Andrew KimmelVerified account

For weeks, Trump barely utters a word about the crisis that didn’t downplay its severity or propagate false information. He dismissed the warnings of intel officials & top public health officials in his campaign own administration. #TrumpLiesAboutCoronavirus

He voiced far more authentic concern about the trajectory of the stock market than the spread of the virus in the US, railing at the chairman of the Fed Reserve & others with an intensity that he never seemed to exhibit about the possible human toll of the outbreak. #TrumpLies

03/09: As state after state imposed new restrictions on citizens’ daily lives to protect them, Trump second-guessed the lockdowns. “The common flu kills tens of thousands each year and “nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on,” he tweeted. #TrumpLiesAmericansDie

03/10: Trump pledges that the virus would “go away. Just stay calm.” 03/11: Trump orders the halt to incoming travel from Europe (excl. Britain) that his deputy nat’l sec adviser had been advocating for weeks. #TrumpKnew

Trump botches the Oval Office announcement so badly that officials spend days to correct erroneous statements that triggered a stampede by U.S. citizens overseas to get home. #TrumpKnew

“There was some coming to grips w/ the problem & the true nature of it. The 13th of March is when I saw him really turn the corner. It took a while to realize you’re at war. That’s when he took decisive action that set in motion some real payoffs.” -@LindseyGrahamSC

Trump spent weeks shuffling responsibility for leading his admin response to the crisis, putting Azar in charge of the task force at first, relying on Pottinger, the deputy nat’l security adviser, for brief periods, before finally putting Pence in the role toward the end of Feb.

Others emerged to help right the US’ course. But even as Fauci, Azar & others sought to assert themselves, Trump was turning to others w/ no credentials, experience or discernible insight in navigating a pandemic. Foremost among them was his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. #TrumpKnew