Trump Is Not a Crisis Leader
His badly botched coronavirus address reminds us why.
For only the second time, President Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office Wednesday night, in an attempt to convey gravitas and determination in the face of the global coronavirus pandemic now affecting the United States.
But if he was aware that he needed a drastic change of course after a disastrous six weeks of underplaying the looming pandemic, he didnāt get the reset he was thinking of.
In addition to proposing some policies to help workers and small businesses, the president managed, in just ten minutes, to:
announce a 30-day cessation of trade with Europe, when he meant to say only that travel of European persons to the United States would pause. European officials were reportedly āblindsidedā by the announcement; even the State Department apparently didnāt know the details, and though the president quickly clarified (via Twitter) that trade would continue as usual, the confusion didnāt help after-hours tradingāusually one of Trumpās primary concerns. The travel ban isnāt what it sounded like at first. It applies to persons who have been in any of the 26 āSchengenā countries in the last fourteen daysāexcept for U.S. citizens, their family members, legal permanent residents, and ācertain other individuals.ā Oh, and U.K. citizens are not banned from traveling to the United States, for unstated reasons. (The U.K. health minister is presently being treated for COVID-19.)
blame the EU for āseedingā clusters of infection in the United States because it had not cut off travel from China as early and efficiently as he had, throwing in for good measure that weāre dealing with a āforeign virus.ā (His much vaunted travel ābansā with China and Iran, like the present one with Europe, are far less stringent than he seems to believe, or at least than he seems to say.)
claim that the āhealth insurance companiesā have agreed to waive fees for coronavirus treatments; at least some of them hastily clarified that they planned to waive fees only for testing.
announce, without any reference to concrete information, the cutting of āmassive amounts of red tapeā to make antiviral therapies available soon and claim that āwe are moving very quicklyā on testing. In fact, evidence increases daily that failure to test properly means that community spread of COVID-19 almost surely far exceeds the reported figures, and that weāre therefore playing catch-up in our efforts to mitigate an exponential spike in cases and a drastic burden on the healthcare system, the economy, and American morale.
Unusually for him, President Trump finished his speech with conventional encouragements. He suggested that weāre in it together, that we ought to put politics aside and help one another, that we should act with ācompassion and love.ā He expressed hope that we might āemerge from this challenge stronger and more unified than ever.ā From another president, such sentiments might seem sincere, but they sound awfully odd from someone who only hours earlier brushed off a reporterās question about coronavirus policy by dismissing the reporterās network as āfake newsā and decided recently to share his āhunchā that the coronavirus death rate couldnāt be as high as the World Health Organization suggests.
Sensible people have warned since before he was elected that Donald Trump lacks both the disposition and the basic competencies needed for the office of the presidency during a crisis. It has been our good fortuneāand manifestly not the result of Trumpās leadershipāthat there have not been any major crises in the last few years.
Until now. The coronavirus pandemic makes Trumpās failings as a crisis leader painfully obvious:
We know that he lies about petty things; in a crisis we have to know weāre being told the truth.
We know that he often speaks thoughtlessly and sloppily when unscripted; a crisis puts a premium on clarity and precision.
We know that he prefers to surround himself with sycophants and to rely on the advice of family members and friends who lack relevant expertiseābut leadership in this sort of crisis requires a president capable of listening to and learning from experts who may well disagree with him.
We know that he lacks technical knowledge about just about anything, as well as the curiosity to learn; since he believes otherwiseāthat is, since he considers himself masterfully knowledgeableāhe creates confusion, slows progress, impedes action.
We know that he has spent the last three years denigrating news outlets and the governmentāthat is, reliable purveyors of information; encouraging belief in conspiracy theories could have drastic consequences during an epidemic.
We know that he thinks about everything in terms of how it benefits him and his family, and tends to experience disagreement as a personal betrayalābut a crisis of this sort requires level-headed leaders who can make decisions dispassionately, not in fits of pique.
None of this will be news to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. Even his supporters will concede some of these points; in fact, some of these points are reasons they admire him. But these qualities make him the exact wrong man for the moment.
