Even after three tumultuous years in which President Donald Trump has shredded the decorum of his office, his unwillingness to provide unifying leadership still has the power to shock.
Trump's
daily coronavirus task force press briefing has become the chief exhibit in this deficit of national stewardship and has largely shed any purpose in conveying useful information at a fraught moment — if that was ever the aim.
Instead, the President spends his time perpetually trying to repair his own image by disguising his belated and faulty response to the emergency.
It didn't have to be this way.
Despite
criticism of the administration, no White House -- Republican or Democratic -- could have predicted every twist of
this crisis given the enormity of the political and economic upheaval that has overtaken the country. Not all failings in testing and supplies are personally Trump's fault.
But his
refusal to accept any responsibility at all raises questions about what he thinks the presidency, a problem-solving job of last resort where the buck stops, is actually for.
The President's plan to use Sunday's briefing to polish his own personal narrative became clear when he read out and held up a Wall Street Journal opinion column praising his leadership.
He also played an out-of-context video of New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo praising his administration's work — including on providing ventilators — and said reporters should praise him too.
Yet Trump insisted after his trawl for personal credit: "It's not about me. Nothing is about me."
This came on the day when US deaths from the pandemic
topped 40,000 and raced upwards, though Trump claimed he had saved a million lives through his leadership — despite taking several months to recognize the magnitude of the unfolding disaster.
Vice President Mike Pence's recognition of the scale of the tragedy appeared far more heartfelt than the President's.
As a political device, Trump's bitter clashes with journalists may delight his supporters, generate soundbites for conservative media and provide fodder for Twitter pundits. His willingness to indulge his personal grudges shone through when
he admitted that Utah's Mitt Romney was
the only Republican senator excluded from a congressional task force on reopening the country because of his vote to convict the President on one article of impeachment.
"I'm not a fan of Mitt Romney, I don't want his advice," Trump said.
The President's performance on Sunday — he rambled for 45 minutes or so while his top public health officials sat and watched — even snuffed out the rare positive news on a grim day.
In the Q&A session, he held forth on issues including the World Trade Organization, one of his hotels and
the Russia probe, which had little to do with the medical exigency.
It was left to Pence to convey data suggesting that large metro areas like New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Boston appear to be stabilizing after agonizing weeks of death.
Trump is not the only US leader descending into the politics of insult. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has become increasingly personal in blasting the President as a "weak person" and a "poor leader." But the President's conduct is most striking, given the expectations of his office.
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Publish
: 2020-04-20 16:50:51
