By ROBERT P. BOMBOY
By Robert P. Bomboy
Nothing sticks to Donald Trump. The Teflon Don sounded again like one of those old vinyl phonograph records worn out because it has been used so many times.
Asked last week if he felt responsible for the delays and red tape that have choked the availability of coronavirus tests, Trump denied it, insisting instead — without evidence — that the fault lay with his predecessor, President Barack Obama.
“No,” Trump said. “I don’t take responsibility at all.”
It is true – Trump doesn’t take responsibility for anything. Time and again since the beginning of his presidency we have seen him dodge and deny bad things he has done. His massive ego jams its fist in his face and puts its foot in his mouth, and he says, “I didn’t do it!”
It has happened innumerable times; among them, for example: As commander-in-chief calling the relatives of a Green Beret ambushed in Africa, Trump stumbled into telling the soldier’s pregnant widow that her husband “knew what he signed up for.”
When an astounded congresswoman publicized the call, Trump denied it ever happened. The soldier’s mother, also in the room, confirmed it. Trump refused even then to take responsibility for it.
At the beginning of the month I quoted an investigative report by the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Laurie Garrett, titled, “Trump Has Sabotaged America’s Coronavirus Response.”
Ms. Garrett wrote, “Thanks to Trump’s deliberate neutering of response mechanisms put in place by President Barak Obama, America has never been in a worse position to handle a global pandemic. The Trump Administration has purposely, deliberately, and intentionally rendered itself incapable of responding to this potential pandemic.”
She described how bad-off America’s ability to respond to infectious diseases has become during the Trump Administration. From the very beginning, Trump and his cronies have derailed and undercut useful programs across the board.
In 2018, before the coronavirus reared its ugly head, Trump fired the federal government’s entire pandemic response chain of command. The heedless and thoughtless demolition of federal agencies and the elimination of key personnel cut $15 billion from our national health spending, including the disease-fighting budgets of a half dozen agencies, and wiped out the $30 million Complex Crises Fund.
Not content with eliminating efforts to prevent further global pandemics, the Trump administration also targeted the federal network that the Obama administration had constructed to contain big-time epidemics if they reached the U.S., as the coronavirus obviously has.
“Here we saw two of the Trump administration’s overarching goals being realized,” Ms. Garrett pointed out. “That is, the vigorous, wholesale dismantling of government positions as well as undoing the work of the Obama administration, which had carefully designed and staffed what it expected to be a permanent, crisis-ready infrastructure designed to fight epidemics such as the coronavirus.”
As an executive, Trump has made colossal mistakes.
In the analysis of David Leonhardt of The New York Times, he could have taken aggressive measures to slow the spread of the virus. He could have insisted that the United States ramp up efforts to produce test kits. He could have emphasized the risks that the virus presented and urged Americans to take precautions if they had reason to believe they were sick. He could have used the powers of the presidency to reduce the number of people who would ultimately get sick.
He did none of those things.
Robert P. Bomboy has written for more than 60 national magazines and is the author of six books, including the novel “Smart Boys Swimming in the River Styx.” He taught for more than 30 years in colleges and universities, and he has been a Ford Foundation Fellow at the University of Chicago and in Washington, D.C.
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