“Again and again, the story that emerged is of a president who ignored increasingly urgent intelligence warnings from January, dismisses anyone who claims to know more than him and trusts no one outside a tiny coterie, led by [Ivanka and Jared]...”
ft.com/content/97dc7d…
ft.com/content/97dc7d…
“Jared [Kushner] had been arguing that testing too many people, or ordering too many ventilators, would spook the markets and so we just shouldn’t do it... That advice worked far more powerfully on him than what the scientists were saying. He thinks they always exaggerate.”
“[A 9/11 style] inquiry would find that Trump was warned countless times of the epidemic threat in his presidential daily briefings, by federal scientists... Alex Azar, Peter Navarro... Matt Pottinger, his Asia adviser, by business friends and the world at large.”
“It is as though we knew for a fact that 9/11 was going to happen for months, did nothing to prepare for it and then shrugged a few days later and said, ‘Oh well, there’s not much we can do about it...’ Trump could have prevented mass deaths and he didn’t.”
“During the Ebola outbreak in 2014, when Obama’s admin. sent 3,000 US military personnel to Africa to fight the epidemic, the CDC held a daily briefing.... It has not held one since early March. Scientists across Wash. are terrified of saying anything that contradicts Trump.”
“An administration official says advising Trump is like ‘bringing fruits to the volcano’ – Trump being the lava source. ‘You’re trying to appease a great force that’s impervious to reason,’ says the official.”
“Trump, by contrast, plays US state governors against each other, much as he does with his staff. Rep. states have received considerably more ventilators and personal protective equipment per capita than Democratic states, in spite of having far lower rates of hospitalisation.“
“‘You don’t turn off the hose in the middle of the fire, even if you dislike the fireman,’ says Bernhard Schwartländer, chief of staff at the WHO. “This virus threatens every country in the world and will exploit any crack in our resolve.’”
George Conway: “In my view he is a sociopath and a malignant narcissist. When a person suffering from these disorders feels the world closing in on them, their tendencies get worse. They lash out and fantasise and lose any ability to think rationally.”
“...w/o exception, everyone I interviewed, including the most ardent Trump loyalists, made a similar point to Conway. Trump is deaf to advice, said one. He is his own worst enemy, said another. He only listens to family, said a third. He is mentally imbalanced, said a fourth.”
“America, in other words, should brace itself for a turbulent six months ahead – with no assurance of a safe landing.” /end
