President Donald Trump brought to his office voluble disdain for his White House predecessors, Congress, the Federal Reserve and the executive branch itself.
Now those institutions share responsibility for quelling public fears over the coronavirus. Lacking broad public credibility himself, he needs their help.
With an accelerating array of briefings and actions, Trump and his advisers have signaled their concern about the threat to public health and to the economy. But Trump also keeps signaling his disinterest in details and distrust of the expertise critical to government’s response.
Renowned medical researcher Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, repeated Monday at a White House event that a coronavirus vaccine will take at least a year to develop.
“I like the sound of a couple of months better,” Trump responded.
The Fed Chairman he appointed, Jerome Powell, on Tuesday announced an emergency cut in interest rates, the first since the 2008 financial crisis, to calm Wall Street anxiety. Trump ripped him on Twitter for weak leadership.
Congressional leaders in both parties, finding Trump’s $2.5-billion request for emergency coronavirus spending inadequate, prepared a package more than doubling it. Trump responded like someone finding cash on the sidewalk.
“I think I should say ‘I’ll take it,’ right?” the grinning President told a gathering of county officials in Washington on Tuesday.
As history demonstrates, crises of confidence place a premium on government coordination and clear communication of information that Americans can trust. Trump’s reputation and behavior suggest he’s ill-equipped for the task.
Responding to coronavirus, Trump has indulged his penchant for blaming others, from Democrats to the media to the Fed. Insistent on defending his performance as he seeks a second term, he has delivered over-optimistic assessments disproven by subsequent developments.
“For people to feel confident, they have to believe that the president talking to them is telling the truth, and has their interests in mind,” said Jeremi Suri, a University of Texas historian and author of “The Impossible Presidency.”
The credibility of the modern presidency suffered heavy blows long before Trump left real estate development and reality television behind. Lyndon Johnson squandered public trust with false reassurances about progress in the Vietnam War during the 1960s. Richard Nixon damaged the office with lies about Watergate.
On public health threats, their successors have repeatedly struggled to get it right. Gerald Ford faced charges of overreaction for ordering mass immunizations to fight swine flu in 1976.
Ford lost that fall’s election, but his immunization campaign won better reviews over time. “The federal government wisely opted to put protection of the public first,” concluded a 2006 article published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Ronald Reagan stood mute as AIDS killed thousands of Americans during his first team. Two decades later, George W. Bush drew on Fauci’s advice in spearheading an aggressive anti-AIDS initiative that has saved millions of lives in the developing world.
As a newly-elected senator, Barack Obama joined a Republican colleague in demanding the US government gird for global pandemics that pose “direct and immediate threats” to American security and prosperity. As President, he intervened successfully in the outbreak of Ebola in Africa, and bequeathed successors a White House post to counter similar threats in the future.
The Trump White House abolished that post. Just last week, the President defended his quest to cut the CDC’s budget by insisting government can hire health experts whenever their services are needed.
Trump’s aversion to facts and expertise make him “totally incompetent” for the coronavirus challenge, declared Max Skidmore, a historian at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Skidmore reviewed the history of White House responses in his book “Presidents, Pandemics and Politics.”
Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin yesterday credited Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s new designated point man on the crisis, with “surrounding himself with the experts he needs.”
By publicly reminding the President a vaccine won’t halt coronavirus as quickly as he hopes, Fauci kept the administration’s message tethered to reality.
But the sterling reputation of a single government scientist has been no antidote for the fear gripping financial markets. Nor has Trump, despite the powerful megaphone that gives him the best chance of anyone to do so.
“This has become an issue of public panic,” Suri concluded. “Civil servants can’t solve that problem.”