Is the coronavirus outbreak Trump’s Katrina or a triumph?

WASHINGTON — MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace recently suggested President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak may be his Hurricane Katrina, the moment when shortcomings in President George W. Bush’s administration were laid bare.

Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., is also critical of the administration’s response, saying: “Trump downplayed the coronavirus threat from the beginning.”

And Ron Klain, the former Ebola czar under President Barack Obama, said on a recent Center for American Progress panel that “part of this fiasco is the president setting as the default, ‘Bring me no bad news, do nothing to disrupt the economy.’”

Not surprisingly, Trump has a very different view of his handling of the crisis.

During a recent news briefing, he gave himself a 10 out of 10 grade for his response. He cited his Jan. 31 move — despite robust criticism — to restrict travel from China for non-U.S. citizens or permanent residents who had been to mainland China within 14 days.

In part the difference of opinion stems from conflicting views on the role of the federal government during a national emergency.

Vice President Mike Pence, who is leading the Trump administration’s coronavirus response, frequently refers to the governments’ roles as “locally executed, state managed and federally supported.”

But New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose state has the highest number of COVID-19 cases in America, has looked to Washington for ventilators, medical gear and rules.

“This is a national pandemic,” Cuomo said during a recent news conference, “and there are no national rules.”

James Carafano of the conservative Heritage Foundation disagrees. “That’s a really irresponsible thing for an official to say,” he said.

Carafano said the system is designed to push decision-making to local authorities who know best where to concentrate resources, as opposed to instituting a “one-size-fits-all rule” for a diverse nation.

“Some situations are just too big for a region or a county or a state to deal with on their own. This is one of them,” countered Sean T. Walsh, who worked in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Still, Walsh said of Trump, “I think he’s done a very good job. He’s been solid across the board.”

Problematic statements

It is on the rhetorical front where critics have found Trump’s statements to be problematic and factually compromised. Also, his public profile in February and early March — hosting packed campaign rallies, glad-handing visitors to the Oval Office and showing up at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wearing a Keep America Great hat — made even supporters wonder if Trump took the pandemic seriously.

“This is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic,” Trump said in mid-March. But when a reporter asked Trump about the first reported coronavirus case in the United States on Jan. 22, he responded, “It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control.”

In February, Trump predicted that the 15 or so cases in America would decrease “close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.” On Friday, the number of cases in the U.S. topped 100,000.

Trump also made a series of bogus claims about the outbreak.

On March 6, he claimed that “Anybody that wants a test can get a test.” Members of the coronavirus task force later told reporters the remark was inaccurate. Trump himself subsequently argued that not everyone should take the test.

On Thursday in a letter to America’s governors, Trump again referred to the country’s “expanded testing capabilities.” On the same day Connecticut announced it would administer fewer tests because of a scarcity of personal protective equipment needed to administer tests.

Some have blamed Trump for cutting funding for the CDC, for delays in getting coronavirus tests to local health officials and for refusing testing kits offered by the World Health Organization.

It’s true that Trump’s proposed “skinny” budgets called for cuts in the CDC’s funding, but those spending plans serve more as political statements than tools in budget talks. Congress has voted to increase CDC funding every year Trump has occupied the Oval Office, and he has signed those spending bills.

As for testing problems, they were not a function of money. Science Magazine reported the CDC sent tests that were hard to validate because of a problem with one of the reagents — hardly a matter that was likely to capture Trump’s attention.

Former Vice President Joe Biden said during a Democratic presidential debate that the WHO offered its testing kits to the United States. “We refused them,” Biden said.

Not really, according to Politifact, which reported that the WHO test kits were for countries with the weakest health systems and hence were not offered to Washington.

Health security office dismantled

Biden also tweeted that “the Obama-Biden Administration set up the White House National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense to prepare for future pandemics like covid-19. Donald Trump eliminated it — and now we’re paying the price.”

The Trump administration did dismantle the National Security Council’s global health security office, established by Obama in 2016 in response to the 2014 Ebola epidemic. But the Washington Post Fact Checker found competing claims impossible to untangle and hence would not rate Biden’s claim.

Beth Cameron, who had held the job as NSC senior director of global health security and biodefense, wrote in The Washington Post, “When this new coronavirus emerged, there was no clear White House-led structure to oversee our response, and we lost valuable time.”

“The job of a White House pandemics office,” Cameron added, “would have been to get ahead: to accelerate the response, empower experts, anticipate failures, and act quickly and transparently to solve problems.”

But the decision to eliminate the department has been defended by John Bolton, who served as Trump’s third national security adviser when the effort got the ax.

Bolton tweeted, “Claims that streamlining NSC structures impaired our nation’s bio defense are false. Global health remained a top NSC priority, and its expert team was critical to effectively handling the 2018-19 Africa Ebola crisis. The angry Left just can’t stop attacking, even in a crisis.”

Katie Dunn Tenpas, who has been tracking Trump turnover for the Brookings Institution, observed that whatever the repercussions of the NSC move, “There have been four leaders” of the NSC “in less than three years.” That turnover, which is a function of Trump’s character, hollows out agencies.

“If you’re understaffed, you’re limited,” Tenpas noted.

For his part, Trump sees the way he staffs the White House – often pegging pet staffers for more than one position – as a more efficient way of running the White House.

“I don’t want to spare the horses,” Trump said of his views on the benefits of lean staffing and relying on core individuals to take over during emergencies.

Tenpas isn’t so sure. “How could they possibly be doing a better job than a single competent individual?” she asked.

Defense Production Act

Democrats have been baffled by Trump’s slowness to use the Defense Production Act of 1950 to prompt U.S. industry to manufacture ventilators and medical masks as shortages threaten the lives of health care workers and patients.

“By refusing to utilize the Defense Production Act, he’s standing in the way of getting medical professionals the resources they need to protect themselves and save lives,” Titus said.

Trump signed an executive order to use the Korean War-era law but was reluctant to use it as a club until Friday, when bargaining with General Motors to manufacture ventilators began to crumble. Things are “always a mess” with CEO Mary Barra, Trump tweeted. Later Trump used the act to require GM to produce ventilators quickly.

Walsh is baffled at Trump’s hesitance to wield the 1950 law. “If you overdo it a little bit, so what? You overdo it a little bit,” he noted.

Trump’s first action against COVID-19 was his Jan. 31 order restricting travel from China. At the time, Biden ripped Trump, saying, “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia — hysterical xenophobia — and fear mongering to lead the way instead of science.”

Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security senior scholar Jennifer Nuzzo told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, “These measures may exacerbate the epidemic’s social and economic tolls and can make us less safe. Simply put, this virus is spreading too quickly and too silently, and our surveillance is too limited for us to truly know which countries have active transmission and which don’t.”

After Trump imposed similar restrictions on people traveling from European countries on March 11, Biden slammed Trump for calling the outbreak a “foreign virus” and said the new restrictions might slow the virus, but they “will not stop it” and could be “counterproductive.”

But Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has become the doctor’s face of the White House team, has maintained that it was “the right public health call” that prevented “many, many more cases” in the U.S.

Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7391. Follow @DebraJSaunders on Twitter.