The Washington Post - 13.03.2020

A20 eZ re the washington post.friday, march 13 , 2020

The coronavirus outbreak

tanking stock markets. The

Washington Post reported

Wednesday that an angry

president ordered Treasury

Secretary Steven Mnuchin to

press Powell to take more-

aggressive action to stimulate the

economy. Never mind that the

Fed’s first attempt to do so

recently did nothing to prevent

the markets from falling further.

The president spoke

Wednesday night about

forthcoming economic proposals

designed to aid companies and

individuals as they cope with the

financial burdens of the crisis.

Some things he can do by

executive action; others, such as

his call for payroll tax relief,

would require congressional

action and coordination with

congressional Democrats. On

Wednesday, House Democrats

outlined their own package of

economic assistance.

There is no more important

priority for the president now

than dealing with the

coronavirus. By his tweets, it is

evident he finds regular

distractions, including the

contest for the Democratic

presidential nomination. He has

chosen to be a frequent

commentator about the

Democratic race, a kibitzer and a

disrupter.

He has suggested that the

Democratic establishment has

robbed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-

Vt.) of the nomination. He has

claimed that Sen. Elizabeth

Warren (D-Mass.) has helped

weaken Sanders and thereby

strengthened Joe Biden.

His Ukraine intervention was

designed to harm Biden, and now

it is all but certain that Biden will

be his opponent in the general

election. But before he gets to

that confrontation, he must deal

with the threats posed to the

country by the deadly

coronavirus.

“This is just a temporary

moment of time that we will

overcome together as a nation

and as a world,” Trump said from

the Oval Office on Wednesday

night.

That is everyone’s hope. And

along with that hope is a desire

for the president to provide the

leadership the moment

demands.

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president for more “historic”

steps.

Pence and those on the team

tasked with coordinating the

response are working

cooperatively with state and local

leaders, which is critical at this

moment. Meanwhile, the

president has called Gov. Jay

Inslee (D) of Washington, where

the outbreak has brought more

deaths than anywhere in the

country, “a snake.”

The president looks to blame

others. It’s correct that the

Chinese government made all

this worse by initially trying to

cover up the outbreak, which

contributed to the virus’s rapid

spreading there and now

around the world. But trying to

make this into some kind of

foreign invasion belies the

nature of the pandemic.

Trump blames Federal Reserve

Chair Jerome H. Powell for the

his impeachment and acquittal.

“The tests are all perfect, like the

letter was perfect,” he said. “The

transcription was perfect.”

Vice President Pence, who is in

charge of the overall federal

response to the pandemic, has

tried to project a sense of calm

and knowledgeability. He defers

as is necessary to the experts in

the government. But he also feels

a need constantly to praise the

president, as if Trump has truly

been the stable, guiding hand in

all this.

Immediately after Trump

spoke Wednesday night, the

White House and an official at

the Department of Homeland

Security clarified misleading or

incorrect statements made

during the speech. Asked about

this on Thursday morning on

CNN, Pence replied, “I don’t

think there was confusion,” a nd

he went on to praise the

response to it. He is a cheerleader

by nature, a president who is

more comfortable dealing in

exaggerations than facts. Trained

scientists and medical doctors in

government have sought to

provide realistic assessments to

the public. Trump has made false

predictions and statements that

contradict the experts.

Visiting the Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention

last Friday, he said tests for the

virus were available to anyone

who wanted one, a demonstrably

false s tatement at a time when

the government was rushing to

get more tests out and available,

as other officials were

acknowledging.

Trump went on to say those

tests were totally reliable and, in

a statement that revealed his own

state of mind, drew a comparison

with his telephone call to the

Ukrainian president that led to

ban was taken unilaterally and

without consultation,” s aid the

statement signed by two leaders

of the E.U.

This has been described as

akin to President George W.

Bush’s “Katrina moment,” t he

botched response to the 2005

hurricane that flooded parts of

New Orleans. But for all the

devastation caused by that storm,

the coronavirus is far worse in its

impacts and disruptions, and the

consequences for Trump are

potentially enormous. Daily life

has been upended across the

country in ways unimaginable

when the virus began to hit

people. The president’s tweets,

meanwhile, swing from upbeat

claims to dire warnings to

medical advice.

This is a crisis not of the

president’s making, but Trump

has become the government’s

least credible leader in the

In times of
national crisis,
people look to the
president for
direction,
reassurance and
confidence.
President Trump’s
Oval Office speech
on Wednesday
night provided precisely the
opposite.
From the misstatements to the
omissions to his labored
demeanor, the president sent a
message that shook financial
markets, disrupted relations with
European allies, confused his
many viewers and undermined
the most precious commodity of
any president, his credibility.
With the stock markets
plunging into bear territory, the
health-care system struggling to
keep pace with the spreading
novel coronavirus and Americans
wondering what’s next, Trump is
dealing unsteadily with the
greatest crisis of his presidency.
The pandemic is a physical and
economic threat to the well-being
of millions of Americans. It also
has become a political threat to
the president’s hopes for a second
term.
Historians will eventually
assess the president’s prime-time
effort to calm a scared and
nervous nation that is taking
unprecedented steps to deal with
the coronavirus pandemic. In the
moment and in the immediate
aftermath of the speech, the
judgments were as harsh as at
any time in Trump’s presidency.
Almost everything that could
have gone wrong with the speech
did go wrong. Stock futures
began to crater as the president
was speaking. Government
officials were forced to correct
the mistakes Tr ump made in
describing the travel ban he was
imposing. Anyone looking for
information about the health-
care system’s capacity to respond
was left wanting.
Trump said that “we have been
in frequent contact with our
allies” a bout the crisis, but
European leaders were caught off
guard by the new travel
restrictions and issued a harsh
statement in response.
“The European Union
disapproves of the fact that the
U.S. decision to impose a travel

Trump’s O val O∞ce s peech was meant to calm and reassure. It did the opposite.

Dan Balz

The Take

Jason redmond/reuters

Bar patrons i n Seattle watch President T rump’s televised address to the nation Wednesday about the coronavirus crisis.

BY DAVID NAKAMURA,

LENA H. SUN

AND WILLIAM WAN

When President Trump an-
nounced n ew t ravel restrictions o n
Europe in a prime-time Oval Office
address Wednesday, many nation-
al-security experts, including
some who worked in his White
House, declared the move proba-
bly would do little to contain the
spread of the novel coronavirus
already confirmed i n 44 states and
the District of Columbia.
When he floated a payroll-tax
cut to juice the economy as stock
markets plummeted, many finan-
cial analysts said it would not be
enough help for the hourly work-
ers hit hardest by the slowdowns
in major i ndustries and the low-in-
come families burdened by the
closings o f schools.
And as he has repeatedly s ought
to play down t he threat o f the virus
— calling it “very, very low” in his
Wednesday address and empha-
sizing that the United States has
fewer cases than other nations —
Trump has gone against the warn-
ings of his administration’s medi-
cal experts, who have bluntly stat-
ed that the numbers are likely to
grow significantly.
Trump’s response to the global
pandemic has represented the
most serious crisis of his p residen-
cy, one with widespread ramifica-
tions for public safety, national
prosperity and his own reelection
chances. But the solutions his
White House has proposed have in
many cases fallen short of what
experts say has shown promise in
China and South Korea, raising
alarms that the nation has lost
crucial time in meeting the chal-
lenge.
The spread of the virus has also
left Trump vulnerable to political
attacks from rivals such as leading
Democratic presidential candi-
date Joe Biden, who laid out his
own plans Thursday and said “the
virus laid bare the severe short-
comings of the current adminis-
tration.”
Trump aides have countered

that the administration has

mounted a robust, all-of-govern-

ment response to a massive inter-

national crisis that has caught the

world by surprise. Production of

testing kits has been ramped up

after initial missteps, and officials

have convened roundtables to con-

sult key stakeholders, including

tourism and service industry exec-

utives, private health insurance

providers and banking e xecutives.

During a meeting Thursday

with Irish Prime Minister Leo Var-

adkar at the White House, Trump

said the administration was con-

sidering invoking emergency pow-

ers under the Stafford Act that

could allow federal officials to tap

more r esources.

“The United States, because of

what I did and what the adminis-

tration did with China, we have 32

deaths at this point,” Trump said,

referring to an earlier move limit-

ing flights from China, where the

novel coronavirus originated.

“Other countries that are smaller

countries have many, many

deaths. Thirty-two is a lot. Thirty-

two is too many. B ut when y ou look

at the kind of numbers that you’re

seeing coming out of other coun-

tries, it’s pretty amazing when you

think of it.”

By Thursday night, the number

of deaths had c limbed to 41.

But for Trump, t he rapid spread

of the illness in the United States

since those early steps with China

has undermined his chief talking

point that he has handled the out-

break with decisive action. More

than 1 ,600 cases have been con-

firmed in the United States since

then, and the numbers are expect-

ed to spike further as testing

ramps up.

The president’s biggest initia-

tive this week — the ban on for-

eigners coming to the United

States from 26 European countries

— was one that World Health Or-

ganization officials a nd other lead-

ing health experts have warned

against, saying it complicates a

coordinated global response.

Such bans can cause people to

keep their travel surreptitious,

making it harder to do crucial

contact-tracing of the infected, ex-

perts say. It also can choke the

supply chain of health workers,

expertise and medical supplies.

Travel bans, experts also point out,

can caused friction, hampering i n-

formation-sharing and interna-

tional efforts — as has happened

between the United States and

China a t a time when coordination

and transparency has been c rucial

to fighting the virus.

“It’s entirely unwise. First of all,

it violates WHO recommenda-

tions and treaties that the U. S. has

signed on to. But it doesn’t e ven do

anything to impact the epidemic,”

said Lawrence Gostin, a global

health law professor at George-

town University. “Many of the

countries in Europe besides Italy

have just as many cases or less

than the United States. The idea

this would reduce transmission

here is not based on evidence. The

reality is germs don’t respect bor-

ders.”

One federal official involved in

the response, speaking on the con-

dition of anonymity to avoid an-

gering others in the administra-

tion, said the travel ban on Europe

was too late and should have been

done at the end of February, when

cases began surging in Italy.

To m Bossert, who served as

Trump’s homeland security advis-

er, credited the president for a

“positive step” i n sounding the ur-

gency of the threat during his

prime-time address Wednesday.

But Bossert, in a tweet, called the

travel restrictions of “little value”

and a “Poor use of time and ener-

gy.” H e predicted that in two weeks

the administration might “regret

wasting time.”

Another former administration

official echoed those thoughts in

an interview, saying the White

House should have been making

sure hospitals had adequate re-

sources and guidelines to make

sure they had enough bed space

and capacity for an influx of pa-

tients.

“They should have a standard

playbook on what they should be

recommending,” said the former

official, who spoke on the condi-

tion of anonymity to talk frankly

about the administration’s re-

sponse. “They’re making t his u p as

they go.”

That also seemed true in the

case o f the White House’s o ther b ig

remedy this week, a proposed pay-

roll-tax cut that the president

boasted would offer the public

“substantial relief” — a move he

hoped would bolster investor con-

fidence to stabilize the free-falling

stock market.

In a rare appearance in the

White House briefing room Tues-

day, Trump told reporters he

would present his plan the follow-

ing day to Republican senators.

Employing his flair for showman-

ship, Trump called the tax cut “a

big number,” “very major” and

“very dramatic.”

But Democrats, and some Re-

publicans, have rejected the idea,

and some economists have said its

impact in stemming losses for or-

dinary w orkers amid t he coronavi-

rus scare would be applied un-

evenly and be less effectual than

other options.

Brookings Institution fellow Jay

Shambaugh said a payroll-tax cut

would help higher-wage earners

more than lower-income workers

and that it would mete out assis-

tance slowly rather than deliver a

shorter-term economic jolt that

could bolster investor confidence.

“What would really help give

the markets confidence w ould be a

policy response that is dealing

with the public health issues, as

well as dealing with the economic

issues,” said Shambaugh, who

served on the White House Coun-

cil of Economic Advisers in the

Obama administration. He called

for more money to go to states,

which are on the front lines of

responding to the crisis, as well as

strengthening social safety nets

and sending direct payments to

the public to boost consumer con-

fidence.

O n top of the administration’s

policy struggles, the president has

overseen a disjointed public mes-

saging operation.

Trump initially put Health and

Human Services Secretary Alex

Azar in charge of an interagency

coronavirus task force. But weeks

into the crisis, he moved to install

Vice President Pence as the leader

in a bid to exert more W hite House

control.

T hat has led to conflicting pub-

lic guidance and the muzzling of

key medical experts. O fficials at

the Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention hold media brief-

ings twice a week, but those often

are delayed to allow the White

House coronavirus task force to

make its own remarks first. Trump

has often overridden others with

his own remarks; the president

announced three policies during

his Oval Office address that con-

tained errors and were later

cleaned u p by h is a ides.

Trump’s insistence early in the

crisis that the virus w as being con-

tained gave Americans a false

sense of security, said Jeanne Mar-

razzo, director of the division of

infectious d iseases a t the Universi-

ty o f Alabama at B irmingham.

“When you have the chief execu-

tive and the vice president who

clearly say things that are not only

scientifically inaccurate, but oper-

ationally inaccurate, that every-

body can be tested, it’s no wonder

people are confused and they get a

false sense of security,” Marrazzo

said. She pointed to Pence’s an-

nouncement March 3 touting a

new policy allowing “any Ameri-

can” to be tested for the novel

coronavirus with a doctor’s order.

That has created tremendous con-

fusion among doctors and clini-

cians at h ospitals.

To some observers, the chaotic

messaging has been perhaps the

most damaging response of all.

One HHS official, speaking on the

condition of anonymity to discuss

the matter frankly, noted that

when the coronavirus task force

has its daily briefings, the officials

are huddled close together in the

White House briefing room — a

visual image that Trump sees as a

show o f force b ut one that conflicts

with the CDC’s guidance on social

distancing to limit the spread of

the illness.

“They would all be considered

close contacts if one of them was

actually sick,” t he official said.

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Yasmeen abutaleb and Jeff stein

contributed to this report.

Experts question e∞cacy of Trump’s latest prescriptions to address outbreak

Focus on travelers from

Europe, payroll taxes

among misses, critics say

Jabin botsford/the Washington Post

President Trump, shown Thursday visiting with Ireland’s prime minister, is in his tenure’s top crisis.

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