Leading is a foreign concept to career followers.

Leading includes managing panic and optics and tone actively. Drawing a causal connection to more deaths because of Trump’s decisions and actions is ridiculous politics.
It is deplorable and naive to state that “Trump lied and people died.” The panic and fear kill and the ramifications of the humanitarian crisis are just beginning. Since we are now doing counterfactuals... in retrospect... if Hilary had been in charge things would have been very different and radically worse... such is the way of liars and losers and cowards. Trump is none of those things. With Biden it would have been far far worse. No closed borders in Feb and March is just as a start to how bad things could have been.

And to be clear, there is much we could have done better. But hindsight is 2020. Always has been... Actual leaders know this.

from Dave Foreman on FB
“so Donald Trump made some comments to Bob Woodward in March/April and now everyone is going nuts. Right.

I was doing a LOT of analysis back then on who said what when. The CDC, WHO, and government and private groups were desperately trying to make sense of things. EVERYONE was overreacting on too little factual information out of an abundance of caution. What was said one day was contradicted a week or a month later.

The president said in a short conversation that the virus was more deadly than the flu and also said he was downplaying it because he did not want to create a panic. THAT IS HIS JOB. Presidents are responsible for managing the mood of the country as the facts unfold.

Anyone who tries to act like they 'knew' what was happening is exaggerating. When you are shutting down air travel to other countries, contemplating the death of 2 million of your citizens, and don't really understand the disease yet because your medical team doesn't you say things to calm and sometimes manipulate the public. Remember that the people that want universal masks now were saying we didn't need then then - BECAUSE WE DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH PPE AND WANTED MEDICAL PEOPLE TO HAVE THE INVENTORY. We have tens of thousands of ventilators now that may never be used because we thought we needed them.

I get that if you want to defeat Trump in November or you can't stand the man ANYTHING will be a great reason to further your position. That does not, however, make it true. Various governors and Senators and Mayors said a lot of contradictory things around the same time. That is what panic does.“
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