It came out literally within seconds of that ânasty questionâ.
BTW there is a great article in the Atlantic by Ben Rhodes, who worked for Obama in the White House, about why itâs important to have groups within a Presidentâs administration whose sole purpose is to think about one thing.
The White House, like all of us, faces information overload, but an administration is also very isolatedâŚtruly they live in their own bubble, thinking of their own priorities.
If you donât have a group in there focused on being the voice of advocacy for an important issue it runs the risk of not being able to pierce that bubble.
Coronavirus burst onto the scene when Trump was wrapped up in impeachment, prepping to use it for his re-election campaign, and prepping for revenge against those who wronged him.
When COVID popped up, there was no one in the West Wing to tell him this could be a serious thingâŚand so his ârapid travel banâ didnât happen until a month of COVID had gone by in China and several cases were already confirmed in the US (btw the virus has likely been introduced into the United States at least nine separate times, many chains not originating in China, so Trumpâs China travel banâŚwhich wasnât complete anywayâŚaccomplished precisely nothing).
Contrast with the âfailureâ of Obama during the Swine Flu epidemic (remember two that Obama had been in office a grand total of THREE MONTHS when swine flu hit and was consumed with the Recession). He declared a health emergency TWO DAYS after the first cases cropped up in CaliforniaâŚwe had screened a million people within the first few months, and a vaccine was out by August. Now he still made mistakes, and he had it easier (this was flu, a well understood virusâŚit also responded to antivirals and the death rate rapidly dropped down to normal flu levels) but his response was nowhere near as bad as people are making it out to be.
But more importantly, he LEARNED from his mistakes.
He learned to watch for âunexpected eventsâ that might divert him from his agenda and make sure there were groups ready to go to work on themâŚthis paid off when his administration expertly handled the Ebola crisis at a time when he could have been consumed with what else was going onâŚISIS and Russia invading Ukraine.
AndâŚhe had the pandemic task force in place.
He learned the importance of having groups like this in place even when âthey werenât doing anythingâ BECAUSE he knew how easy it was to get sucked into his own information bubble.
And this is where itâs important to have a President who is intellectually curious and not wholly wrapped up in his own ego.
THIS is where Trump fails.
