A Complete Analysis Of Trump’s 163rd Unpresidented Week As POTUS

Trump's obsession with minimizing the threat of coronavirus is actually maximizing it as he dangerously undermines his own administration's efforts to combat it.
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by: Ahmed Baba on March 8, 2020

President Trump and Vice President Pence, joined by members of the Coronavirus Task Force, meet with representatives from pharmaceutical companies Monday March 2, 2020, in the Cabinet Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

President Trump and Vice President Pence, joined by members of the Coronavirus Task Force, meet with representatives from pharmaceutical companies Monday March 2, 2020, in the Cabinet Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

Trump’s first major typo after winning the election was spelling Unprecedented incorrectly. He infamously tweeted “Unpresidented.” This typo is emblematic of his administration: An impulsive, frantically thrown together group of characters with virtually no oversight. After Trump was sworn in, I started writing the weekly “Unpresidented” column, analyzing every week of his presidency. This is week 163.

This week, President Trump’s compulsion to make crises significantly worse continued as his botched coronavirus response put lives in danger.

Cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) topped over 100,000 worldwide and 500 within the US – spanning 33 states with 21 deaths. Italy’s situation has become particularly dire as they’ve had to quarantine 16 million people as COVID-19 cases surpass 7,000. This is a serious situation that requires competent leadership laser-focused on protecting human lives. Unfortunately, that is not the case in America.

As we covered last week, President Trump’s 2018 shuttering of the National Security Council team dedicated to global pandemics already set this response back before it began. But now, Trump is taking even more actions to undermine his own administration’s effort to combat COVID-19. We still don’t have a good explanation as to why the CDC didn’t use the WHO COVID-19 tests and instead created their own unreliable test which they had to spend time fixing. They then had strict testing criteria.

The result has been limited testing and coronavirus cases unreported. That increased spread while the administration continued to fall short on their promises to increase testing. Vice President Mike Pence promised that 1.5 million tests would be available this week. The Atlantic reported that they could only confirm 1,895 people have been tested for COVID-19 in the United States.

Then there comes the “messaging” strategy from Trump officials. President Trump’s obsession with cultivating a false perception that coronavirus isn’t a threat has actually cultivated an environment in which it’s become an even bigger threat. Trump went on Fox News and spouted lies downplaying COVID-19, claiming that people with the virus usually get better and even go to work with the virus. The demographic that watches Fox, older people, is the most vulnerable to contracting, and dying from, COVID-19. Making this worse, we also learned that President Trump stopped the CDC from warning elderly vulnerable people not to fly on commercial airlines.

While visiting CDC headquarters in Atlanta, President Trump had a terrible presser with reporters. Not only did President Trump call Washington Governor Jay Inslee a “snake,” he said that he stopped Pence from evacuating the cruise ship off the coast of California because he didn’t want the number of cases in the US to increase. That last remark puts a cloud over the limited testing, raising questions about whether it’s being motivated by Trump’s desire to minimize the threat.

Of course, his short-term “strategy” is beyond counterproductive and will only further increase the threat of coronavirus. Who would’ve thought that a president who is a simple-minded, self-centered egomaniac incapable of longterm critical thought would be bad at handling a global pandemic…

Meanwhile, after Joe Biden’s strong performance on Super Tuesday, Trump’s allies in the Senate are already preparing to rachet up their investigations into the Bidens – continuing the conduct that made Donald Trump the 3rd President impeached in American history.

Let’s dive into another Unpresidented week.

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Coronavirus Crisis

Day 1,138: Monday, March 2

President Donald J. Trump, joined by Vice President Mike Pence and members of the Coronavirus Task Force, speaks to members of the press Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020, in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by D. Myles Cullen)

President Donald J. Trump, joined by Vice President Mike Pence and members of the Coronavirus Task Force, speaks to members of the press Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020, in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by D. Myles Cullen)

Monday’s top stories:

Super Tuesday

Day 1,139: Tuesday, March 3

Bernie Sanders (Michael Vadon/Creative Commons), Joe Biden (Kuhlmann/MSC/Creative Commons)

Bernie Sanders (Michael Vadon/Creative Commons), Joe Biden (Kuhlmann/MSC/Creative Commons)

Tuesday’s top stories:

Bloomberg Backs Biden

Day 1,140: Wednesday, March 4

Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at Warehouse 215 at Bentley Projects in Phoenix, Arizona. (Gage Skidmore/Creative Commons)

Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at Warehouse 215 at Bentley Projects in Phoenix, Arizona. (Gage Skidmore/Creative Commons)

Wednesday’s top stories:

Warren Ends Her Campaign

Day 1,141: Thursday, March 5

Senator Elizabeth Warren addresses crowds outside the Capitol protesting the GOP health bill – July 25, 2016 (Kelly Bell photography/Creative Commons)

Senator Elizabeth Warren addresses crowds outside the Capitol protesting the GOP health bill – July 25, 2016 (Kelly Bell photography/Creative Commons)

Thursday’s top stories:

Mulvaney Out

Day 1,142: Friday, March 6

Mick Mulvaney speaking at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Gage Skidmore)

Mick Mulvaney speaking at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Gage Skidmore)

Friday’s top stories (and a from the weekend):

Unpresidented // Bernie Sanders / Coronavirus / Democratic Primary / Donald Trump / Joe Biden / Super Tuesday
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by: Ahmed Baba

Ahmed Baba is the Co-Founder and President of Rantt. Writer of Unpresidented, Ahmed documented and analyzed every day of the Trump presidency. He's also a columnist at The Independent and his work has been cited in The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, Rolling Stone, BuzzFeed, The New York Post, The Huffington Post, Yahoo News, Blavity, Newsweek, The Telegraph, and more. He can be reached at [email protected] or found on Twitter @AhmedBaba_.

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