Bill
Moyers: Trump has repeatedly claimed no one could have expected
the #COVID-19
outbreak and that Obama is responsible for the “obsolete, broken
system” of pandemic response that Trump inherited.
Here
are the facts that refute both of these lies:
Trump’s
lies are like zombies. Fact-checkers keep killing them, but he keeps
bringing them back to life — and repeating them over and over
again. The only antidote is the truth — repeated over and over
again. This is Part III in a series.
Trump claims that
no one could have expected the COVID-19 outbreak and that President
Obama is responsible
for the “obsolete, broken system” of pandemic response — “the
empty shelf”
— that Trump inherited.
Here
are the facts that refute both lies simultaneously.
Were
There Warnings About the Threat of a Global Pandemic?
Jan.
13, 2017: A
week before the inauguration, at least 30 members of
Trump’s transition team attend a
briefing where top Obama administration officials describe an
exercise simulating what could be the worst global flu pandemic since
1918. Obama’s homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco and her
incoming counterpart, Tom Bossert, lead the discussion.
In
the simulation, the virus quickly overwhelms medical systems
across parts of Asia. Experts anticipate that its arrival in the
US will produce global shortages of key medical resources,
including personal protective equipment for medical
workers and ventilators.
Among
the key lessons:
- Bringing decision-makers to the table early is paramount — collective understanding of the science and the disease must drive response decisions
- Transportation and containment issues are a key concern
- A coordinated, unified national response and message is paramount
- In a pandemic response scenario, days — and even hours — can matter
Inauguration
Day, Jan. 20, 2017: Trump
inherits the National Security Council’s global health security
office — the pandemic response team — that Obama
had created after
the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak.
July
20, 2017: Trump’s
homeland security adviser at the time, Bossert, initiates the
development of a comprehensive biodefense strategy to protect
Americans in the event of a pandemic or biological attack. Former
Navy Adm. Tim Ziemer becomes the
senior director for the NSC’s pandemic response team.
Feb.
13, 2018: The
US intelligence community’s annual “Worldwide Threat
Assessment” warns, “A
novel strain of a virulent microbe that is easily transmissible
between humans continues to be a major threat….” (Emphasis
in original, p. 17)
How
Did Trump Protect Americans From the Predicted Threat?
Apr.
10, 2018: Trump fires Bossert,
who resigns at the request of incoming National Security Advisor John
Bolton.
May
10, 2018: Trump
dissolves the NSC’s pandemic response team and its director,
Ziemer, leaves the
administration. “The abrupt departure of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer
from the National Security Council means no senior administration
official is now focused solely on global health security,” according
to The
Washington Post.
Jan.
29, 2019: The
US Intelligence community annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment”
again warns that
the US and the world are vulnerable to the next flu pandemic, which
could lead to massive death rates. (p. 21)
July
2019: Trump administration eliminates the
position held by an American epidemiologist embedded in China’s
disease control agency. Her job is to train “Chinese field
epidemiologists who [are] deployed to the epicenters of outbreaks to
help track, investigate, and contain diseases.”
Jan.
3, 2020: By
the time the CDC hears from its Chinese counterpart agency about the
COVID-19 outbreak, two-thirds of Trump’s representatives at the
January 2017 pandemic briefing, including Bossert, are
no longer in
the administration.
Who
is Responsible for America’s Tardy and Mismanaged Response to the
Pandemic?
Jan.
10, 2020: Recognizing
the national security issues at stake, Bossert tweets:
“[W]e face a global health threat. Wuhan disease now identified as
a *new* kind of coronavirus… Coordinate!”
Jan.
18, 2020: After
trying numerous times to speak with Trump about the virus, Health &
Human Services Secretary Alex Azar finally reaches him by phone.
Trump interjects questions
about vaping, wondering when flavored vaping products would be back
on the market.
Late
January and early February: US
intelligence agencies and health officials warn Trump
that COVID-19 poses a global danger. Through mid-March, he dismisses
these concerns and repeatedly lies to
the public about the seriousness of the threat.
Feb.
7, 2020: The
Trump administration ships almost
18 tons of medical equipment to China, including masks, gowns, gauze,
respirators and other vital materials.
Feb.
25, 2020: Nancy
Messonnier, a senior CDC official, tells reporters
that COVID-19 is likely to spread within US communities and that
disruptions to daily life could be “severe.” Returning from a
trip to India, Trump calls Azar to complain that Messonnier is
scaring the stock markets.
Feb.
26, 2020: Trump announces
that Vice
President Mike Pence, who is avowedly
anti-science,
is leading the COVID-19 task force. “Because of all we’ve done,
the risk to the American people remains very low,” Trump says.
“When you have 15 people and the 15 within a couple of days is
going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve
done.”
Mar
12, 2020: Jared
Kushner joins Trump’s
coronavirus effort to focus on two
areas of
intense public criticism: insufficient testing and inadequate
supplies of medical equipment.
Mar.
13, 2020: Trump calls a reporter’s question about the
disbanding of the pandemic response team “nasty” and claims to
know nothing about it.
Mar.
19. 2020: Trump says,
“Nobody knew there’d be a pandemic or an epidemic of this
proportion… [W]e had to break a system — like breaking an egg —
because the system we had was obsolete and didn’t work, and that
was a system we inherited.”
Mar.
25, 2020: “We’ve
come a long way from an obsolete, broken system that I inherited,”
Trump says again.
Mar.
29, 2020.
Trump says “think of the number: 2.2 — potentially 2.2 million
people if we did nothing. If we didn’t do the distancing, if we
didn’t do all of the things that we’re doing.” Trump goes on to
say that if the US death toll remains at or below 100,000 lives —
more Americans than died in the Vietnam and Korean Wars
combined — it would mean that
his administration will have done “a very good job.”
Mar.
31, 2020: Trump
says that even with aggressive mitigation efforts, the US could
suffer 240,000 deaths — a number that puzzles health experts.
As The
Washington Post reports,
“Among epidemiologists, the estimate raised more questions than it
answered — not just about methodology and accuracy but, perhaps
more importantly, about purpose. The primary goal of such models amid
an outbreak is to allow authorities to game out scenarios, foresee
challenges and create a coherent, long-term strategy — something
some experts worry doesn’t exist within the White House.”
Apr.
3, 2020: A
reporter asks Trump, “Who dropped the ball?” After asserting
falsely that no one anticipated the pandemic, Trump blames Obama:
“The previous administration. The shelves were empty. The shelves
were empty… the shelves were empty.”
How
Many People Can Trump Kill on Fifth Avenue?
Obama’s
team briefed Trump’s transition team on a simulation that
anticipated the very type of outbreak now blanketing the earth, but
Trump ignored its lessons. Trump inherited a White House pandemic
response team, but he disbanded it. For three years, the leaders of
the US intelligence community sounded pandemic alarm bells, but Trump
paid no attention to them.
When
the specific COVID-19 virus emerged in January 2020, Trump wasted
precious weeks ignoring the warnings from the international health
community while simultaneously lying to the public about
its likely impact. To avoid responsibility for his failures, he now
lies again in an attempt to shift the blame. Meanwhile, he keeps
moving the goalposts for no reason other than to manage public
expectations of what will qualify as his personal “win.”
Trump
once said that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his
supporters would still love him. He’s now testing that hypothesis.
But he hasn’t limited his victims to New York City.
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