President Donald Trump insists that all is well and that his administration is properly responding to the coronavirus crisis, but his top aides admit otherwise.

Ever since Trump put anti-science zealot Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the outbreak task-force, he has moved to muzzle health officials so Trump can continue misleading the American people.

Furthermore, Trump is more desperate to stop the stock market from tanking than he does about stopping the outbreak. People are now dying in the United States and the number of cases here has doubled, yet he still claims that it is contained and under control.

Apparently, however, even Trump’s own aides can’t stomach the lies, which is why they admitted that Trump’s response to the epidemic has been “chaotic”.

According to the Washington Post:

Trump’s playing down of the California patient at his news conference underscores the administration’s slapdash and often misleading attempts to contain not just the virus, but also potential political damage from the outbreak — which has tanked financial markets, slowed global commerce and killed some 3,000 people worldwide, including the first U.S. death, announced Saturday. Since Trump touched down from a two-day trip to India early Wednesday morning, the administration struggled to cope with the fallout from the crisis — shaking up and centralizing its coronavirus response team under the leadership of Vice President Pence, floating plans to stabilize the markets and publicly seeking to minimize the threat posed by the potential pandemic.

In fact, Trump wants to handle the coronavirus in-house instead of turning to outside help because he wants people who will be loyal only to him instead of someone who will do their job properly and tell us the truths we need to hear.

The Post reports that Trump is paranoid about “bringing in a person from outside the administration” because such a move “might be seen as a failure — and wondering whether such a person would be loyal to him, according to those familiar with the debate.”

That’s seriously f*cked up at a time when Trump should be doing whatever it takes to contain the virus and save lives instead of moping about public perception and political fallout.

One Trump aide said that the White House is “scrambling to gain control of a rudderless response defined by bureaucratic infighting, confusion, and misinformation.”

“It’s complete chaos,” another aide said. “Everyone is just trying to get a handle on what the [expletive] is going on.”

Indeed, Trump needs to listen to health officials and let them do their jobs instead of micromanaging them to a standstill.

“The decision to tap Pence and streamline all communication through the vice president’s office was primarily driven by a potent combination of a lack of leadership and structure inside the White House, four senior officials said, according to the report.

In addition, two senior officials noted that Trump’s panic over the stock market hasn’t helped matters either. “Many HHS employees fretted that financial concerns, rather than public health considerations, were dictating the administration’s response, one of the officials added.”

Trump’s response to the coronavirus crisis is clearly not improving. It’s only getting worse to the point that even his own aides and senior officials are speaking out. Of course, they have to do so anonymously because Trump would retaliate against them for not repeating his lies. The more Trump focuses on the stock market and controlling the messaging, this crisis will only get worse for the country. And that means it will get worse for him come Election Day as more and more people wake up to realize that he is unfit to be president. Presidents are supposed to get our country through crises, not make them worse.

 

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