A18 eZ re the washington post.friday, march 13 , 2020
The coronavirus outbreak
BY ASHLEY PARKER,
JOSH DAWSEY
AND YASMEEN ABUTALEBDuring weeks of briefings and
discussions over the escalating
coronavirus, President Tr ump
has repeatedly fixated on one
thing above all: the numbers.
He has aggressively quizzed
aides about infection statistics —
asking h ow many cases a re in each
state and how the quantity com-
pares with other countries. He h as
clung to the rosiest projections,
repeating only the figures that
support his belief that the corona-
virus is n ot morphing into a global
catastrophe. And he has intensely
followed the plummeting stock
market, which plunged more t han
1,600 points Wednesday.
Trump’s obsession with num-
bers — both publicly and private-
ly — has dominated and shaped
the administration’s response tothe coronavirus, as advisers and
public health experts try to pla-
cate a leader who largely views
the global pandemic through the
political lens of how the statistics
reflect on his presidency and
hopes for reelection. This account
is based on interviews with more
than a dozen administration offi-
cials and other observers, many of
whom spoke on the condition of
anonymity to discuss internal de-
liberations.
He wants market numbers up,
and he wants case numbers
down. Trump is a man who has
measured much of his life in num-bers — first wealth, then crowd
size and votes, and now unem-
ployment and economic numbers
— while saying relatively little
about the human suffering
caused by the coronavirus crisis.
“The numbers from a week ago
were great, from two days ago
were great — but now we’re hit-
ting a patch,” T rump said Wednes-
day during a meeting at t he White
House with Wall Street bankers.
“A nd we’re going to have to do
something with respect to...
getting rid of this virus as quickly
as possible and as safely as possi-
ble.”
Asked Tuesday by reporters at
the Capitol if he had been briefed
that up to 100 million Americans
could ultimately be exposed to
the virus, Trump again returned
to the numbers.
“I’ve been briefed on every con-
tingency you can possibly imag-
ine, many contingencies,” the
president said. “A lot of positive.
Different numbers. All different
numbers. Very large numbers.
And some small numbers too, by
the way.”
Trump’s tendency to minimize
the threat has stood in marked
contrast to leaders such as Ger-
man Chancellor Angela merkel,
who during a Wednesday news
conference in Berlin warned that
the majority of her citizens could
face infection.
“When the virus is out there,
the population has no immunity
and no therapy exists, then 60 to
70 percent of the population will
be infected,” merkel said.
Privately, administration offi-
cials are trying to get Trump more
comfortable with the idea of an
inevitable rise in the number of
coronavirus cases — in part by
explaining to him that a higher
number of cases overall could
potentially result in a lower mor-
tality rate. Sharing the growing
number of cases might also dem-
onstrate that many of those who
test positive are asymptomatic or
only have mild symptoms, a se-
nior administration official said.
Trump is increasingly coming
to accept that the number of indi-
viduals who have tested positive
for the virus is going to rise, even
though he’s not happy about it,
the official added.
officials on the White House
coronavirus task force have pri-
vately predicted to journalists
that cases are going to increase
exponentially in the coming daysand weeks. The goal, they say, i s to
telegraph to the public what is
almost certain to come so that it is
not a shock, all without angering
Trump or sounding alarmist.
Surgeon General Jerome Ad-
ams offered an example of such
messaging on Sunday, when he
told CNN that the time for con-
tainment measures had passed.
“Now, we’re shifting into a miti-
gation phase, which means we’re
helping communities under-
stand, you’re going to see more
cases,” Adams said. “Unfortunate-
ly, you’re going to see more
deaths, but that doesn’t mean
that we should panic.”
Nonetheless, many officials and
experts have remained concerned
that the administration is treating
the virus more as a political com-
munications problem than a pub-
lic health one, and continuing to
downplay the numbers.
Some White House officials fo-
cused on public communications
have tried to argue to outside
experts that a portion of the cases
across the country are from peo-
ple who recently traveled to Eu-
rope — another epicenter of the
outbreak — and less so from the
spread between individuals in
U.S. communities. one outside
public health expert said he was
skeptical of the administration
spin but understood the goal was
to sell the public on the idea that
the virus numbers are not spread-
ing as fast as some fear.
Trump has also asked for data
presentations comparing the new
coronavirus with seasonal influ-
enza, a White House official said,
and has frequently expressed sur-
prise on how deadly the flu can
be. To uring the Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Prevention in
Atlanta on friday, Trump said he
“didn’t k now people died from the
flu,” which according to the agen-
cy has killed 12,000 to 61,
people in the United States annu-
ally since 2010. In fact, Trump’s
paternal grandfather died in the
Spanish flu pandemic of 1918.
And on monday, the president
tweeted, “So last year 3 7,
Americans died from the common
flu. It averages between 27,
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. T hink about that!”
Trump’s suggestion that the
coronavirus is less serious than
the common flu is contradictedby the administration’s own top
health experts.
Te stifying before Congress on
Wednesday, National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Director Anthony fauci de-
scribed the virus as “10 times
more lethal than the seasonal flu.”
“This is a really serious prob-
lem that we have to take serious-
ly,” fauci said, deploying the sort
of specific statistics Trump has
generally eschewed. “People al-
ways say, well, the flu does this,
the flu does that. The flu has a
mortality of 0.1 percent. This has
a mortality of 10 times that. That’s
the reason I want to emphasize
we have to stay ahead of this.”
one senior administration offi-
cial involved in the response said
the obsession with numbers is
selective. The president and some
members of the task force, for
instance, are eager to continually
update and release statistics relat-
ed to diagnostic tests because they
will o nly increase a nd that reflects
positively on the response.
But there has been more hesi-
tation to provide Trump with
numbers related to the climbing
number of cases because the pres-
ident views those numbers as
alarmist and damaging to the
economy.
“on diagnostic kits — those
numbers only move up, but they
move up for the right reasons,”
the senior official said. “The case
numbers move up, but that only
serves to cause pandemonium.”
The president also regularly
receives data on a range of scenar-
ios for how the virus could prog-
ress — and almost always seizes
on the most optimistic numbers,
seeming to ignore or tune out the
higher numbers, officials said.
“If one doesn’t want numbers
because it makes someone look
bad, that’s not a good use of the
numbers,” s aid Jonathan f ielding,
a professor of public health policy
and management at University of
California at Los Angeles fielding
School of Public Health. “If num-
bers help better track a response,
that’s certainly reasonable. But
obviously concerns about num-
bers looking bad — concerns
about that is not the u se of metrics
that helps a situation.”
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]anne gearan contributed to this
report.For Trump, this pandemic is all about the numbers — and they aren’t good
Officials say politics and
figures have shaped the
White House responseingly convinced that more tangi-
ble action was needed. He sup-
ported Trump’s decision to ban
most travel from Europe for 30
days and has pushed for further
concrete steps, some of which are
expected to be announced in the
coming days, officials said.
There was some frustration
among other White House aides
at the sudden involvement by
Kushner, who they viewed as sim-
ply parachuting in and whose vast
portfolio — including middle East
peace negotiations, immigration
and the reelection campaign —
has been the subject of mockery
in some circles.
The travel ban has been criti-
cized by some experts for being
largely ineffectual at this point
considering that the virus already
has spread throughout the United
States, as well as the fact that
Trump exempted the United
Kingdom, meaning anyone trying
to fly to America from Europe
could simply get to London first.
To m Bossert, Trump’s former
homeland security adviser, was
sharply critical of the measure,
saying it would have been helpful
earlier but now the key focus
should be on community mitiga-
tion, such as closing schools or
quarantining sick individuals.
“There’s little value to Europe-
an travel restrictions,” Bossert
tweeted Thursday morning. “Poor
use of time & energy.”
on NBC’s “ To day” s how Thurs-
day morning, host Savannah
Guthrie read Pence — who is over-
seeing the administration’s coro-
navirus response — a snippet of a
Trump tweet in which the presi-
dent accused “the fake News me-
dia and their partner, the Demo-
crat Party” of trying to “inflame
the CoronaVirus situation.”
“There’s been some irresponsi-
ble rhetoric,” the vice president
told Guthrie, before going on to
praise Trump for his concern for
the health and well-being of the
American public.
It was initially unclear if Pence
was perhaps criticizing his boss
for the president’s o wn “irrespon-
sible rhetoric.” But when asked,
an aide to the vice president
quickly insisted that he was not.
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]the oval office to watch his deliv-
ery. one person with knowledge
of the speech said they included
Vice President Pence, Ivanka
Trump, Treasury Secretary Ste-
ven mnuchin, Health and Human
Services Secretary Alex Azar, and
a sizable group of White House
aides: Christopher Liddell, Eric
Ueland, Dan Scavino, Hogan Gid-
ley, Judd Deere, John mcEntee,
Anthony ornato and Nick Luna.
Some officials faulted the
rushed timeline for the messy
speech, which they said could
have been delivered even sooner,
as it became clear the virus was
well on its way to becoming a
global pandemic — a designation
the World Health organization
officially bestowed upon the coro-
navirus Wednesday.
“Everyone usually gets
[Trump] where he needs to be
within a couple of days,” one offi-
cial said. “The problem is we don’t
have a couple of days.”
Kushner only recently became
involved with the administra-
tion’s virus response, beginning
to attend meetings in his capacity
as a senior adviser, according to
officials, but inserted himself
more fully as he became increas-sentences in there about how oth-
er people need to put partisan-
ship aside and come together, but
to really show it,” t he former se-
nior administration official said,
noting that Trump could have
sought to rise above the politics of
the moment to convey a sense of
unity and common purpose.
“The speech almost writes it-
self in a way,” this person added.
“It can be kind of formulaic. It’s
not rocket science.”
The speech was largely written
by Kushner and senior policy ad-
viser Stephen miller, who were
still making tweaks to the text
until moments before Trump de-
livered it, according to people
familiar with the process. Thirty
minutes before Trump appeared
live on camera, a final draft of his
remarks still had not circulated
widely within the White House,
one of those people said. And
senior health experts in the ad-
ministration did not review a fi-
nal draft of the remarks, accord-
ing to a senior administration
official.
While Kushner and miller
crafted the remarks, a coterie of
other officials were involved in
the process and joined Trump inmonotone delivery from behind
the resolute Desk, twiddling his
thumbs and even, in moments,
struggling to read words on the
teleprompter. one senior admin-
istration official said Trump’s
heart was not in the speech.
“It was jolting,” s aid Julian Zel-
izer, a presidential historian at
Princeton University. “People are
naturally scared. People want to
see a leader who has a command-
ing presence. In some ways, the
country is worse off after a mes-
sage like that.”
The speech itself was rushed.
After weeks of playing down the
coronavirus’s threat to the United
States, Trump was reluctant to
appreciate the full scope of the
crisis on his hands. But with the
markets in free fall, he decided
early Wednesday that he wanted
to give the televised speech that
night, administration officials
said. This startled some of his
aides and set off a frantic scram-
ble to arrange airtime on televi-
sion networks, iron out logistics
for his delivery and prepare a
draft of what he would say, the
officials said.
“This was a real missed oppor-
tunity to not just have a couple ofstand as “the moment people as-
sociate with the fact that Donald
Trump failed the biggest test of
his presidency.”
“I think we’ll look back on this
as a defining moment of the
Trump presidency because it
speaks to larger concerns that
people already had about Trump
— that he can’t tell the truth, that
he doesn’t v alue expertise, that he
doesn’t take the presidency seri-
ously enough,” rhodes said.
As o ften is the case after Trump
gives a major speech, his republi-
can allies offered a chorus of
praise on television and social
media for his “fantastic speech”
and “decisive actions” and
“unique strength.”
Inside the White House, how-
ever, aides and advisers privately
acknowledged that Trump failed
to accomplish the primary goal of
his speech — reassuring the na-
tion — and described it as disap-
pointing and far from his best
performance.
Trump’s speech contained at
least two errors and a significant
omission. He said the travel ban
would apply to cargo; it did not.
He said health insurance compa-
nies would waive patients’ co-
payments for coronavirus testing
and treatment; industry officials
later clarified that they would
waive payments for testing only.
And he did not fully explain the
details of his travel restrictions,
leaving out the fact that U.S. citi-
zens would be exempt.
The president’s remarks were
devoid of much substantive infor-
mation on other matters. Trump
provided no update for citizens
on the spread of the virus, nor on
the availability and results of test-
ing.
Public health experts have said
testing citizens for the coronavi-
rus is essential for identifying
new cases and limiting its spread,
but the nation has experienced a
chronic shortage of test kits after
weeks of missteps by the govern-
ment. Trump devoted only two
short sentences to the topic, and
they were vague: “Testing and
testing capabilities are expanding
rapidly, day by day. We are moving
very quickly.”
Stylistically, the president him-
self seemed ill at ease in the for-
mal setting, offering a labored,response, reassured Trump that
aides would correct his misstate-
ment, four administration offi-
cials said, and they scrambled to
do just that. The president also
told staffers to make sure other
countries did not believe trade
would be affected, and even sent a
cleanup tweet of his own: “The
restriction stops people not
goods,” he wrote.
other administration officials
rushed to alert the public that U.S.
citizens would be exempt from
the travel ban, after scores of
Americans, upon digesting
Trump’s speech, phoned govern-
ment offices and raced to airports
in Europe out of concern that they
would not be able to fly home.
Trump’s 10-minute oval office
address Wednesday night reflect-
ed not only his handling of the
coronavirus crisis but, in some
ways, much of his presidency. It
was riddled with errors, national-
ist and xenophobic in tone, limit-
ed in its empathy, and boastful of
both his own decisions and the
supremacy of the nation he leads.
futures for the Dow Jones in-
dustrial average fell in real time
with virtually each word Trump
uttered, signaling a lack of confi-
dence among investors that he
had control of the crisis and pre-
viewing another bloodbath once
the markets opened Thursday
morning.
Trump — who believed that by
giving the speech he would ap-
pear in command and that his
remarks would reassure financial
markets and the country — was in
“an unusually foul mood” and
sounded at times “apoplectic” on
Thursday as he watched stocks
tumble and digested widespread
criticism of his speech, according
to a former senior administration
official briefed on his private con-
versations.
This official, like many others
interviewed for this story, spoke
on the condition of anonymity to
share sensitive information or
make candid assessments.
Ben rhodes, a senior White
House aide who helped former
president Barack obama script
and manage his responses to nu-
merous crises, predicted that
Wednesday night’s address will
trump from A
President’s speech did not deliver on goal of c alming public’s, market’s anxieties
Jabin botsford/the Washington Post
president t rump gives a televised national address on the coronavirus pandemic Wednesday, during
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