On February 26, Trump was scheduled to meet with top infectious disease experts to discuss urgent social distancing steps. Instead, the meeting was cancelled bc Trump was mad about bad press. Then Pence took over & pissed away 3 weeks before taking action. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html

Interesting that Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security advisor, may have laundered this theory into the press through Tom Cotton.