But that's not all. Insisting that his Administration had done an excellent job managing the COVID-19 crisis, he refused to let reporters just finish their questions. Questions with even a hint of criticism were met with ad hominem attacks and attempts to shout down the inquiring reporter. One reporter who deserves accolades for not giving into the President's intimidation tactics, and continuing to press him to answer for his complete inaction and misleading public statements from February through mid-March, was Paula Reid of CBS News.
As if that were not enough, when it came time to talk about when we will know that it is time re-open the country, Trump made the astonishing assertion that he has final authority, even over the governors. So, when Trump, using only his instinct, decides that it's safe to restart the economy, he can just countermand state officials, like Governor Newsom and Governor Cuomo, and render their stay-at-home orders invalid. Please. Read the Tenth Amendment again. Our Constitution doesn't work that way.
There was so much wrong with the President's press conference. Let's just go back and highlight some of the issues.
First, the President made it very clear that he was reacting to an article from the New York Times that was published on Saturday, April 11, 2020, entitled, "He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump's Failure on the Virus." Through the article, a group of New York Times reporters document how Trump had been warned of the potentially devastating spread of SARS-CoV2 (colloquially called "the coronavirus," the virus that causes COVID-19) could be, but downplayed the danger to the public for several weeks before taking aggressive action.
Trump, of course, has a very fragile ego, and has never been able to take criticism. This has been a real obstacle to effective government action. With regard to his response to COVID-19, Trump has consistently rated his response as a 10 out of 10, always referring to his decision to suspend the entry of foreigners who had been to China in the fourteen days prior to attempting to enter the United States. He refers to his executive order as his China travel ban.
The problem is that he relied on his so-called travel ban for weeks as his only action. As many have argued, this was just a measure to buy time. The virus was so contagious, an outbreak in the United States was unavoidable. Trump should have used the time he bought with his immigration powers to push for the readiness of the country. Such actions would have included using his authority pursuant to the Defense Production Act to order American businesses to prioritize medical supplies and equipment necessary to fight the virus, such as ventilators, surgical masks and hand sanitizer. He could have used the bully pulpit to warn the American people to ready themselves for the upcoming outbreak, and rallied against hoarding and price gouging. Instead, he continued to brag about his China travel ban.
To punish those evil reporters for doubting his unique wisdom, Trump made all present at the White House press conference watch a video which started with a clip from Fox News, criticizing other media outlets for downplaying the seriousness of the virus. The irony of this was completely lost on the President. Indeed, many have considered whether Fox News could be sued because it echoed the President's message that the coronavirus was not going to be a big deal, that the flu was deadlier, and that the media hype was all just a hoax to derail his presidency.
Trump then appeared to take perverse pleasure when the video turned to a recording by New York Times reporter, Maggie Haberman, who contributed to the April 11th article critical of Trump, saying that he was widely criticized for his China travel ban.
The quote came from a New York Times podcast dated March 25, 2020. It was just a small snippet of the half hour show. The point that Haberman made was that it took Trump so long to take any action after his China travel ban. Even after he took action and declared a national emergency, he started to listen to his economic advisors, who wanted him to open the economy back up by Easter. Which meant that until Dr. Fauci and the medical experts stepped in, the President almost undid everything that the health officials was advising him to do to keep the virus in check. After the press conference, Haberman tweeted a photo of the transcript of the podcast, in which she compared Trump's China travel ban to President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" moment.
To those paying close attention, the video that Trump showed reporters screams Haberman's point. The video displays a timeline of the President's action. Conspicuously absent from that timeline was any action by the White House between January 31, when he announced his China travel ban, and March, when Trump announced a similar ban on foreigners coming from most European countries. The fact remains, while the first case appeared in the United States on January 20, COVID-19 surged in South Korea, Iran and Italy. Health care experts took to the air waves to admonish the United States to prepare for the eventual onslaught of cases. Trump did nothing. Worse, he called the hype over the virus nothing but a Democratic hoax.
In February, Trump downplayed the danger that the virus posed to the public health, and falsely reassured the American people that it would not be a problem here. On February 14, Trump claimed that there were a small number of cases in the United States, which he estimated to be around twelve, and stated that many of them were getting better. On February 19, he claimed that when April came around, the warmer weather would have a negative effect on the virus. On February 24, he bragged that the virus was "very much under control in the USA," and that the "Stock Market [is] starting to look good to me." On February 26, Trump claimed that there were only fifteen people with the virus in the United States, and that within a couple of days, that number would be down to zero. On February 28, Trump said, "One day, it's like a miracle, it will disappear."
On February 29, the first American died of COVID19.
But even that first American death did not temper the President's rhetoric. On March 4, Sean Hannity interviewed Donald Trump. Trump made the audacious claim that based on nothing more than his hunch he believed that the death rate was not as high as that reported by the World Health Organization. He further claimed that people were having minor symptoms and even going to work with these symptoms, and not visiting a doctor. Never mind that even when exhibiting no symptoms, a person infected with the virus could spread it through close contact with others. Thus, going to work while showing symptoms would be ill-advised.
The record of the President's failure is stark and undeniable.
Well, unless you are Donald Trump. After all, this is the man who boldly altered a National Weather Service map with a Sharpie to defend his claim that Alabama was in Hurricane Dorian's path, when it wasn't. We shouldn't be surprised at his latest attempt of gas lighting. Of course, while such bold-face lies and deceptions have become commonplace for he the White House, it should continue to outrage Americans who expect more from our Government.
The more we expect should include ethical behavior by our President and his staff. The very first question after the presentation of this video came from CNN's Jim Acosta. who asked whether government staff worked on the video. A second reporter asked if White House staff had produced the video.
Oblivious to the ethical ramifications of those questions, Trump proudly declared that White House staff had indeed put the video together. Public resources were used for the personal political aims of the President. Again.
And AGAIN, Trump misled the American people not only over his inaction, but over the responses of his opponents. For example, Trump has repeatedly referred to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi protesting his China travel ban in Chinatown, calling it xenophobic. But recall, around the same time that Trump issued his China travel ban, he also expanded his Muslim travel ban to six Muslim-majority African countries. It was this Muslim travel ban that Pelosi and other Democrats called xenophobic. And while Pelosi did appear in San Francisco's Chinatown in an attempt to promote more people to support Chinese businesses, that was a reaction to Trump's insistence to calling SARS-Cov2 "the China virus." In doing so, Trump, although unwittingly, was promoting racism and bigotry against Asian-Americans. Pelosi was attempting to countermand such bigotry.
Of course such details have escaped Trump's bombasticity, as intentionally conflating criticism over his Mulsim travel ban with reaction to his China travel ban serves his purpose of attempting to elevate his leadership actions in the face of such stark inaction.
As if his efforts to repaint history were not enough, he further had the audacity to claim that he has "total authority" over when the nation can return to business as normal after its struggle against COVID-19. It took until March 13 for Trump to declare a national emergency, and then only in response to the WHO proclaiming COVID-19 a pandemic. By then, multiple states had already started closing schools and issuing emergency orders. Indeed, lacking effective guidance from the federal Government, the Governors have had to take the lead in marshalling the medical resources necessary to fight this disease, and ordering residents to avid social contact so as to slow the stress being placed on medical professionals.
While Trump may want to believe he has such authority, the Constitution provides a completely different answer. As Governor Cuomo noted in a television interview on the following day, it was the states that created the federal Government, not the other way around. Moreover, the federal Government's power is limited by the terms of the Constitution. In this regard, the Tenth Amendment provides that any power not specifically given to the federal Government through the Constitution is reserved to the state. One such power is the police power, which is the power to prescribe rules for the health, safety and welfare and welfare of the state's residents. Should Trump attempt to countermand state stay-at-home orders before the Governors are ready to lift them, he will find a legal battle on his hands, one that has been settled for over a century and a half.
On display at yesterday's press conference was a frustrated narcissist, throwing a hissy fit because he is being called out on his ineffectual governance. It is a point that cannot go unanswered. He must be prevented from using his press conferences as a replacement for his political campaign rallies during this time when large gatherings of people are unwise. More networks need to cut away from his press conferences when they turn into his personal political showcase, and more reporters need to continue to press the President to answer for his inaction which has led to strained medical resources in the fight against COVID-19.
By: William J. Kovatch, Jr.
References
Blake, Aaron, "A timeline of Trump playing down the coronavirus threat," The Washington Post (March 17, 2020).
Borio, Luciana and Gottlieb, Scott, "Act Now to Prevent an American Epidemic," The Wall Street Journal (January 28, 2020).
Bryson Taylor, Derrick, "A Timeline of the Coronavirus," The New York Times (March 19, 2020).
Chait, Jonathan, "Trump: 'When Somebody's President of the United States, the Authority is Total,'" The Intelligencer (April 13, 2020).
CNN, "Gov, Andrew Cuomo: We have a Constitution, not a king," YouTube video (April 14, 2020).
Dilanian, Ken, Lee,Carol E., De Luce, Dan, Strickler Laura and Khimm, Suzy, "Mismanagement, missed opportunities: How the White House bungled the coronavirus response," NBC News (March 14, 2020).
Egan, Lauren, "Trump calls coronavirus Democrats' 'New Hoax,'" NBC News (February 28, 2020).
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Farley, Robert, "The Facts on Trump's Travel Restrictions," FactCheck.org (March 6, 2020).
Hale Spencer, Saranac, "Video Misconstrues Pelosi Tweet on 'Un-American Travel Ban,'" FactCheck.org (April 3, 2020).
Knox, Liam, "Civil rights groups condemn Trump's travel-ban expansion to six African countries," NBC News (February 27, 2020).
Lipton, Eric, Sanger, David E., Haberman, Maggie, Shear, Michael D., Mazzetti, Mark and Barnes, Julian E., "He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump's Failure on the Virus," The New York Times (April 11, 2020).
Mackey, Robert, "Trump PR Stunt Falls Flat, as White House Video Exposes His Failure to Prepare for Pandemic," The Intercept (April 14, 2020).
NBC Bay Area Staff, "Nancy Pelosi Visits San Francisco's Chinatown Amid Coronavirus Concerns," NBC Bay Area (February 24, 2020).
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The New York Times, "Trump Insists He Has 'Total Authority" to Supersede Governors," (April 13, 2020).
World Health Organization, "Naming the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the virus that causes it."
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