Trump mused about sending infected Americans to Guantanamo, seeking to keep COVID numbers down, @yabutaleb7 @damianpaletta report in their gripping new book, “Nightmare Scenario.” https://t.co/1BW2OY575o pic.twitter.com/bkSQJta7pH
— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) June 21, 2021
Thank the gods of bureaucracy, without the civil service, things could have been even worse:
… The book — which draws on interviews with more than 180 people, including multiple White House senior staff members and government health leaders — offers new insights into last year’s chaotic and often-bungled response, portraying the power struggles over the leadership of the White House coronavirus task force, the unrelenting feuds that hampered cooperation and the enormous efforts made to prevent Trump from acting on his worst instincts. The Post obtained a copy of the book ahead of its June 29 publication.
The book offers new insights about Trump as the president careened between embracing miracle coronavirus cures in his quest for good news, grappling with his own illness — which was far more serious than officials acknowledged — and fretting about the outbreak’s implications for his reelection bid…
Trump’s rages frequently distracted senior officials and slowed the national response, the authors found, with the president touting his hunches and eventually turning to handpicked advisers including the radiologist Scott Atlas, who had no infectious-disease or public health experience. But the book also depicts the president as ineffectual and out of touch while his health and national security officials tried to manage the worsening outbreak…
… Rather than fire Fauci, White House officials increasingly tuned out the advice from him and other top health officials, the book says, with Trump instead leaning on Kushner, an array of economic advisers and other trusted allies who lacked infectious-disease expertise.
Trump’s top deputies adopted a similar strategy of issuing threats or isolating their rivals, undermining efforts to manage the outbreak, Abutaleb and Paletta write.
Kadlec, who had overseen the purchase of 600 million masks, took the plan in late March to Kushner — who exploded in anger, throwing his pen against the wall in frustration when he learned the masks would not arrive until June.
“You f—ing moron,” Kushner reportedly said. “We’ll all be dead by June.”…
I would very much like to see Young Prince Jared grilled, on camera, by lawyers representing some of the people who lost loved ones while Kushner played ‘Master of Industry’ with his HBS friends. Unlike his reprehensible father-in-law, Jared is just smart enough to realize how much of a criminal trail he left during the first desperate months of the pandemic.
Another Terrifying Pandemic Read: ‘Nightmare Scenario’Post + Comments (119)