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A thread on our month-long investigation:
1) Trump team got clear warning Jan. 3 of outbreak in Wuhan; within days the virus was mentioned in Trump’s president’s daily brief. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/us-was-beset-by-denial-dysfunction-coronavirus-raged/?arc404=true
1) Trump team got clear warning Jan. 3 of outbreak in Wuhan; within days the virus was mentioned in Trump’s president’s daily brief. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/us-was-beset-by-denial-dysfunction-coronavirus-raged/?arc404=true
2) HHS Sec Azar sought to brief Trump on Jan. 18, but Trump cut him off, lit into him about vaping issues before Azar could mention virus.
3) Task force spent early days consumed with travel bans, repatriating Americans, paying scant attention to testing or supplies problems that have become major crisis to US
4) Pottinger pushed in Jan. to block travel from Europe, but Mnuchin/others blocked him, citing concern for economy. Travel continued for weeks.
5) Problems at CDC lab so extensive that an FDA officials blew up on a call, saying lab should be “shut down”
6) Officials at CDC/HHS/FDA have been derailed repeatedly by demands from Jared Kushner for ill-conceived corona projects.
7) In midst of corona crisis, Trump found time for at least 6 golf outings and 8 political rallies crammed with people.
8) GOP polling in March showed Trump’s base putting itself in real peril by ignoring warnings about virus spread. Republicans far more likely than Dems to ignore social distancing demands, etc.
9) US now on course for more people to die from coronavirus than in wars of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan combined. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/04/04/us-was-beset-by-denial-dysfunction-coronavirus-raged/?arc404=true
