Trump's COVID-19 pandemic response was second-rate and deceitful, a new report shows
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Anyone paying attention was aware of the ineptitude former President Donald Trump displayed in the first days and months of the COVID-19 pandemic … and his entire presidency. But based on a report released Friday by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, Trump’s pandemic response was worse than the public even knew.
The report found that not only did government scientists observe “incidents of political interference in scientific decision-making,” but they were too afraid of “retaliation” to report it. Additionally, “Trump Administration officials overruled, undermined, and muzzled career public health experts, during the critical first year of the pandemic.”
Most damning are emails released in the report that shows that in May of 2020, the White House tried to downplay the seriousness of COVID-19 transmissions in places of worship, despite knowing full well how deadly it could be for people to gather.
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The day before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its guidelines for safety in churches, essentially recommending that churches go virtual, “Trump White House officials made edits to the guidance with no scientific basis,” the report reads.
Paul Ray, then-administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, found issues with the CDC guideline, writing in an email to senior White House officials that the recommendation “seems to raise religious liberty concerns.” Ray suggested several deletions and that the CDC be allowed to publish guidance “contingent on striking the offensive passages.”
Then-Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway responded to the email, thanking Ray for “holding firm against the newest round of mission creep.”
White House attorney May Davis referred to the CDC’s faith communities guidance as “problematic,” and proposed changes “on top of Kellyanne [Conway]’s edits.”
Davis added, “[T]hough personally I will say that if I was old and vulnerable (I do feel old and vulnerable), drive-through services would sound welcome.”
“The recommendation to attend virtual religious services did not appear in the final guidance,” according to the report. In fact, Trump deemed churches “essential places that provide essential services,” and demanded governors follow his lead or face the consequences.
In excerpts of a transcribed interview with former CDC Director Robert Redfield, the report states that “one of [his] great disappointments” was “[t]hat HHS basically took over total clearance of briefings by CDC” during the most critical points early on in the pandemic.
Redfield said he was left with “PTSD for probably six months” because “none of our [CDC] briefings were approved” by the Trump administration, and CDC staff were prohibited from doing media or interviews.
“The Select Subcommittee continues to unearth disturbing new details on how the Trump Administration’s pandemic response prioritized politics over public health,” Rep. James E. Clyburn, chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, wrote in a statement.
“While a Trump White House official admitted to her colleagues that proposed CDC guidelines for places of worship were reasonable, she worked with them to strong-arm changes to those guidelines that deprived Americans of useful information on how to protect themselves against this deadly virus. As today’s new evidence also makes clear, Trump White House officials worked under the direction of the former president to purposefully undercut public health officials’ recommendations and muzzle their ability to communicate clearly to the American public,” Clyburn added.