Thread by @jeffnesbit

This has been done elsewhere, but repetition is the mother of all learning. As President Trump tries to rewrite his history of dangerous delays on the pandemic - setting a baseline that 200K deaths is actually a victory - it's worth remembering. A thread (borrowed from others).

In the wake of the Ebola outbreak, the Obama-Biden administration created a permanent pandemic monitoring and command group inside the National Security Council. This command structure was dismantled by the Trump White House in 2018.

foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/cor…

Obama-Biden's 69-page, step-by-step "pandemic playbook" for the federal government included direction for early action to develop and expand testing capacity, procure more personal protective equipment, and enact the Defense Production Act.

politico.com/news/2020/03/2…

The Obama-Biden NSC team briefed Trump's team on Jan. 13, 2017, on the biggest national security threats, including this one: an emerging pandemic of a novel influenza virus that originates in China and spreads around the world.

politico.com/news/2020/03/1…

Trump’s first budget in office proposed a 20% cut to the CDC. Former CDC director Tom Frieden said a cut to CDC like that "risks Americans’ health and safety” and “would increase illness, death, risk to Americans, and health care costs.”

vox.com/policy-and-pol…

Congress didn't accept Trump's 20% cut to CDC's budget in FY18. So Trump proposed that huge cut again in FY19. Congress again rejected the Trump CDC cuts.

vox.com/science-and-he…

Journalists who report on pandemics have noted that the Trump WH's lack of respect for the science would leave us unprepared. The Trump administration “is setting up the US to botch a pandemic response.” - Vox Senior Health Correspondent Julia Belluz

vox.com/science-and-he…

Experts kept trying to warn Trump. He ignored them. Bill Gates said he directly warned President Trump of the threat; that the WH wasn't prepared for the “significant probability of a large and lethal modern-day pandemic occurring in our lifetimes.”

washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-h…

The Trump WH eliminated the NSC's global health security team in the spring of 2018, fired the entire pandemic response chain of command, and didn't replace them. Trump dismantled the coordinated command center structure needed for global pandemics.

foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/cor…

At the same time, the Trump administration cut CDC’s efforts to prevent global disease outbreak by 80 percent and eliminated its pandemic prevention activities in 39 of 49 countries. In effect, Trump shut down CDC's ability to see COVID-19 coming.

washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-h…

In the summer of 2019, the Trump WH eliminated a “key public health position in Beijing intended to help detect disease outbreaks in China.” That job? Providing real-time info to US officials at the outset of a pandemic.

reuters.com/article/us-hea…

When was the Trump WH first alerted to the existence and spread of the coronavirus in China by Chinese officials? January 3, 2020. Trump dismissed the intelligence briefings and warnings.

washingtonpost.com/national-secur…

Before the virus had reached American shores, US intelligence agencies issued “ominous, classified warnings” to Trump about the dangers posed by the coronavirus pandemic. But Trump did nothing even though "the system was blinking red.”

washingtonpost.com/national-secur…

Throughout January, Trump refused to take the emerging threat seriously. “Trump’s advisers struggled to get him to take the virus seriously." They begged the WH CoS to intervene. Nothing worked. Trump didn't listen or act.

washingtonpost.com/national-secur…

But others around the world WERE taking it seriously. Testing, tracing and quarantines are the core of a national public health plan. Virologists in Berlin produced the first coronavirus test in mid-January. The Trump WH still has no testing plan.

politico.com/news/2020/03/0…

The first COVID-19 cases were announced in the US and South Korea on Jan. 21. The WHO assessed the global risk of the coronavirus to be “high at the global level.”

who.int/docs/default-s…

Unlike the Trump WH, which still has no testing plan, South Korea leaders put on a full-court blitz to inform and test its citizens in real time beginning at the end of January. Ads, alerts & reminders were ubiquitous.

nytimes.com/2020/03/23/wor…

South Korean leaders met with medical companies in late January and urged them to immediately begin developing test kits for mass production. They promised emergency approval and $$$. As of April 1, the Trump WH and the US still has no testing plan.

nytimes.com/2020/03/23/wor…

At the same time, the Trump WH decided not to use a WHO virus test as a bridge until a US test was developed. No US testing plan emerged. The Trump WH's efforts to produce its own national testing regime “faltered in almost every way imaginable."

politico.com/news/2020/03/0…

Trump later said the WHO test (validated by 3 labs) was "a bad test.” But the WH virus czar said it was effective. WHO has now shipped 1.5 million of the same test kits to 120 other countries around the world, with no reports of faulty results.

politico.com/news/2020/03/0…

On Jan. 22, Trump was asked if he was worried about a pandemic. "No. Not at all, "Trump responded. "And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s...going to be just fine."

cnbc.com/2020/01/22/cnb…

Two days later (Jan. 24), the CDC conducts a classified briefing on the pandemic for all US senators. That same day, Trump tweets “it will all work out well.” Over the next 2 weeks, GOP Senator Kelly Loeffler sells up to $3.1 million of stock.

washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/…

The Trump WH finally acts on Jan. 29, as WHO declares a global health emergency. It forms a task force. Trump bans travel to the US from China. But 300,000 people had already traveled to the US from China in January.

nbcnews.com/politics/white…

Throughout February, Trump downplayed the threat. Trump said "I'm not concerned at all" on March 7. Three days later, he said “it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.” On March 11, WHO declared coronavirus a pandemic.

whitehouse.gov/briefings-stat…

We know what happened since. We are locked down for at least another 30 days.

President Trump now says 200,000 American deaths is a victory. But we could have been prepared. We were not. We could have avoided this. But we will not.

And we still have no national testing plan.