My TDS makes me think Trump says whatever he thinks will make him look good (or his opponents look bad) with very little regard for the truth. Even at White House Press briefings during a national crisis.
Jan 22: "we have it totally under control. Its one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. Its going to be just fine.
Feb 19: in April, supposedly, it dies with the hotter weather. And thats a beautiful date to look forward to. "Were going very substantially down, not up."
Feb 27: Its going to disappear. One day, its like a miracle, it will disappear
Mar 7: Its got the world aflutter, but itll work out,
Mar 11: WHO officially declares pandemic.
Mar 17: Ive always known this is a, this is a real, this is a pandemic. Ive felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. All you had to do is look at other countries. ... No, Ive always viewed it as very serious.
Trump cutoff travel from China in January, and this is probably what he is referring to when he says he was taking it seriously. Jan 22: "we have it totally under control. Its one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. Its going to be just fine.
Feb 19: in April, supposedly, it dies with the hotter weather. And thats a beautiful date to look forward to. "Were going very substantially down, not up."
Feb 27: Its going to disappear. One day, its like a miracle, it will disappear
Mar 7: Its got the world aflutter, but itll work out,
Mar 11: WHO officially declares pandemic.
Mar 17: Ive always known this is a, this is a real, this is a pandemic. Ive felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. All you had to do is look at other countries. ... No, Ive always viewed it as very serious.
On Jan 20 and Jan 22, the WHO said there was human to human transmission of the Wuhan virus, however, before that, they were saying this was not the case. I am not sure of the timing of Trump's Jan 22 statement and the WHO statements on the same date. China did not let the US CDC inside Wuhan to get a better understanding of the virus, and as a result, the rest of the world, including Trump had a difficult time gauging the seriousness of the Wuhan virus.
The Wuhan virus is not going to be here forever. I can assure you that if Trump loses the election, it will be declared safe to open up the economy the day after the election. Unless the virus mutates enough, once you recover from the Wuhan virus, you are immune from the virus, as is the case for all viruses. (if you get the flu multiple times, this is because you have caught multiple strands of the flu).
Trump, like all other politicians, will try to shine everything in a positive light for themselves.
I would point out the US's worst mayor encouraged people to visit New York theaters on a March 5 show, and 11 days after the show he encouraged New Yorkers to watch, he described the coronavirus situation as "war-like". Some of the people who got infected from going to the March 5 show had probably not yet started showing symptoms. There are other examples of prominent democrats encouraging people to go out in public in crowded areas around the same time.
I'm not going to disagree with any of that*(I also think de Blasio is an idiot), but I think it's a mistake to judge a leaders response to a mystery virus in Jan by what the virus ends up doing in April since the decision they make has to be based on the information at the time it's made. The optimal decision (which has to be theoretical) will always be selfless and not influenced by any emotion. It's entirely possible to make the theoretically correct decision in Jan and end up being completely wrong due to some variable that was impossible to account for. It's also possible to make the right decision for all the wrong reasons.
The point I was trying to make is that I think Trump is more focused on coming out of this with the appearance of making the right decision than actually making it.
*"Trump, like all other politicians, will try to shine everything in a positive light for themselves."
Not a false statement, depending on what 'everything' means - but come on now, he takes it to a whole new level.
