Analysis: Seven days as a ‘wartime president’: Trump’s up-and-down command of a pandemic
Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker 2 hrs ago
President Trump was reeling from one of his worst weeks ever: The novel coronavirus was killing Americans, wrecking the economy and subsuming him and his presidency.
But in the pandemic, Trump saw an opportunity to cast himself in a new role: “Wartime president,” as he later dubbed it. Aides noted that Trump was punctual for last Saturday’s White House task force meeting, donning a navy “USA” cap and — instead of simply watching as Vice President Pence and the assembled health officials briefed the public that afternoon, as he’d initially planned — joining them at the rostrum.
All week, Trump reveled in his newfound character — that of a crisis commander steering his skittish nation through battle with what he called an “invisible enemy.” He parried questions, barked orders and stood stoically by as he accepted praise, day after day, from his underlings for his “strong leadership” and “decisive actions.”
But on Friday, Trump faltered. He argued based on “just a feeling” that, despite no scientific evidence yet, an anti-malaria drug could cure the coronavirus. He complained that he has not been credited for fixing a nationwide testing system that clearly is still broken. And when asked what message he had for Americans who were scared, he lashed out. “I say that you’re a terrible reporter,” Trump answered to NBC News correspondent Peter Alexander. “That’s what I say.”
Trump’s past seven days at the helm of the coronavirus effort illuminated his mercurial nature and underscored his difficulty overseeing the national response to a global catastrophe largely out of his — or any other leader’s — control.
Trump — whose moods often determine policy and are almost directly correlated to the vagaries of 24-hour news cycles — has been lapsing into his self-destructive ways even when aides stress the importance of steady leadership during a national emergency.
Fixated on his portrayal in the media, Trump has used this past week to try to rewrite history in hopes of erasing the public’s memory of him dismissing the severity of threat and bungling the early weeks of the administration’s response.
“I’ve felt that it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic,” Trump said Tuesday. Only five days earlier he had declared, “It’s going to go away,” and two days before that he had said, “It will go away. Just stay calm.”
After the coronavirus was first detected in China and swept across Europe, and even after the first reported case in the United States on Jan. 21, Trump tried to wave off the danger. He was then in the throes of the impeachment battle and distracted by the Democratic presidential primaries. The president accused the media of perpetuating a hoax, arguing that news organizations were drumming up hysteria over the growing public health crisis as a way to hurt his presidency.