{"id":79266,"date":"2020-05-17T19:28:04","date_gmt":"2020-05-17T19:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2020\/05\/17\/doctortrump-mister-virus\/"},"modified":"2020-05-17T19:28:04","modified_gmt":"2020-05-17T19:28:04","slug":"doctortrump-mister-virus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2020\/05\/17\/doctortrump-mister-virus\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctor\u00a0<\/em>Trump &\u00a0Mister <\/em>Virus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Doctor <\/em>Trump & Mister <\/em>Virus<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

On l’a assez accabl\u00e9 de sarcasmes \u00e0 nombre d’occasions pour reconnaître, cette fois, qu’il s’agit de la belle ouvrage. L’article du Financial Times <\/em>(FT) de Edward Luce, le 14 mai 2020<\/a>, est un remarquable r\u00e9cit sur l’action\/l’inaction de Trump vis-\u00e0-vis de Covid19, en m\u00eame temps, et cela indirectement sinon inconsciemment, qu’une remarquable \u00e9tude psychologique du pr\u00e9sident des États-Unis. C’est surtout le deuxi\u00e8me trait qui doit nous int\u00e9resser car le portrait psychologique de Trump, ce n’est pas rien et cela explique fondamentalement l’\u00e9tat actuel du pouvoir \u00e0 \u00ab\u00a0D.C.-la-folle\u00a0\u00bb et l’\u00e9trange politique de Washington D.C.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Trump est un personnage qui ne permet pas \u00e0 grand’monde, ni m\u00eame \u00e0 grand’chose et jusqu’aux dieux eux-m\u00eames, de l’interrompre dans ses actes et ses projets, et encore moins de le contredire. Ainsi en est-il de Covid19, comme l’explique ce passage en r\u00e9pondant directement \u00e0 la question \u00ab\u00a0pourquoi le pr\u00e9sident n’a-t-il pas agi plus rapidement contre Covid19 ?\u00a0\u00bb, – en r\u00e9pondant tout simplement : \u00ab\u00a0parce que ce n’\u00e9tait pas le moment, Trump avait d’autres choses \u00e0 faire et l’on n’interrompt pas Trump dans de tels moments…\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n

« Stephen Moore de la<\/em>Heritage Foundation, un think-tank conservateur, qui parle r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement \u00e0 Trump et qui est conseiller de campagne, dit que l’ambiance \u00e9tait \u00e0 la limite de l’extase au d\u00e9but du mois de mars. \u00ab\u00a0L’\u00e9conomie \u00e9tait en plein essor, la bourse battait son plein et le rapport sur l’emploi \u00e9tait fantastique\u00a0\u00bb, dit Moore. \u00ab\u00a0C’\u00e9tait presque trop parfait. Personne ne s’attendait \u00e0 ce virus. Il nous a frapp\u00e9s comme un m\u00e9t\u00e9ore ou une attaque terroriste.\u00a0\u00bb<\/em> »<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

C’est MoonofAlabama<\/a> <\/em>(MoA) qui a attir\u00e9 notre attention sur cet article du FT, en publiant lui-m\u00eame un extrait de cet article (article MoA traduit par le Sakerfrancophone<\/a><\/em>). Cet extrait montre \u00e0 la fois la fa\u00e7on dont Trump \u00ab\u00a0travaille\u00a0\u00bb, la fa\u00e7on dont les gens \u00ab\u00a0travaillent\u00a0\u00bb autour de lui, la fa\u00e7on dont les agences (dans ce cas, celles de la sant\u00e9) ont entre elles des rapports ex\u00e9crables d’agressivit\u00e9, de comp\u00e9tition et de diffamation, en fonction des positions dogmatiques, des nominations r\u00e9pondant \u00e0 des choix et des int\u00e9r\u00eats personnels, etc. Il s’agit certes d’une corruption \u00e0 la plus grande \u00e9chelle, mais d’abord d’une corruption psychologique du fait que la psychologie dominante est absolument \u00e0 la fois pathologique et pathog\u00e8ne, – infection bien pire que celle du virus, – et caract\u00e9ris\u00e9e aussi bien par l’hyst\u00e9rie que par la rupture compl\u00e8te, voulue et organis\u00e9e, de tout lien avec les diverses v\u00e9rit\u00e9s-de-situation, sinon la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 elle-m\u00eame lorsqu’il en reste quelques d\u00e9bris.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

On reprend cet extrait assez long :<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n

« Encore et toujours, l’histoire qui a \u00e9merg\u00e9 est celle d’un pr\u00e9sident qui a ignor\u00e9 les avertissements de plus en plus urgents des services de renseignement \u00e0 partir de janvier, qui rejette quiconque pr\u00e9tend en savoir plus que lui et qui ne fait confiance \u00e0 personne en dehors d’une minuscule coterie, dirig\u00e9e par sa fille Ivanka et son le mari de celle-ci, Jared Kushner, – le promoteur immobilier que Trump a habilit\u00e9 \u00e0 mettre sur la touche la bureaucratie de traitement des catastrophes la mieux financ\u00e9e au monde<\/em>. […] <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» \u00ab\u00a0Jared<\/em>[Kushner] a fait valoir que tester trop de personnes, ou commander trop de ventilateurs, effrayerait les march\u00e9s et que nous ne devions pas le faire\u00a0\u00bb, explique un confident de Trump. \u00ab\u00a0Cet avis a influenc\u00e9 <\/em>[Trump]bien plus que tout ce que disent les scientifiques. Il pense qu’ils exag\u00e8rent toujours"<\/em>. […]<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» C’est Trump qui a choisi Robert Redfield pour diriger le CDC en d\u00e9pit des nombreux avertissements sur les ant\u00e9c\u00e9dents controvers\u00e9s de l’ancien officier militaire. Redfield a dirig\u00e9 la r\u00e9ponse du Pentagone au VIH-SIDA dans les ann\u00e9es 1980. Elle consistait \u00e0 isoler les soldats suspects dans des h\u00f4tels dits \u00ab\u00a0HIV\u00a0\u00bb. Beaucoup de ceux qui ont \u00e9t\u00e9 test\u00e9s positifs ont \u00e9t\u00e9 renvoy\u00e9s de l’arm\u00e9e sans autre forme de proc\u00e8s. Certains se sont suicid\u00e9s.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» Catholique fervent, Redfield consid\u00e9rait le sida comme le produit d’une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 immorale. Pendant de nombreuses ann\u00e9es, il s’est fait le champion d’un rem\u00e8de tr\u00e8s m\u00e9diatis\u00e9 qui a \u00e9t\u00e9 discr\u00e9dit\u00e9 par les tests. Cette d\u00e9b\u00e2cle a conduit \u00e0 son licenciement en 1994.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» \u00ab\u00a0Redfield est la pire personne que l’on puisse imaginer \u00e0 la t\u00eate du CDC \u00e0 l’heure actuelle\u00a0\u00bb, d\u00e9clare Laurie Garrett, journaliste scientifique laur\u00e9ate du prix Pulitzer, qui a fait des reportages sur les \u00e9pid\u00e9mies. \u00ab\u00a0Il laisse ses pr\u00e9jug\u00e9s interf\u00e9rer avec la science, ce que vous ne pouvez pas vous permettre pendant une pand\u00e9mie.\u00a0\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» […] Le Dr Anthony Fauci, – l’expert en maladies infectieuses <\/em>[directeur du NIH] –, est connu pour d\u00e9tester Redfield, et vice versa. Cela signifie que le CDC et le National Institute of Health de Fauci divergent compl\u00e8tement.<\/em> »<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

La description des relations de Trump avec ses conseillers et les divers hauts fonctionnaires avec lesquels il travaille est absolument illustrative d’une situation extraordinaire où la r\u00eagle est de savoir d\u00e9terminer quel mensonge est le plus avantageux, pour telle ou telle politique, pour telle ou telle personne, etc. Philip Giraldi a \u00e9crit un article (le 7 mai 2020<\/a> sur Strategic-Culture.org<\/em>) sur les difficult\u00e9s conflictuelles que rencontrent les officiels de l’administration dans la d\u00e9termination « de la meilleure fa\u00e7on de mentir \u00e0 l’intention du pr\u00e9sident <\/em>».<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Luce a recueilli bien des avis sur cette fa\u00e7on de travailler et de proc\u00e9der, essentiellement dans les relations avec un homme totalement indiff\u00e9rent sinon \u00e0 la raison et au sens commun, uniquement pr\u00e9occup\u00e9 de suivre son \u00ab\u00a0instinct\u00a0\u00bb qui correspond n\u00e9cessairement au meilleur moyen possible d’orienter la r\u00e9alit\u00e9, – ou plut\u00f4t de la \u00ab\u00a0fabriquer\u00a0\u00bb, de la fa\u00e7on la plus crue et la plus voyante du monde. Il \u00e9crit \u00e0 propos du sort de Rock Bright, le fonctionnaire charg\u00e9 de la question des vaccins d\u00e9charg\u00e9 de ses fonctions en avril, et qui a r\u00e9cemment t\u00e9moign\u00e9 au Congr\u00e8s :<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n

« Agissant comme s’il \u00e9tait un lanceur d’alerte, <\/em>[Bright] a d\u00e9clar\u00e9 avoir subi des pressions pour passer des contrats de plusieurs millions de dollars \u00e0 une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 contr\u00f4l\u00e9e par un ami de Kushner. Lorsqu’il a refus\u00e9, il a \u00e9t\u00e9 licenci\u00e9. <\/em>[…]<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» D’autres scientifiques ont pris note du sort de Bright. Lors de la crise de l’Ebola en 2014, l’administration Obama avait envoy\u00e9 3 000 militaires am\u00e9ricains en Afrique pour combattre l’\u00e9pid\u00e9mie et le CDC tenait un briefing quotidien sur l’\u00e9volution de la situation. Il n’en a tenu aucun <\/em>[sur Covid19] depuis le d\u00e9but du mois de mars. Les scientifiques \u00e0 Washington sont terrifi\u00e9s \u00e0 l’id\u00e9e de dire quoi que ce soit qui contredise Trump.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» \u00ab\u00a0Le seul moyen de garder son emploi est de se montrer plus loyal que les autres, ce qui signifie que vous devez tol\u00e9rer le charlatanisme\u00a0\u00bb, explique Anthony Scaramucci, un ancien conseiller de Trump, qui a \u00e9t\u00e9 bri\u00e8vement son chef de la communication \u00e0 la Maison Blanche. \u00ab\u00a0Vous devez le flatter en public et le flatter en priv\u00e9. Surtout, vous ne devez jamais le faire se sentir ignorant\u00a0\u00bb.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

» Selon un fonctionnaire de l’administration, conseiller Trump, c’est comme \u00ab\u00a0apporter des offrandes \u00e0 un volcan\u00a0\u00bb, – Trump \u00e9tant le crat\u00e8re qui crache la lave. \u00ab\u00a0Vous essayez d’apaiser une grande force qui est compl\u00e8tement imperm\u00e9able \u00e0 la raison\u00a0\u00bb…<\/em> »<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Et ainsi de suite tout au long du r\u00e9cit. Ce qui est d\u00e9crit ici est beaucoup plus qu’un ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne politique ou id\u00e9ologique ; il s’agit d’un ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne psychologique dans le chef d’un homme qui dispose de tr\u00e8s puissants pouvoirs. Le paradoxe est qu’en quelque sorte, il est loisible sinon juste de dire que Trump est une marionnette (par exemple, du DeepState<\/em>, ou des neocon<\/em>, ou d’Isra\u00ebl), mais il est tellement excessif dans ses traits quasiment pathologiques, il est tellement ferm\u00e9 \u00e0 tout ce qui ne rel\u00e8ve pas de lui-m\u00eame, pour lui-m\u00eame, autour de lui-m\u00eame, que la marionnette est tout \u00e0 fait capable de rugir contre les consignes, qu’elle est inarr\u00eatable, qu’elle ne cesse d’\u00e9chapper au marionnettiste, qu’enfin elle d\u00e9veloppe des politiques plus ou moins sugg\u00e9r\u00e9es ou encadr\u00e9es sinon contraintes, jusqu’\u00e0 des extr\u00eames qui font voler en \u00e9clats toutes les suggestions, tous les cadres et toutes les contraintes du monde.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Un avocat r\u00e9publicain, George Conway, le mari de Kellyanne Conway qui est conseill\u00e8re de Trump, conclut pour nous et pour la situation qui se fait de plus en plus difficile pour Trump, – de fa\u00e7on assez audacieuse et risqu\u00e9e si l’on consid\u00e8re la position de son \u00e9pouse et s’il prenait \u00e0 Kushner l’id\u00e9e de faire lire l’article \u00e0 son beau-p\u00e8re :<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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« Trump est prisonnier dans une boîte qui ne cesse de r\u00e9tr\u00e9cir. A mon avis, c’est un sociopathe et un narcissique malfaisant. Lorsqu’une personne souffrant de ces troubles sent le monde se refermer sur elle, ses tendances s’aggravent. Elle s’emporte, fantasme et perd toute capacit\u00e9 de penser rationnellement<\/em>. »<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Bref et pour le reste, pour \u00ab\u00a0D.C.-la-folle\u00a0\u00bb et pour le Syst\u00e8me, du d\u00e9sordre, encore plus de d\u00e9sordre, toujours plus de d\u00e9sordre… Ci-dessous, en lecture libre, l’article d’Edward Luce dans le FT du 14 mai 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

dde.org<\/em><\/h4>\n<\/p>\n

_________________________<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Inside Trump’s coronavirus meltdown<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

What went wrong in the president’s first real crisis — and what does it mean for the US?<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

When the history is written of how America handled the global era’s first real pandemic, March 6 will leap out of the timeline. That was the day Donald Trump visited the US Centers for Disease Control<\/a> and Prevention in Atlanta. His foray to the world’s best disease research body was meant to showcase that America had everything under control. It came midway between the time he was still denying the coronavirus posed a threat and the moment he said he had always known it could ravage America.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Shortly before the CDC visit, Trump said \u00ab\u00a0within a couple of days, [infections are] going to be down to close to zero\u00a0\u00bb. The US then had 15 cases. \u00ab\u00a0One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.\u00a0\u00bb A few days afterwards, he claimed: \u00ab\u00a0I’ve felt it was a pandemic<\/a> long before it was called a pandemic.\u00a0\u00bb That afternoon at the CDC provides an X-ray into Trump’s mind at the halfway point between denial and acceptance.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

We now know that Covid-19 had already passed the breakout point in the US. The contagion had been spreading for weeks in New York, Washington state<\/a> and other clusters. The curve was pointing sharply upwards. Trump’s goal in Atlanta was to assert the opposite.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Wearing his \u00ab\u00a0Keep America Great\u00a0\u00bb baseball cap, the US president was flanked by Robert Redfield, head of the CDC, Alex Azar, the US secretary of health and human services, and Brian Kemp, governor of Georgia. In his 47-minute interaction with the press, Trump rattled through his greatest hits.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He dismissed CNN as fake news, boasted about his high Fox News viewership, cited the US stock market’s recent highs, called Washington state’s Democratic governor a \u00ab\u00a0snake\u00a0\u00bb<\/a> and admitted he hadn’t known that large numbers of people could die from ordinary flu. He also misunderstood a question on whether he should cancel campaign rallies for public health reasons. \u00ab\u00a0I haven’t had any problems filling [the stadiums],\u00a0\u00bb Trump said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

What caught the media’s attention were two comments he made about the disease. There would be four million testing kits available within a week. \u00ab\u00a0The tests are beautiful,\u00a0\u00bb he said. \u00ab\u00a0Anybody that needs a test gets a test.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Ten weeks later, that is still not close to being true. Fewer than 3 per cent of Americans had been tested<\/a> by mid-May. Trump also boasted about his grasp of science. He cited a \u00ab\u00a0super genius\u00a0\u00bb uncle, John Trump, who taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and implied he inherited his intellect. \u00ab\u00a0I really get it,\u00a0\u00bb he said. \u00ab\u00a0Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.\u00a0\u00bb Historians might linger on that observation too.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

What the headlines missed was a boast that posterity will take more seriously than Trump’s self-estimated IQ, or the exaggerated test numbers (the true number of CDC kits by March was 75,000). Trump proclaimed that America was leading the world. South Korea had its first infection on January 20, the same day as America’s first case, and was, he said, calling America for help. \u00ab\u00a0They have a lot of people that are infected; we don’t.\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0All I say is, ‘Be calm,'\u00a0\u00bb said the president. \u00ab\u00a0Everyone is relying on us. The world is relying on us.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He could just as well have said baseball is popular or foreigners love New York. American leadership in any disaster, whether a tsunami or an Ebola outbreak, has been a truism for decades. The US is renowned for helping others in an emergency.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In hindsight, Trump’s claim to global leadership leaps out. History will mark Covid-19 as the first time that ceased to be true. US airlifts have been missing in action. America cannot even supply itself.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

South Korea<\/a>, which has a population density nearly 15 times greater and is next door to China, has lost a total of 259 lives to the disease. There have been days when America has lost 10 times that number. The US death toll is now approaching 90,000.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

______<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

What has gone wrong<\/strong>? I interviewed dozens of people, including outsiders who Trump consults regularly, former senior advisers, World Health Organization officials, leading scientists and diplomats, and figures inside the White House. Some spoke off the record.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Again and again, the story that emerged is of a president who ignored increasingly urgent intelligence warnings from January, dismisses anyone who claims to know more than him and trusts no one outside a tiny coterie, led by his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner – the property developer who Trump has empowered to sideline the best-funded disaster response bureaucracy in the world. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

People often observed during Trump’s first three years that he had yet to be tested in a true crisis. Covid-19 is way bigger than that. \u00ab\u00a0Trump’s handling of the pandemic at home and abroad has exposed more painfully than anything since he took office the meaning of America First,\u00a0\u00bb says William Burns<\/a>, who was the most senior US diplomat, and is now head of the Carnegie Endowment.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0America is first in the world in deaths, first in the world in infections and we stand out as an emblem of global incompetence. The damage to America’s influence and reputation will be very hard to undo.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The psychology behind Trump’s inaction on Covid-19 was on display that afternoon at the CDC. The unemployment number had come out that morning. The US had added 273,000 jobs in February, bringing the jobless rate down to a near record low of 3.5 per cent. Trump’s re-election chances were looking 50:50 or better. The previous Saturday, Joe Biden had won the South Carolina primary. But the Democratic contest still seemed to have miles to go. Nothing could be allowed to frighten the Dow Jones.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Any signal that the US was bracing for a pandemic – including taking actual steps to prepare for it – was discouraged.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0Jared [Kushner] had been arguing that testing too many people, or ordering too many ventilators, would spook the markets and so we just shouldn’t do it,\u00a0\u00bb says a Trump confidant who speaks to the president frequently. \u00ab\u00a0That advice worked far more powerfully on him than what the scientists were saying. He thinks they always exaggerate.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, who talks regularly to Trump and is a campaign adviser, says the mood was borderline ecstatic in early March. \u00ab\u00a0The economy was just steaming along, the stock market was firing on all cylinders and that jobs report was fantastic,\u00a0\u00bb says Moore. \u00ab\u00a0It was almost too perfect. Nobody expected this virus. It hit us like a meteor or a terrorist attack.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

People in Trump’s orbit are fond of comparing coronavirus to the 9\/11 attacks. George W Bush missed red flags in the build-up to al-Qaeda’s Twin Towers attacks. But he was only once explicitly warned of a possible plot a few weeks before it happened. \u00ab\u00a0All right, you’ve covered your ass,\u00a0\u00bb Bush reportedly told the briefer.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

At some point, Congress is likely to establish a body like the 9\/11 Commission to investigate Trump’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. The inquiry would find that Trump was warned countless times<\/a> of the epidemic threat in his presidential daily briefings, by federal scientists, the health secretary Alex Azar, Peter Navarro, his trade adviser, Matt Pottinger, his Asia adviser, by business friends and the world at large. Any report would probably conclude that tens of thousands of deaths could have been prevented – even now as Trump pushes to \u00ab\u00a0liberate\u00a0\u00bb states from lockdown<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0It is as though we knew for a fact that 9\/11 was going to happen for months, did nothing to prepare for it and then shrugged a few days later and said, ‘Oh well, there’s not much we can do about it,'\u00a0\u00bb says Gregg Gonsalves, a public health scholar at Yale University. \u00ab\u00a0Trump could have prevented mass deaths and he didn’t.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In fairness, other democracies, notably the UK, Italy and Spain, also wasted time failing to prepare for the approaching onslaught. Whoever was America’s president might have been equally ill-served by Washington infighting.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The CDC has been plagued by mishap and error<\/a> throughout the crisis. The agency spent weeks trying to develop a jinxed test when it could simply have imported WHO-approved kits from Germany, which has been making them since late January. \u00ab\u00a0The CDC has been missing in action,\u00a0\u00bb says a former senior adviser in the Trump White House. \u00ab\u00a0Because of the CDC’s errors, we did not have a true picture of the spread of the disease.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

______<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Here again, though, Trump’s <\/strong>stamp is clear. It was Trump who chose Robert Redfield to head the CDC in spite of widespread warnings about the former military officer’s controversial record. Redfield led the Pentagon’s response to HIV-Aids in the 1980s. It involved isolating suspected soldiers in so-called HIV Hotels<\/a>. Many who tested positive were dishonourably discharged. Some committed suicide.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A devout catholic, Redfield saw Aids as the product of an immoral society. For many years, he championed a much-hyped remedy that was discredited in tests. That debacle led to his removal from the job in 1994. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, who talks regularly to Trump and is a campaign adviser, says the mood was borderline ecstatic in early March. \u00ab\u00a0The economy was just steaming along, the stock market was firing on all cylinders and that jobs report was fantastic,\u00a0\u00bb says Moore. \u00ab\u00a0It was almost too perfect. Nobody expected this virus. It hit us like a meteor or a terrorist attack.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

People in Trump’s orbit are fond of comparing coronavirus to the 9\/11 attacks. George W Bush missed red flags in the build-up to al-Qaeda’s Twin Towers attacks. But he was only once explicitly warned of a possible plot a few weeks before it happened. \u00ab\u00a0All right, you’ve covered your ass,\u00a0\u00bb Bush reportedly told the briefer.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

At some point, Congress is likely to establish a body like the 9\/11 Commission to investigate Trump’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. The inquiry would find that Trump was warned countless times<\/a> of the epidemic threat in his presidential daily briefings, by federal scientists, the health secretary Alex Azar, Peter Navarro, his trade adviser, Matt Pottinger, his Asia adviser, by business friends and the world at large. Any report would probably conclude that tens of thousands of deaths could have been prevented – even now as Trump pushes to \u00ab\u00a0liberate\u00a0\u00bb states from lockdown<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0It is as though we knew for a fact that 9\/11 was going to happen for months, did nothing to prepare for it and then shrugged a few days later and said, ‘Oh well, there’s not much we can do about it,'\u00a0\u00bb says Gregg Gonsalves, a public health scholar at Yale University. \u00ab\u00a0Trump could have prevented mass deaths and he didn’t.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0Redfield is about the worst person you could think of to be heading the CDC at this time,\u00a0\u00bb says Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist who has reported on epidemics. \u00ab\u00a0He lets his prejudices interfere with the science, which you cannot afford during a pandemic.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

One of the CDC’s constraints was to insist on developing its own test rather than import a foreign one. Dr Anthony Fauci<\/a> – the infectious disease expert and now household name – is widely known to loathe Redfield, and vice versa. That meant the CDC and Fauci’s National Institutes of Health were not on the same page. \u00ab\u00a0The last thing you need is scientists fighting with each other in the middle of an epidemic,\u00a0\u00bb says Dr Kenneth Bernard, who set up a previous White House pandemic unit in 2004, which was scrapped under Barack Obama and later revived after Ebola struck in 2014.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The scarcity of kits meant that the scientists lacked a picture of America’s rapidly spreading infections. The CDC was forced to ration tests to \u00ab\u00a0persons under investigation\u00a0\u00bb – people who had come within 6ft of someone who had either visited China or been infected with Covid-19 in the previous 14 days. Most were denied. Few could prove that they had met either criterion. This was at a time when several countries, notably Germany, Taiwan and South Korea, gave access to on-the-spot tests<\/a>, including at drive-through centres – an option most Americans still lack.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0You’ve been commuting by train or subway into New York every day, you show up sick in the clinic and they refuse to test you because you can’t prove you’ve been within 6ft of someone with Covid-19,\u00a0\u00bb says the former adviser. \u00ab\u00a0You’ve probably been close to half a million people in the previous two weeks.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Restrictions on testing narrow the options. \u00ab\u00a0Once you get to one per cent prevalence in any community, it is too late for non-pharmaceutical interventions to work,\u00a0\u00bb says Tom Bossert, who led the since-disbanded White House pandemic office before he was ejected in 2018 by John Bolton, Trump’s then national security adviser.**<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

By March 11, just five days after Trump’s CDC visit, the reality was beginning to seep through. In an Oval Office broadcast, Trump banned travel from most of Europe, which expanded the partial ban he put on China in February. Two days later, he declared a national emergency. Even then, however, he insisted America was leading the world. \u00ab\u00a0We’ve done a great job because we acted quickly,\u00a0\u00bb he said. \u00ab\u00a0We acted early.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Over the next 48 hours, however, something snapped in Trump’s mind. Citing a call with one of his sons, Trump said on March 16: \u00ab\u00a0It’s bad. It’s bad… They think August [before the disease peaks]. Could be July. Could be longer than that.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Eleven days later, Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime mlinister contracted Covid-19<\/a>. The disease nearly killed him. That was Johnson’s road-to-Damascus. Many hoped Trump had had a similar conversion. If so, it did not last long. The next week, he was saying that America should reopen by Easter<\/a> on April 12. \u00ab\u00a0I was one of the ones advising him to make it ‘Resurrection Sunday,'\u00a0\u00bb says Moore. \u00ab\u00a0I told him then what I think now, that this lockdown is causing more deaths and misery than the disease itself.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Trump’s mindset became increasingly surreal. He began to tout hydroxychloroquine as a cure<\/a> for Covid-19. On March 19, at a regular televised briefing, which he conducted daily for five weeks, often rambling for more than two hours, he depicted the antimalarial drug as a potential magic bullet. It could be \u00ab\u00a0one of the biggest game-changers<\/a> in the history of medicine\u00a0\u00bb, he later tweeted.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The president’s leap of faith, which was inspired by Fox News anchors, notably Laura Ingraham, and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, none of whom have a medical background, turned Washington’s bureaucracy upside down. Scientists who demurred were punished. In April, Rick Bright, the federal scientist in charge of developing a vaccine – arguably the most urgent role in government – was removed after blocking efforts to promote hydroxychloroquine.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Most clinical trials have shown the drug has no positive impact on Covid-19 patients and can harm people with heart problems. \u00ab\u00a0I was pressured to let politics and cronyism drive decisions over the opinions of the best scientists we have in government,\u00a0\u00bb Bright said in a statement.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In a whistleblower complaint<\/a>, he said he was pressured to send millions of dollars worth of contracts to a company controlled by a friend of Jared Kushner. When he refused, he was fired. The US Department of Health and Human Services denied Bright’s allegations.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Other scientists have taken note of Bright’s fate. During the Ebola outbreak in 2014, when Obama’s administration sent 3,000 US military personnel to Africa to fight the epidemic, the CDC held a daily briefing about the state of progress. It has not held one since early March. Scientists across Washington are terrified of saying anything that contradicts Trump.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0The way to keep your job is to out-loyal everyone else, which means you have to tolerate quackery,\u00a0\u00bb says Anthony Scaramucci, an estranged former Trump adviser, who was briefly his White House head of communications. \u00ab\u00a0You have to flatter him in public and flatter him in private. Above all, you must never make him feel ignorant.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

An administration official says advising Trump is like \u00ab\u00a0bringing fruits to the volcano\u00a0\u00bb – Trump being the lava source. \u00ab\u00a0You’re trying to appease a great force that’s impervious to reason,\u00a0\u00bb says the official.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

When Trump suggested in late April that people could stop Covid-19, or even cure themselves, by injecting disinfectant<\/a>, such as Lysol or Dettol, his chief scientist, Deborah Birx, did not dare contradict him. The leading bleach companies issued statements urging customers not to inject or ingest disinfectant because it could be fatal. The CDC only issued a cryptic tweet advising Americans to: \u00ab\u00a0Follow the instructions on the product label.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0I can’t even get my calls returned,\u00a0\u00bb says Garrett. \u00ab\u00a0The CDC has led the response to every disease for decades. Now it has vanished from view.\u00a0\u00bb A former senior Trump official says: \u00ab\u00a0People turn into wusses around Trump. If you stand up to him, you’ll never get back in. What you see in public is what you get in private. He is exactly the same.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

______<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

America’s foreign partners have <\/strong>had an equally sharp reminder of Trump’s way of doing business. Few western leaders are as ideologically aligned with Trump as Scott Morrison, Australia’s prime minister. Early into the epidemic, Morrison created a national cabinet that meets at least once a week. It includes every state premier of the two main parties. Morrison’s unity cabinet projects an air of bipartisan resolve in a country that has lost just under 100 people<\/a> to coronavirus in three months. Some days, America has lost more people to it every hour.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Trump, by contrast, plays US state governors against each other, much as he does with his staff. Republican states have received considerably more ventilators and personal protective equipment per capita than Democratic states, in spite of having far lower rates of hospitalisation. Trump says America is fighting a war against Covid-19. In practice, he is stoking national disunity. \u00ab\u00a0It’s like saying to the governors that each state has to produce its own tanks and bullets,\u00a0\u00bb says Bernard. \u00ab\u00a0You’re on your own. It’s not my responsibility.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Trump’s dog-eat-dog instinct has been just as strong abroad as at home. A meeting of G7 foreign ministers in March failed to agree on a statement after Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, insisted they brand it the \u00ab\u00a0Wuhan virus\u00a0\u00bb. America declined to participate in a recent summit hosted by Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, to collaborate on a vaccine.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Most dramatically, Trump has suspended US funding of the WHO<\/a>, which he says covered up for China’s lying. The WHO confirms that Trump met the then director-general designate, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in the Oval Office in June 2017, shortly before he took up the role. Trump supported his candidacy.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Other critics say the Geneva-based body was too ready to take Beijing’s word at face value. There is some truth to that claim. \u00ab\u00a0They were too scared of offending China,\u00a0\u00bb says Bernard, who was America’s WHO director for two years. But its bureaucratic timidity did not stop other countries from taking early precautions.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Trump alleged the WHO’s negligence had increased the world’s death rate \u00ab\u00a0twenty-fold\u00a0\u00bb. In practice, the body must always abide by member state limits, especially the big ones, notably the US and China. That is the reality for all multilateral bodies. The WHO nevertheless declared an international emergency<\/a> six weeks before Trump’s US announcement. WHO officials say Trump’s move has badly hindered its operations.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0You don’t turn off the hose in the middle of the fire, even if you dislike the fireman,\u00a0\u00bb says Bernhard Schwartländer, chief of staff at the WHO. \u00ab\u00a0This virus threatens every country in the world and will exploit any crack in our resolve.\u00a0\u00bb The body, in other words, has fallen victim to US-China hostility. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

______<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Blaming America’s death rate <\/strong>on China and the WHO could well help Trump’s re-election campaign. Many voters are all too ready to believe the US is a victim of nefarious global forces. Garrett, who is a former senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, cites Inferno<\/em>, a lesser-known novel by Dan Brown, author of the best-selling Da Vinci Code<\/em>, in which the WHO plays a dastardly role.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

One of its leading characters is a biologist at the CFR. During a pandemic, she kidnaps the head of the WHO and puts him in the think-tank’s basement. He is rescued by a WHO military team that swoops in on the body’s C-130 jet. In reality, the agency has no police powers at all. \u00ab\u00a0We are not like Interpol,\u00a0\u00bb says Schwartländer. The WHO can no more insist on going into Wuhan to investigate the origins of Covid-19 than it can barge into Atlanta to investigate the CDC’s delay in producing a test.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Both the US and China have spread outlandish rumours about the other. Some Chinese officials have circulated the groundless conspiracy theory that the US army planted the virus in Wuhan at an athletics event last year. Trump administration officials, including Pompeo, have repeatedly suggested Covid-19 originated from a bat-to-human transmission<\/a> in Wuhan’s virology lab.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Last month, Australia called for an international inquiry into the disease’s origins. \u00ab\u00a0Australia’s goal was to defuse conspiracy theories in both China and America,\u00a0\u00bb says Michael Fullilove, head of the Lowy Institute, Australia’s largest think-tank.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Days later, Australia’s Daily Telegraph, a tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch, ran an apparent scoop that the \u00ab\u00a0five eyes\u00a0\u00bb – the intelligence agencies of the US, the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand – had concluded the disease came from the Wuhan lab, whether by accident or design. It appears the story had no substance<\/a>. Fauci and other scientists say the pathogen almost certainly came from a wet market in Wuhan. No \u00ab\u00a0five eyes\u00a0\u00bb dossier existed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

According to a five eye senior intelligence officer and a figure close to Australia’s government, the Daily Telegraph story probably came from the US embassy in Canberra. There was no chance after its publication that Beijing would agree to an international probe. The report damaged Australia’s hopes of defusing US-China tensions. \u00ab\u00a0We used to think of America as the world’s leading power, not as the epicentre of disease,\u00a0\u00bb says Fullilove, who is an ardent pro-American. \u00ab\u00a0We increasingly feel caught between a reckless China and a feckless America that no longer seems to care about its allies.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

______<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

So where does the<\/strong> American chapter of the plague go from here? Early into his partial about-turn, Trump said scientists told him that up to 2.5 million Americans could die of the disease. The most recent estimates suggest 135,000 Americans will die by late July. That means two things.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

First, Trump will tell voters that he has saved millions of lives. Second, he will continue to push aggressively for US states to lift their lockdowns. His overriding goal is to revive the economy before the general election. Both Trump and Kushner have all but declared mission accomplished on the pandemic<\/a>. \u00ab\u00a0This is a great success story,\u00a0\u00bb said Kushner in late April. \u00ab\u00a0We have prevailed,\u00a0\u00bb said Trump on Monday.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Economists say a V-shaped recovery is unlikely<\/a>. Even then it could be two Vs stuck together – a W, in other words. The social mingling resulting from any short-term economic reopening would probably come at the price of a second contagious outburst. As long as the second V began only after November, Trump might just be re-elected.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0From Trump’s point of view, there is no choice,\u00a0\u00bb says Charlie Black, a senior Republican consultant and lobbyist. \u00ab\u00a0It is the economy or nothing. He can’t exactly run on his personality.\u00a0\u00bb Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, had a slightly different emphasis: \u00ab\u00a0Trump’s campaign will be about China, China, China,\u00a0\u00bb he says. \u00ab\u00a0And hopefully the fact that he rebooted the economy.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Trump will probably continue to dangle the prospect of miracle cures. Every week since the start of the outbreak, he has said a vaccine is just around the corner. His latest estimate is that it will be ready by July. Scientists say it will take a year at best to produce an inoculation. Most say 18 months would be lucky. Even that would break all records. The previous fastest development was four years for mumps in the 1960s.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

For the time being, Trump has been persuaded to cease his daily briefings. The White House internal polling shows that his once double-digit lead over Biden among Americans over 65<\/a> has been wiped out. It turns out retirees are no fans of herd immunity.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Friends of the president are trying to figure out how to return life to normal without provoking a new death toll. After an initial rally in March, Trump’s poll numbers have been steadily dropping over the last month. For the next six months, America’s microbial fate will be in the hands of its president’s erratic re-election strategy. There is more than a whiff of rising desperation.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00ab\u00a0Trump is caught in a box which keeps getting smaller,\u00a0\u00bb says George Conway, a Republican lawyer who is married to Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s senior counsellor. \u00ab\u00a0In my view he is a sociopath and a malignant narcissist. When a person suffering from these disorders feels the world closing in on them, their tendencies get worse. They lash out and fantasise and lose any ability to think rationally.\u00a0\u00bb Conway is known for taunting Trump on Twitter (to great effect, it should be added: Trump often retaliates<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Yet without exception, everyone I interviewed, including the most ardent Trump loyalists, made a similar point to Conway. Trump is deaf to advice, said one. He is his own worst enemy, said another. He only listens to family, said a third. He is mentally imbalanced, said a fourth. America, in other words, should brace itself for a turbulent six months ahead – with no assurance of a safe landing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Edward Luce<\/h4><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doctor Trump & Mister Virus On l’a assez accabl\u00e9 de sarcasmes \u00e0 nombre d’occasions pour reconnaître, cette fois, qu’il s’agit de la belle ouvrage. L’article du Financial Times (FT) de Edward Luce, le 14 mai 2020, est un remarquable r\u00e9cit sur l’action\/l’inaction de Trump vis-\u00e0-vis de Covid19, en m\u00eame temps, et cela indirectement sinon inconsciemment,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[19876,17879,14393,19877,2851,12958,4691,9278,19878,2852],"class_list":["post-79266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ouverture-libre","tag-cdc","tag-covid19","tag-edward","tag-faucy","tag-financial","tag-kushner","tag-luce","tag-narcissisme","tag-sociopathe","tag-times"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}