Urgent warnings were ignored by a president consumed by his impeachment trial and intent on protecting a robust economy that he viewed as central to his reelection chances.
Interviewed at Davos, a gathering of global elites in the Swiss Alps, the president on Jan. 22 played down the threat posed by the respiratory virus from China, which had just reached American shores in the form of a solitary patient in Washington state.
Life-saving medical equipment was not stockpiled. Travel largely continued unabated. Vital public health data from China was not provided or was deemed untrustworthy. A White House riven by rivalries and turnover was slow to act. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, was alerted to the virus around the same time — and within two weeks was fearful it could bring global catastrophe.
Internally, they were raising alarms about the need to get Americans on the ground in China. Publicly, they were sending words of encouragement and praise in hopes Beijing would grant the Americans access. Azar was trying to walk a fine line between Trump’s upbeat statements and preparing the government for what might lie ahead. “America’s risk is low at the moment,” he later told House lawmakers. “That could change quickly.”
Eventually, an initial request went to Congress for $2.5 billion in virus aid, an amount that lawmakers of both parties dismissed as too low. The bill that Congress quickly passed and Trump signed — the first of three so far — was for $8 billion. Trump styled it as bold action, but continued to talk down the severity of the threat. Despite the ban, nearly 40,000 people have arrived in the United States on direct flights from China since that date, according to an analysis by The New York Times.On Feb. 10, Trump stood before thousands of supporters packed into a New Hampshire rally and declared: “By April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.
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