opening.” Happy to play the alpha male and “authorize” the states’ re-openings, Trump claims that the states have primary responsibility for masks, ventilators, and testing. Authority is his; responsibility is other people’s.

On April 3, Trump fielded a question about whether he was thinking about having his name on the stimulus checks being sent to American citizens. He disingenuously replied as if this meant he would be required to personally sign them. “There’s millions of checks. I’m going to be signing them? No.” On April 15, the Treasury Department confirmed that the printed name “President Donald J. Trump” will appear at the bottom of the stimulus checks being mailed to Americans not receiving their payouts by direct deposit. Trump had recommended to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin that his (Trump’s) signature be added to the checks. Though his signature will not appear, his printed name will appear. The Treasury Department denies it, but the addition will delay the mailing of the checks according to the president of the IRS’s Professional Managers Association.

By the middle of April, the clash between the health interests of the country and the economic interests of the country had crystalized. Trump from the beginning had prioritized economics, inevitably causing him to be dilatory and unprepared in addressing the dangers the virus represented. Partisanship was emerging, though it had been in the background, and to some extent the foreground, all along. MAGA-hatted protests, with concerns over 22 million job losses, 17% unemployment, and especially governors restricting protesters’ movements, were breaking out demanding re-opening of states. Counter-protesters, fearing a premature re-opening would lead to a second wave of the virus in the absence of much broader testing and loosened social distancing requirements, were calling for stay-at-home restrictions to be continued for now. Trump, finding himself on the horns of a re-election dilemma, sides with and encourages the re-openers, and on April 17 tweets (two minutes after a Fox News report on the protests) “Liberate Michigan,” “Liberate Minnesota,” and “Liberate Virginia,” where Democratic governors have incurred wrath from those protesting social distancing and closure policies. Terrified of the possible electoral repercussions of his incompetent handling of the crisis, Trump resorts to his usual weapons of choice, namely externalizing all blame, disavowal of personal responsibility, and demonizing of critics, all aimed at stoking right-wingers and others among his base needing scapegoats and fearful their president would pay for his zig-zagging ineptitude in November.

If Mr. Trump had been president from 1941 to 1945, we would be speaking German now.

Compiled from USA Today, CNN, ABC World News, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and The News Hour.