ANALYSIS/OPINION Ten days: After an early coronavirus warning, Trump is distracted as he downplays threat

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Thu, 2020-09-17 22:01 — mike kraft

Ten days: After an early coronavirus warning, Trump is distracted as he downplays threat The president told Bob Woodward he hid the true risk to avoid public panic, but a key 10-day period shows he spent relatively little time on preparing for the virus’s arrival. Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey, Yasmeen Abutaleb Washington Post

In explaining why he repeatedly misled the American public about the early dangers posed by the novel coronavirus, President Trump has argued that he did not want to engender panic — and suggested that his actions showed he took the looming pandemic seriously.

But a detailed review of the 10-day period from late January, when Trump was first warned about the scale of the threat, and early February — when he acknowledged to author Bob Woodward the extent of the danger the virus posed — reveals a president who took relatively few serious measures to ready the nation for its arrival.

Instead, enabled by top administration officials, Trump largely attempted to pretend the virus did not exist — spending much of his time distracted by impeachment and exacting vengeance on his political enemies. He also carried on as usual with showy political gatherings and crowded White House events.

The period would presage Trump’s disjointed and often dismissive approach to the virus in the months to come, as the president and his aides repeatedly sought to diminish the danger of a pandemic that has now claimed nearly 200,000 American lives while leaving millions more infected or out of work. Trump and White House officials disagree, arguing that the president took definitive steps in the early days of the virus that showed his resolve and helped limit the death toll.

Joe Grogan, former head of the Domestic Policy Council, said that the analyses now, more than half a year later, are “all ex post facto about where this was going to go.” Grogan said Trump was “focused on the issue but getting frustrated with others internally who were panicking about it because they were raising their voices and being hyperbolic.” ...

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