Straight talking, transparency and trust are now key at White House
IF THE prior administration’s approach to the coronavirus pandemic consisted of doing as little as possible, letting the president subsume experts and trying to get by on “happy talk”, the Biden administration’s plan seems to be to do as much as possible, let the experts talk and lower expectations for a fast turnaround. That was certainly in evidence yesterday.
The administration released another flurry of executive orders in addition to a nearly 200-page plan for addressing the pandemic. The Washington Post reports: “The replacement plan synthesizes many of the goals and strategies for fighting the coronavirus that [President Biden] has mapped out in the weeks and days leading to his inauguration, including a $1.9 trillion request to Congress for these efforts and to hasten the nation’s economic recovery.”
While US President Joe Biden described a variety of steps his administration will take – from reimbursement to states for their use of the National Guard to co-ordination with pharmacies to mandating worker safety for frontline workers – he warned, “Let me be very clear, things are going to continue to get worse before they get better.”
He also stressed that public health officials will “work free from political interference and that they make decisions strictly based on science and healthcare alone, science and health alone, not what the political consequences are.”
In response to a shouted question as to why the goal for vaccinations in the first month is not higher than 100 million, he responded, “Give me a break”, and reminded reporters that they had recently said the plan was overly ambitious.
The shift in governance was evident at the White House news briefing, which lasted for more than an hour and included extended remarks from Anthony Fauci, Mr Biden’s chief medical adviser.
Dr Fauci offered a blizzard of information on everything from the new coronavirus strain originating in Britain (it’s present in 20 states, he said) to whether the virus will work against mutations (yes, so far) to the seven-day average for new cases (plateauing, but unclear whether it’s a blip).
If we can get 75pc to 80pc of the population vaccinated by the end of the summer, Dr Fauci said, then we can at least approach normalcy in the autumn.
At times, reporters’ eyes seemed to glaze over from Dr Fauci’s level of detail.
The White House press corps, however, seemed obsessed with getting Dr Fauci to compare the Trump and Biden administrations, a sign that the fixation with politics over the conveyance of accurate information during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic has not abated.
Dr Fauci chose his words carefully. He conceded that being free to say whatever the science tells him gave him “a somewhat liberating feeling.” And while he said not everything the Trump administration did was useless, he emphasised that there would be a huge ramping up of federal involvement.
He said a big difference was the president’s directive to be entirely transparent.
Asked about why Amazon (whose chief executive and founder, Jeff Bezos, owns The Post) had not volunteered to help the Trump administration, Dr Fauci, nearly giddy, replied, “One of the new things in this administration is if you don’t know the answer, don’t guess. Just say you don’t know the answer.” Dr Fauci said just that when asked to extrapolate about how far along we would be if Biden’s plan had been adopted earlier.
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said the same multiple times, not only on Covid-related questions but on other topics in the briefing, ranging from Biden’s views on DC statehood to religious exemptions from healthcare laws. Ms Psaki repeatedly said she would “circle back” with an answer for the reporter asking a question. The irony is that “I don’t know” is among the best answers a press secretary can give. It builds trust, allows for time to think up a better response, conveys where priorities rest (she knows answers on the big, important things, not on the minor items) and avoids being fact-checked after a false answer or speculation. It is a wonder why more administrations do not grasp this.
The bottom line is that for all the activity and information, the administration ultimately will be judged on what it does.
The most the members of Mr Biden’s team can do at this point is establish trust, give a sense of urgency to Covid-19 vaccinations and testing, and apply pressure on Congress to get cracking on funding.
So far, they seem to be hitting their marks. (© The Washington Post)