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These Woodward interviews. My God.
Confirms worst suspicions, in Trump's own words, in the most damning possible way.
It is hard to overstate how different things could look today if Trump had said publicly what he knew privately.
A thread. https://twitter.com/ewong/status/1303728646830555137
Confirms worst suspicions, in Trump's own words, in the most damning possible way.
It is hard to overstate how different things could look today if Trump had said publicly what he knew privately.
A thread. https://twitter.com/ewong/status/1303728646830555137
Start with this: one of the most puzzling questions has been why USG officials downplayed the risk so much back in February, when there was still time to prepare.
Repeated mantra of "the risk to Americans is low." Meanwhile non-USG public health experts were freaking out.
Repeated mantra of "the risk to Americans is low." Meanwhile non-USG public health experts were freaking out.
That disconnect was jarring.
The tapes reveal that Trump didn't misunderstand the risk; he described it correctly in private but said opposite in public.
He actively misled. And most of his administration did too. https://twitter.com/mshelton/status/1303747254314962944
The tapes reveal that Trump didn't misunderstand the risk; he described it correctly in private but said opposite in public.
He actively misled. And most of his administration did too. https://twitter.com/mshelton/status/1303747254314962944
Now it's clear why.
The President wanted to actively downplay the risk. And that message - whether overtly or implicitly - clearly filtered down through the ranks. https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1303727747899035649?s=20
The President wanted to actively downplay the risk. And that message - whether overtly or implicitly - clearly filtered down through the ranks. https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1303727747899035649?s=20
Recall how strongly the President reacted when a career CDC official diverged from the party line on this in late February:
This also helps explain the early US failures on testing and surveillance.
The early strategy was premised on selection bias: it tested only for cases linked to travel while US officials assured us that community spread (which testing criteria excluded) was not occurring.
The early strategy was premised on selection bias: it tested only for cases linked to travel while US officials assured us that community spread (which testing criteria excluded) was not occurring.
It was always puzzling that such smart people would make such broad assurances on such a specious basis.
It's less puzzling in light of these quotes. Hard to scale up testing and surveillance when the President doesn't want you finding more cases.
It's less puzzling in light of these quotes. Hard to scale up testing and surveillance when the President doesn't want you finding more cases.
The tapes also reveal (yet again) the amazing hypocrisy of Trump's crusade against WHO. He and his administration were accusing WHO of downplaying and withholding information on the virus, and thus failing to warn the world.
As these tapes make clear, it wasn't WHO withholding and downplaying risks - it was Trump himself.
The very things that Trump accused WHO of withholding - the lethality and transmissibility of the virus - were things he personally recounted to Woodward, after talking to Xi.
The very things that Trump accused WHO of withholding - the lethality and transmissibility of the virus - were things he personally recounted to Woodward, after talking to Xi.
Now, imagine he had been honest with the public.
How different might things look?
How different might things look?
For a start, we'd likely have caught early cases more quickly.
Early-Feb discussions about a more aggressive FDA posture on expanded testing were shut down by HHS.
At the same time that CDC test criteria and technical faults had hugely limited testing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true
Early-Feb discussions about a more aggressive FDA posture on expanded testing were shut down by HHS.
At the same time that CDC test criteria and technical faults had hugely limited testing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/coronavirus-government-dysfunction/?arc404=true
If Trump had publicly warned of COVID's high risk in early Feb, it's quite likely that HHS decision goes the other way, and FDA green-lights private test development a month earlier than it did.
That could have meant catching the clusters in WA, CA, NY days or weeks earlier.
That could have meant catching the clusters in WA, CA, NY days or weeks earlier.
Earlier detection could have curtailed transmission several generations earlier, and had a massive impact on overall outbreak scale.
It also would have triggered earlier deployment of distancing measures, to huge effect. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/21/860077940/u-s-could-have-saved-36-000-lives-if-social-distancing-started-1-week-earlier-st
It also would have triggered earlier deployment of distancing measures, to huge effect. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/21/860077940/u-s-could-have-saved-36-000-lives-if-social-distancing-started-1-week-earlier-st
Earlier risk warning by Trump also would have triggered earlier preparedness by US hospitals.
As I wrote in early Feb, there was a window to begin prepping health facilities for the possibility of a surge.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/04/its-time-no-regrets-approach-coronavirus/
As I wrote in early Feb, there was a window to begin prepping health facilities for the possibility of a surge.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/04/its-time-no-regrets-approach-coronavirus/
But that didn't happen. When I talked to infectious disease docs at that time, they said consistently that while they recognized the risk, their execs wouldn't incur preparedness costs as long as HHS was saying the risk in the US was low. https://twitter.com/JeremyKonyndyk/status/1232072092377649153?s=20
And it wasn't just hospitals that took the administration's false assurances seriously. The private sector did too.
And that failure to prepare compounded the economic devastation. https://twitter.com/JeremyKonyndyk/status/1242778015429537793?s=20
And that failure to prepare compounded the economic devastation. https://twitter.com/JeremyKonyndyk/status/1242778015429537793?s=20
The bottom line is this:
The Trump administration failure was one not of ignorance but of willful deception.
We are about to surpass 200,000 dead Americans because the President covered up how dangerous he knew this virus to be.
The Trump administration failure was one not of ignorance but of willful deception.
We are about to surpass 200,000 dead Americans because the President covered up how dangerous he knew this virus to be.
His decision to deceive the American people rather than warn them - and the cascading failures he in turn set in motion - are DIRECTLY responsible for hundreds of thousands of dead American, millions of lost livelihoods, and tens of millions of under-schooled children.
