Why President Trump Wants to Frame COVID-19 as a 'Foreign Virus'

https://time.com/5801628/donald-trump-coronavirus-foreign/

 Facing criticism for his handling of the spread of COVID-19 inside the U.S., President Donald Trump has repeatedly resorted to a familiar reflex: blame foreigners.

The country is confronting a “foreign virus,” Trump told the nation from behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office on Wednesday. Travelers from Europe, he said, had “seeded” clusters of the virus in the U.S. and, as a result, his Administration is blocking travel between the U.S. and most of Europe for 30 days starting Friday at midnight.

On Tuesday, in response to a tweet about the “China Virus,” Trump wrote that the wall is “Going up fast. We need the Wall more than ever!” Within hours, Rep. Katherine Clark, a Democrat from Massachusetts, asked the director of the CDC, Robert Redfield, during a Congressional hearing whether there were any agency recommendations that border barriers would be “of any use in mitigation” the outbreak of COVID-19. “Not that I’ve seen,” Redfield said. (To say nothing of the fact that there are just 12 confirmed cases in Mexico.)

Cecilia Muñoz, who was the director of President Barack Obama’s domestic policy council from 2012 to 2017, says Trump’s repeated comments about the wall and closing the borders is “a clear signal that he’s focused on the wrong things.” The virus is already in the United States, says Muñoz. “The problem at the border is obviously a political imperative for him. That’s fine we can have that conversation, but it has nothing to with the spread of this virus,” Muñoz says.