Cavalier White House approach to COVID catches up to Trump
Masks were rarely spotted in the West Wing. Crowds of people gathered shoulder to shoulder on the White House South Lawn. And Air Force One streaked across the sky from one massive campaign rally to another.
With ready access to testing and the best public health minds at his disposal, President Donald Trump should have been the American safest from COVID-19. Instead, he flouted his own government’s guidelines and helped create a false sense of invulnerability in the White House, an approach that has now failed him as it did a nation where more than 200,000 people have died.
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"He let the country down by disregarding the CDC, ignoring federal guidelines and acting like he was Superman," said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. "He did not just downplay the virus, he paraded around like a peacock, making fun of those who took it seriously."
From the pandemic’s early days, Trump, by his own admission, played down the severity of the virus. He repeatedly suggested it would “disappear” and for a while was pushing for the American economy to fully reopen by Easter, just a month after the pandemic fully engulfed the nation.
And he soon began resisting the advice of public health experts on his own coronavirus task force, including Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx. He publicly clashed with the heads of the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over everything from the risks associated with opening schools to the timetable for a potential COVID-19 vaccine.
Those on the White House staff dared not break with the president, who wanted to embody a nation on the way back, not one fixated with health guidelines that would remind a nervous public about the virus rather than an economic resurgence.
Experts urged the widespread use of masks, including CDC Director Robert Redfield, who testified before Congress last month that face coverings could be a more effective safeguard than a vaccine. Trump has eschewed their use, telling aides that he didn’t like how he looked in them and that it sent a message to the public that he was worried about his health.
He has worn masks only sporadically and politicized their use, saying he didn’t need them because he was tested and most people he saw were kept six feet away. He mocked Democrat Joe Biden for consistently wearing a face covering, while many of the president’s supporters followed his example and skipped them, even at crowded events.
And their use, while technically required, wasn’t enforced in the White House either. Most senior aides rarely wore masks, even in tight quarters in the West Wing or on Air Force One. A belief took hold that because those who came in contact with president received a rapid COVID-19 test every day, they were safe in their bubble.
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"He mocked the medical experts and their advice. He mocked it all right up until the presidential debate when he stood on that stage," said Michael Steele, former head of the Republican Party. "He had the best information possible and didn’t take it."
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Even in the hours after the president’s diagnosis, senior White House staff, including chief of staff Mark Meadows and economic adviser Larry Kudlow, walked around the White House complex without wearing masks. The White House, even now, says the face coverings are a matter of “personal choice” for most staffers.
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https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-donald-trump-public-health-health-1e12c6e356b950d4521517452b54de80
