President Donald Trump privately journalist told Bob Woodward on Feb. 7 that the coronavirus was “deadly stuff” transmitted by air, a threat “more deadly” than the flu, the warnings around him had been rampant.
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National security adviser Robert O’Brien had told Trump that Covid-19 would be the “largest national security crisis of your presidency.” Top trade adviser Peter Navarro was drafting urgent pleas to manufacture more medical supplies and personal protective gear in the U.S. Other worried senior aides were organizing meetings about the potential severity and spread of a pandemic.
Yet Trump continued to downplay the threat publicly — comparing it to the typical flu, insisting the virus would disappear quickly and offering frequent praise for China’s response. The president appeared committed to keeping the public focused on more upbeat matters such as the rising stock market.
New revelations from Trump's interviews with Woodward early in the crisis are raising a new set of questions that are threatening to swamp his administration and campaign just over 50 days from the November election. While Trump keeps trying to turn attention toward his favorite issues — culture wars, law and order or new promises to his base like potential conservative judicial appointees — Woodward's book and the timeline it presents has forced the Trump administration into precisely the position it's wanted to avoid : litigating the early stages of its response to a pandemic that has now killed more than 190,000 Americans.
Some White House aides privately acknowledge it was a wasted month. Democrats and other critics say the delay in giving out timely and clear information — especially after those fateful days in early February — caused thousands more deaths than necessary and deeper economic wreckage than the U.S. might have endured if it had responded earlier.
“This is the same man, Donald Trump, who for days, weeks, if not months thereafter calls it a hoax, dismissed the seriousness of it to the point he suggested people should not wear masks. He knew it was airborne, that people would breathe it,” Democratic vice presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, said Thursday.