I Doubt Biden Has What It Takes To Defeat Trump, But I'm Certain Trump's Response To The Pandemic Will Defeat Him

A few days ago, Washington Post reporters Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey, Yasmeen Abutaleb and Lena Sun wrote an essay about how Trump punishes scientists for contradicting his dangerous, crackpot rantings and ravings about COVID-19. Since then, one scientist working on a vaccine, now former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, Rick Bright, who was removed from his job for pushing back against Trump's promotion of hydroxychloroquine, say he's filing a complaint over Trump's illegal retaliation with the HHS inspector general.

The Washington Post team reported that Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, issued a candid warning Tuesday in a Washington Post interview: A simultaneous flu and coronavirus outbreak next fall and winter 'will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through,' adding that calls and protests to 'liberate' states from stay-at-home orders-- as President Trump has tweeted-- were 'not helpful.' The next morning, Trump cracked down with a Twitter edict: Redfield had been totally misquoted in a cable news story summarizing the interview, he claimed, and would be putting out a statement shortly. By Wednesday evening, Redfield appeared at the daily White House briefing-- saying he had been accurately quoted after all, while also trying to soften his words as the president glowered next to him. 'I didn’t say that this was going to be worse,' Redfield said. 'I said it was going to be more difficult and potentially complicated because we’ll have flu and coronavirus circulating at the same time.'"

The remarkable spectacle provided another illustration of the president’s tenuous relationship with his own administration’s scientific and public health experts, where the unofficial message from the Oval Office is an unmistakable warning: Those who challenge the president’s erratic and often inaccurate coronavirus views will be punished-- or made to atone.

...The result is a culture in which public health officials find themselves scrambling to appease and placate Trump, a mercurial boss who is focused as much on political and economic considerations as scientific ones.

...In another instance, Nancy Messonnier, the CDC’s director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, was removed from her post as her agency’s coronavirus response head after sounding early alarms that Americans should begin preparing for “significant disruption” to their lives from a “severe illness.” The CDC held its last daily briefing on March 9-- a forum through which the nation would normally receive critical public health information-- in part out of a desire not to provoke the president.

...“We hope that science and the public health experts are leading the politicians, that their voices are in the foreground, and that the politicians follow their advice,” said Matt Seeger, who has researched crisis and emergency risk communication for the past 35 years at Wayne State University. “But in this case, the political agenda seems to be setting the agenda for the subject matter experts, which is exactly the opposite of the way we would expect to have this happen.”

Seeger, who has watched the daily White House briefings and said he has seen some of the administration’s health professionals speak in other forums, added that “it’s very clear the public health professionals have been self-censoring their statements.” They are, he added, “being very thoughtful and measured and probably adjusting their statements they don’t run the risk of running afoul of the political agenda. That’s very problematic.”

The White House dismissed the idea there was any undue pressure on public health officials from the president.

“Despite the media’s ridiculous efforts to somehow create distance between the president and his top health experts, it is simply fake news,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement. “President Trump has relied on and consulted with Dr. Adams, Dr. Birx, Dr. Fauci, Dr. Hahn, Dr. Redfield, and many others as he has confronted this unforeseen, unprecedented crisis and put the full power of the federal government to work to slow the spread, save lives, and place this great country on a data-driven path to opening up again.”

...On Wednesday, asked if health professionals are unable to speak freely in Trump’s administration, Fauci dismissed the suggestion, saying, “Here I am.”

Many public health experts, however, say they are frustrated at what they see happening during the daily briefings, with the scientists being sidelined. According to a Post analysis, since the federal guidelines were announced on March 16, Trump has spoken 63 percent of the time, compared with Birx at 10 percent and Fauci at 5 percent.

“For most of us in the field, there’s frustration with the dance that we’re seeing,” said Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine. “Most of us in the field are incredibly frustrated that they are being put in that position, but also incredibly grateful that they are willing to do it.”

Trump also regularly tells visitors to the Oval Office that he is in touch with doctors in New York-- including his own-- and many others he knows personally.

Guidelines that were drafted by the CDC and Federal Emergency Management Agency for safely reopening the country were watered down by White House officials before they were published, officials say. A person involved in the White House revision of the guidelines, however, said the goal was simply to make them understandable to the public.

Thursday Congress was back in town, sane ones wearing masks and the Republican Party Death Cult refusing to. One top lunatic, Jim Jordan (R-OH) was seen by a reporter happily coughing at his colleagues. John Bresnahan and Sarah Ferris reported that the decision of whether or not to wear a mask is partisan. "A group of at least a dozen House Republicans," they wrote, "pointedly didn't wear masks during the House vote, even while hundreds of their colleagues-- and all but seemingly one Democrat-- were doing so. Their excuses for abstaining were flimsy. 'I didn’t want to take one from someone who needed it,' or 'I left mine in my office' were offered, if they didn’t run away from the question posed by reporters. The culture war happening throughout the United States over the coronavirus was also playing out on the House floor."

I spoke with Jamie Raskin (D-MD) this morning and he told me that "If Jim Jordan doesn’t want to wear a jacket in public, more power to him. That’s a personal fashion choice. But if he doesn’t wear a mask in public in the middle of this pandemic, that’s a dangerous public health decision he’s imposing on everyone else. And it’s a terrible example to set given that at least 25% of infected people are asymptomatic. Jordan’s decision to defy the recommendation of the Capitol physician is not a sign of personal bravery but of personal irresponsibility. If you want to show how brave and tough you are, go volunteer to work with the nurses and doctors. Go spend a week with the grocery clerks or drive a bus. If you have a mask at your disposal and you don’t wear it around other people, you’re just acting like a jerk and advertising it to the world. We wear masks to protect other people as well as ourselves, and that’s just a challenging concept for some right-wing Republicans who are acting like members of a deranged cult without any commitment to the national community. This little episode about masks is reflective of the general irresponsibility and malice which have infected the GOP’s response to the pandemic from the start. And now America has gone over 50,000 deaths and is rapidly approaching one million cases. And they throw a tantrum because they have to wear a mask in public settings. What a disgrace!"

I also spoke with Long Island Democrat Tom Suozzi, who also wore his mask both during the session and for the rest of the day. That's him pictured above on the LIRR on his way home from Washington. "I wore a mask all day yesterday," he told me, "traveling, walking around and in the chamber, but removed it when I spoke on House floor and was socially distant. I can’t fathom why some of my colleagues are refusing to wear a mask. Maybe they think they are being macho or independent. Maybe they are vain. Whatever the reason, it puts themselves and much more important, others, at risk. Bad call.