Trump: I didn’t ‘want to create a panic’
What happened
President Trump admitted last week he deliberately “downplayed” the threat of the coronavirus as a new book and taped comments revealed that he understood as far back as February the devastation the pandemic could unleash in the U.S. In a series of interviews with journalist Bob Woodward for the newly released book Rage, Trump made repeated statements at odds with his public reassurances and his administration’s failure to mobilize against the exponential explosion in U.S. infections. “This is deadly stuff,” Trump said on Feb. 7. He called the virus “a killer” that’s “more deadly than even your strenuous flus,” countering his public reassurances that the virus was no worse than the seasonal flu—for which “we’ve never closed down the country”—and would “miraculously” disappear. In April, Trump told Woodward that the virus was “the plague,” adding “It’s so transmissible, you wouldn’t even believe it.” At that time, he publicly called on governors to lift state lockdowns, and dismissed the need for mask wearing and social distancing. Trump told Woodward, “I always wanted to play it down” because “I don’t want to create a panic.” Facing a firestorm of criticism over the taped comments, Trump returned to that defense. “You don’t want me jumping up and down screaming there’s going to be great death.”
Woodward’s book made waves with a number of other revelations, including that former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats came to believe that the Russians “had something” on Trump. Former Defense Secretary James Mattis called the president “dangerous” and “unfit,” Woodward writes, and discussed with Coats a possible need to “stand up and speak out” about their concerns.
Trump defended his handling of the pandemic at a CNN town hall–style event in Philadelphia Tuesday, saying he’d saved millions of lives by “closing up the country” and comparing himself to Churchill calming English citizens during the Blitz. “I feel that we’ve done a tremendous job, actually,” he said, and repeated his contention that the virus will go away on its own. “It’s going to disappear, I still say it,” he said.
What the editorials said
It may not be a shock that Trump knowingly “misled the public” about the coronavirus, said The Boston Globe. Still, there’s “something freshly nauseating” to hear Trump’s own words on Woodward’s tape. “Playing it down,” while urging states to reopen businesses, “set the stage for a preventable catastrophe”—one that’s taken almost 200,000 American lives. Had Trump leveled with Americans, “and, better yet, acted on that information with strict public health measures and
What next?
Blaming those deaths on Trump is “contemptible even by today’s political standards,” said The Wall Street Journal. Yes, he made mistakes, but “Covid-19 would have challenged any presidency.” Trump took decisive action in barring arrivals from China and then Europe, mobilized “publicprivate efforts for testing, PPE, and vaccines,” and “saved lives and livelihoods by urging an earlier end to the lockdowns that have done horrific economic and public-health harm.” The current pile-on is “rank political opportunism.”
What the columnists said
The point is not that Trump lied, said David French in The Dispatch.com. It’s “that these lies mattered.” Trump’s lies were echoed by the president’s allies and by “the right-wing mediaentertainment complex,” and millions of people believed them. Many of my conservative friends refused to wear masks or comply with public-health guidelines. This is a major reason why the U.S. has 4 percent of the world’s population and 22 percent of deaths.
“This is unadulterated revisionism,” said David Harsanyi in NationalReview.com. The “hysterical partisan accusations” ignore the fact that in February nobody knew “how the virus worked or what the impact would be.” Imagine the nation’s reaction if Trump had called then for a national shutdown “over five infections and zero known deaths”?
Trump’s claim that he didn’t want to incite panic is laughable, said Noah Rothman in CommentaryMagazine.com. From the day he took office Trump has sowed “a sense of dread,” warning of “American carnage,” a socialist takeover, and “bad hombres” from Mexico invading the suburbs. Trump’s real worry was “panicking the stock market” in an election year, said Jeremy Stahl in Slate.com. “It was fine if the American people got sick and died,” as long as the virus didn’t “rattle the markets.”
Because so much virus is still circulating in the U.S., we may be facing a “catastrophic winter,” said Amir Vera in CNN.com. The influential Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation model at the University of Washington is forecasting “a very deadly December,” with a possible 415,000 deaths by Jan. 1, and a worst-case scenario of 600,000 dead. The model predicts infections “will double in the next four months,” as vigilance drops and cold weather drives people indoors. Even if a vaccine is approved by January, don’t expect “life to go back to normal next year,” said Aaron Carroll in The New York Times. Vaccines vary in effectiveness, and we won’t know how lasting its immunity will be. It will also take many months to distribute and deliver tens of millions of doses of vaccine. That means we’ll need to remain cautious “even as we immunize,” observing masking and social distancing. The upshot is that life in 2021 will likely “look much like life does now.” vigilant preparation, thousands of victims might still be alive.”
“What would America be like today if President Trump had acted decisively” in those early days? asked Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times. Imagine he hadn’t “denounced lockdowns” and instead had ramped up mask production, built a national testing system, and let health experts guide our response. Multiple studies show that at least 80 percent of the deaths could have been avoided, maybe more. “We could have prevented the horror story we have now,” said Larry Brilliant, an epidemiologist who helped eradicate smallpox. “We could have beaten it back.”
Western states could be doing “more to make forests more resilient to wildfires,” said the Los Angeles Times. Yet spending big on forest management while ignoring climate change—or making it worse, as Trump is doing “by aggressively promoting the use of fossil fuels”— is an exercise in futility. “The number of days with extreme wildfire weather in California has more than doubled since the early 1980s,” largely due to rising temperatures. If greenhouse gas emissions keep rising, studies show the average area burned statewide could increase 77 percent by the end of the century.
What the columnists said
Everyone agrees that controlled burns can reduce wildfires, said Jim Geraghty in NationalReview.com. So “why has California done so little of it?” Part of it is a “not in my backyard” attitude from homeowners who don’t want the nuisance of smoky air and charred landscapes. Some environmentalists also suspect that any attempt to thin forests is a “Trojan horse” for logging companies to exploit natural resources. In their misguided attempt to protect nature, these activists cause far more environmental harm.
Life out West is now “almost too much to bear,” said Emma Marris in TheAtlantic.com. In my Southern Oregon town, “everyone checks air-quality apps on their phone constantly,” and my brother in Seattle wears “a particulate respirator while he works in nearly 90-degree heat.” People come to this part of the country because of its vastness. Now we are prisoners in our homes, trapped by the pandemic and air “visibly thick with incinerated pines and firs.”
It’s hard to explain the experience “of having the world immolate before your eyes,” said Charlie Warzel in The New York Times. While no region has a “monopoly on climate-related disasters,” I can’t help but wonder if more Americans would feel an urgency about climate change if they could experience a wildfire. Unlike a storm that barrels through, “the encroaching infernos descend for days, weeks, even months.” You live with end-of-the-world skies and soot everywhere. It takes a psychological toll, one that makes “it difficult to see a healthy future for the earth through all the smoke.”