Trump & Co. flunked the simple straight-talk test on coronavirus
President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence at the White House news conference on coronavirus on Wednesday night. Credit: AP/Evan Vucci
The president had one simple job.
He needed to tell people what is known about the coronavirus and to explain how his administration was responding to it.
Instead, Trump & Co. spoke defensively Wednesday night after creating sideshows.
Nobody but his hardest-core believers would come away with new confidence.
Earlier in the week Trump downplayed the problem, saying “China is working very, very hard" on containing the flu-like infection.
"They have had a rough patch, but now it looks like they are getting it more and more under control. I think that is a problem that is going to go away.”
The warmup for this assurance came Feb. 10, when Trump said “a lot of people think" flu or COVID-19 will go "away in April with the heat — as the heat comes in."
Scientists were in no rush to support this theory, an exaggeration of a more limited point made in an earlier briefing.
On Wednesday, Trump faced the news media. Hours after blaming news networks for falling stock prices linked to coronavirus, he said he was tapping Vice President Mike Pence to manage the administration's response to the coronavirus. Trump noted Pence has "a certain talent for this."
Trump responded to a logical question about his recurring plans to slash the payroll of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"I'm a business person," he said. "I don't like having thousands of people around when you don't need them. We can get 'em back really quickly."
One observer remarked it was like saying it's unnecessary to have fire companies because once a blaze spreads, you can start hiring people.
Trump only mildly distanced himself from silly remarks by his recent Presidential Medal of Freedom awardee, Rush Limbaugh.
In a loopy riff, Limbaugh had sought to tie CDC official Dr. Nancy Messonnier, who warned of an inevitable U.S. coronavirus outbreak, to anti-Trump subversiveness.
Limbaugh noted Messonnier's brother is Rod Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general vilified by Trump-allied conspiracy theorists for hiring Robert Mueller as special counsel for the Russia probe.
Trump fell short of rebuking this and other expressions of "deep state" paranoia.
"They really are professional. They're beyond that," Trump said of the health officials. "No, I don’t see that at all."
Another thing he apparently did not see was a CDC analysis that some spread of the disease in the U.S. is inevitable.
"We will see what happens,” the president said, as he often does. “But we are very, very ready for this, for anything.”
Other battered bromides from the commander in chief included: “It is what it is,” and “We’ve got the greatest people in the world.”
As for immunization, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that if the virus returns beyond this season, "which we have every reason to believe … will happen," then "we hope to have a vaccine."
But don't expect to hear much more straight talk from Fauci. Pence is expected to clamp down on the flow of coronavirus information under the banner of "coordination."
It is not as if Trump has credibility on the scientific or public-health front.
For years, he entertained debunked theories about vaccines generally, blasted climate change as a Chinese "hoax," spoke falsely of wind generators causing cancer, said bizarre things about the mechanics of toilets and childishly altered a weather map to back his false prediction about the path of a hurricane last fall.
After three years in office, he can still give the impression that he does not take government seriously. That could be a first for an American president.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
