Trump’s Coronavirus Claims Collapse When Met by Limits on Powers

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said Monday he had the “ultimate authority” to dictate to states how to reopen their economies, and that he’d craft his plans with advice from a council of top business, medical, and political leaders.

By Wednesday, both claims fell apart. He retreated from ordering governors to reopen, after constitutional scholars and even some conservative Republicans said it was beyond his power. And he backed away from an economic council, announcing he’d hold a marathon series of calls with business leaders instead.

For the president, it’s becoming a pattern.

Trump’s public statements on the coronavirus outbreak show him running into the limits of his power, as well as his ability to bend events, politicians and even the national narrative to his will. While he’s previously used his political standing and bluster to compel cabinet members and fellow Republicans to carry out his wishes, he’s found a virus that’s killed more than 27,000 Americans so far to be undeterred by his usual tactics.

Governors and business leaders, at the same time, are insisting on vastly expanded testing capacity and increased access to medical supplies before they consider relaxing social distancing practices that have crippled the economy and frustrated the president.

The result: Trump’s record on the virus is replete with rapid reversals and claims that had to be walked back when they later proved exaggerated or even false.

He claimed that the outbreak was under control when it was quietly spreading across the country. He pushed an Easter reopening only to be dissuaded by doctors who stuck to the facts. He said any American could obtain tests for the virus when the diagnostics were in scarce supply. He promoted a nationwide website that ended up serving only a few communities and a drug that hasn’t been proven effective against the disease.

And on Wednesday, he threatened to forcibly adjourn Congress in a bid to jam through a series of appointments he called critical to his fight against the outbreak -- a step unprecedented in American history, and one Trump himself acknowledged would likely prompt a court battle.

The president and his defenders say that his leadership has saved American lives. He imposed restrictions on travel from China on Jan. 31 to try to prevent the coronavirus from being imported into the country. He agreed to endorse economy-crushing social distancing measures on March 16 to curb the spread of the disease, after the U.S. failed to contain its outbreak, and then agreed to his health advisers’ recommendations to extend the guidance until April 30 over the concerns of his economic and political team.

But with the U.S. economy in tatters and fears that lack of both a vaccine and widespread testing for the virus could lead to its resurgence, Trump may struggle to sell voters on the competency of his administration’s response. Moreover, his back-tracking has given former Vice President Joe Biden and other Democratic candidates on the ballot this November an opening to argue that Americans would be better off with their party in charge during the next crisis.

Here are some of the president’s most significant claims and promises, and how they really turned out:

Under Control

“We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.” –President Trump, January 22, CNBC Interview in Davos, Switzerland

In the early weeks of the outbreak, the president repeatedly downplayed the threat of the virus. Shortly after he left the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January, Trump tweeted praise of China’s “transparency” and assistance in fighting the outbreak. After announcing his China travel restrictions, Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity that the move “pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”

Just over a week later, he said at a campaign rally that warm weather in the spring could suppress the virus. In a television interview Feb. 19, the president predicted “numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along.” And later that month he criticized the press for “panicking markets” and said Democratic assertions the government would need more than $2.5 billion to prepare for the outbreak were “complaining, for publicity purposes only.”

The president’s assurances came despite warnings from some within his administration – including trade adviser Peter Navarro, in a pair of memos – that the coronavirus could devastate the country’s health and economy.

Pressed during a news conference Monday about his administration’s apparent inaction in February, as the virus spread through the country, the president said his team “did a lot” and complained “the press doesn’t cover it the way it should be.”

Testing

“Anybody that wants a test can get a test. That’s what the bottom line is.” – President Trump, March 7, Centers for Disease Control Headquarters, Atlanta, Georgia

The president and his top aides have repeatedly made public statements about U.S. testing capacity that don’t square with the facts. Americans with symptoms of the disease still struggle to get diagnosed, with public health officials continuing to prioritize front-line medical personnel and people with pre-existing conditions.

Experts say that delays as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention designed and then manufactured its testing kits allowed the virus to spread undetected. And Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, told the Associated Press on Tuesday that efficient testing procedures needed to reopen the nation’s economy aren’t “there yet.”

An Abbot Laboratories test that administration officials had hoped would process as many as 1 million samples per week hasn’t been fully utilized because the company doesn’t have enough technicians, according to a person familiar with the matter. And labs are facing shortages of essential components needed to run the tests.

Yet Trump has steadfastly refused to acknowledge problems.

“Everything we did was right,” Trump said Monday, adding that “now we have great testing.”

Website and Drive Thru

“Google is helping to develop a website. It’s going to be very quickly done, unlike websites of the past, to determine whether a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location. We have many, many locations behind us.” – President Trump, March 13, White House Rose Garden, Washington, D.C.

A centerpiece of the president’s plan to fight the coronavirus was a Google website that would help people figure out if they needed to take a test and then direct them to the closest testing site – including centers the president said would pop up in Walmart, Target, and drug-store parking lots across the country. The president said Google had 1,700 engineers working on the project.

More than a month later, the website is still only available to people living in Northern California counties and parts of Pennsylvania. Walmart opened just its fourth drive-thru test site on Tuesday, while Target has only a single testing site open in California. CVS Health Corp, Rite Aid Corp, and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. say they’re working to bring additional sites online, but so far only five locations appear to have opened outside drug stores nationwide.

Asked about the progress of the website on Monday, Trump said that Google was “looking at it” but also shifting its focus to other efforts “that I can’t talk about yet.”

Assistance Programs

“Why don’t you say, ‘It’s gotten off to a tremendous start, but there are some little glitches’ -- which, by the way, have been worked out? It would be so much nicer if you’d do that.” – President Trump, April 6, White House Briefing Room, Washington, D.C.

The president has repeatedly denied any problems with the Paycheck Protection Program, a tentpole of the $2.2 trillion economic stimulus passed by Congress to blunt the fallout from the coronavirus shutdown, calling it a “very successful rollout.”

There’s been reason for cheerleading, with the program likely to have fully obligated its $349 billion initial allocation as soon as Wednesday. But it has also been plagued by glitches at the Small Business Administration’s website as well as bureaucratic and legal wrangling between government agencies and banks.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin last week asking him to waive a requirement in the law requiring banks to disburse the money within 10 days of approving a loan, saying “initial compliance challenges have tested the mettle of banks nationwide and limited their bandwith to disburse the required capital.”

And one website that has crowd-sourced information about the loans – covidloantracker.com – says that of more than 9,000 small businesses who applied for the government assistance and reported data to the site, just 5% had received money by Wednesday morning.

Businesses are also struggling to access assistance through the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, which provides small businesses with loans of as much as $2 million. Requests for the funds have far exceeded the $17 billion allocated by Congress, and the National Federation of Independent Business said in a letter sent to congressional leaders on Tuesday that its research found “none of the small business owners who applied for EIDLs have received a loan or an emergency grant.”

“Small businesses are relying on these loans and grants and are exhausting reserves and savings while they await delivery,” the trade group representing small businesses wrote.

Trump faces another potential political liability after the Treasury Department decided to redesign stimulus checks being sent to Americans to include the president’s name. Administration officials are worried the change could further delay processing and distribution of money to individuals who don’t receive tax rebates through direct deposit, the Washington Post reported.

“I do understand it’s not delaying anything and I’m satisfied with that. I don’t imagine it’s a big deal,” the president said Thursday.

Strategic Petroleum Reserve

“I’ve also instructed the Secretary of Energy to purchase, at a very good price, large quantities of crude oil for storage in the U.S. Strategic Reserve. We’re going to fill it right up to the top, saving the American taxpayer billions and billions of dollars.” – President Trump, March 13, White House Rose Garden, Washington, D.C.

While recent U.S. economic turbulence has been primarily driven by the coronavirus outbreak, the trouble was exacerbated by an oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia.

With both nations ramping up production – and depressing oil prices – Trump worried that U.S. refiners and natural gas producers would be hurt, jeopardizing additional American jobs. But he had a solution: A plan to buy as much as 77 million barrels of oil for the nation’s strategic reserve, taking advantage of bargain-basement prices while providing a boost to American crude producers.

But the $3 billion the administration sought for a first tranche of purchases wasn’t included in the $2.2 trillion stimulus package lawmakers passed last month. The U.S. Energy Department quietly announced in late March that it would put off its oil purchasing plans.

Earlier this week, the world’s top oil producers announced a historic deal that could see a 10% cut in global petroleum output. Prices recovered somewhat on the announcement, though collapsed demand for oil still has West Texas Intermediate crude trading near five-year lows.

Trump played an integral part in brokering the deal, offering a U.S. production cut to offset Mexico’s obligations under the proposed agreement after Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador balked at the reduction demanded of his country.

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