Coronavirus Is Coming—And Trump Isn’t Ready

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/now-trump-needs-deep-state-fight-coronavirus/605752/

We all knew the moment would come. It could have been over Iran or North Korea, a hurricane or an earthquake. But it may be the new coronavirus out of China that tests whether President Donald Trump can govern in a crisis—and there is ample reason to be uneasily skeptical.

The U.S. government has the tools, talent, and team to help fight the coronavirus abroad and minimize its impact at home. But the combination of Trump’s paranoia toward experienced government officials (who lack “loyalty” to him), inattention to detail, opinionated rejection of science and evidence, and isolationist instincts may prove toxic when it comes to managing a global-health security challenge. To succeed, Trump will have to trust the kind of government experts he has disdained to date, set aside his own terrible instincts, lead from the White House, and work closely with foreign leaders and global institutions—all things he has failed to do in his first 1,200 days in office.

 Trump briefly withdrew from politics after his “birther” campaign against President Barack Obama was discredited, but his next big public splash was a virulent, xenophobic, fearmongering outburst over the West African Ebola epidemic of 2014. Trump’s numerous tweets—calling Obama a “dope” and “incompetent” for his handling of the epidemic—were both wrongheaded and consequential: One study found that Trump’s tweets were the single largest factor in panicking the American people in the fall of 2014. How paranoid and cruel was Trump? He blasted Obama for evacuating an American missionary back to the United States when that doctor contracted Ebola while fighting the disease in Africa. Fortunately, Obama ignored Trump’s protests, and Kent Brantley was successfully treated in the U.S.; he continues doing good works today.

Some of the world’s leading infectious-disease experts continue to serve in the administration, led by the incomparable Tony Fauci at the National Institutes of Health, and the level-headed Anne Schuchat at the CDC. These two, along with other leaders at key science agencies (and scores of men and women working for them), have decades of experience serving under presidents of both parties, and are among the world’s best at what they do.