Thread by @saletan

Highlights from NYT's big COVID story:

1) After Atlas arrived in August and said COVID deaths were overstated, Trump "often [told] aides that the real number of dead was no more than 10,000."

He dismissed about 95% of attributed deaths as fake news. /1 nyti.ms/3hEjRCj

2) Azar, Kushner, Hicks, and pollster Tony Fabrizio lobbied Trump to wear and promote masks. They showed him evidence that masks worked and that Republicans supported mask mandates.

Who talked Trump out of it? Meadows and Stephen Miller. They told him, "The base will revolt." /2

3) In multiple meetings, Trump explicitly opposed testing on the grounds that it exposed infections, thereby making him look bad and hurting his reelection chances. In debate prep, He told Kushner, "I’m going to lose. And it’s going to be your fault, because of the testing." /3

In an Aug. 19 meeting, Trump complained to Kushner that the U.S. was testing too much: “You’re killing me! This whole thing is! We’ve got all the damn cases. ... I want to do what Mexico does. They don’t give you a test till you get to the emergency room and you’re vomiting." /4

4) Birx, Fauci, Hahn, and Redfield made a pact to "stick together if one of them was fired for doing ... the right thing."

5) Some aides indicated that "John McEntee, the president’s personnel chief," found Atlas by "Googling for a Trump-friendly doctor who would be loyal." /5

There's much more in the @nytimes story. It's consistent with what the @washingtonpost reported on Dec. 19. Many thanks to @shearm, @maggieNYT, @noahweiland, @SharonLNYT, and @MarkMazzettiNYT for all the work they put into it. Read the whole thing at nyti.ms/3hEjRCj /END