'He's an idiot': critics say Trump has failed the US in this test of reassurance

[G_j]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/coronavirus-outbreak-response-trump-us?CMP=share_btn_fb


For Trump, who has spent years undermining experts, scientists, and trust in government, the pandemic has shown his weaknesses

David Smith in Washington
@smithinamerica
Sat 14 Mar 2020 02.00 EDT

It was just before 9am and the sky was overcast when a small group of reporters were suddenly ushered through the White House’s south portico. They gathered in the diplomatic reception room, once home to Franklin Roosevelt’s “fireside chats”, and stared at a desk with pen, documents and the presidential seal.

Donald Trump strode in, wearing a black bomber jacket and white shirt unbuttoned at the top, and settled down beneath a portrait of George Washington. He signed a congressional emergency spending bill to combat the coronavirus for $8.3bn – more than three times what the president himself had requested – and held it up to a chorus of clicking cameras.

“We’re doing very well,” he insisted. “But it’s an unforeseen problem. What a problem. Came out of nowhere, but we’re taking care of it.” He gazed around the oval-shaped room, wallpapered romantic American landscapes, and took questions. Someone asked: “How do you keep people from panicking?” Trump’s response in part: “Calm. You have to be calm. It’ll go away.”

It has not gone away.

A week later, coronavirus cases in the US have soared past 1,300, with at least 38 deaths. The stock market suffered its worst percentage drop since the 1987 Wall Street crash. On Wednesday night alone, Trump announced a travel ban on most of Europe during an Oval Office address, the National Basketball Association suspended its season and it emerged the Hollywood actor Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson had tested positive. The New York Post’s front page headline declared: A world turned upside down.

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