SUMMARY
FY 21 Request: Trump Sought A 16 Percent Cut To The Centers For Disease Control’s Budget. According to the Washington Post, “The budget request would trim funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by almost 16 percent. HHS officials said they want the CDC to focus on its core mission of preventing and controlling infectious diseases and on other emerging public health issues, such as opioid abuse.” [Washington Post, 2/10/20]
FY 21: Trump Sought An $85 Million Cut To Programs Addressing Emerging And Zoonotic Infectious Disease Programs.
|
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention FY 2021 (Dollars in Thousands) |
||||
|
Program |
FY 2019 Final CA |
FY 20 Enacted CA |
FY 2021 President’s Budget |
+/- FY 2020 Enacted |
|
Emerging & Zoonotic Infectious Diseases |
$623,859 |
$635,772 |
$550,464 |
($85,308) |
[Centers for Disease Control and Prevention FY 2021 President’s Budget, Accessed 2/24/20]
March 10, 2020: OMB Acting Director Vought Defended Proposed Cuts To CDC. According to MSNBC, “But there was another element that Team Trump probably didn't appreciate the significance of at the time: as the coronavirus threat was just starting to come into focus in early February, the White House recommended significant cuts to investments at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. To be sure, this president had called for deep cuts to the CDC budget before, and Congress ignored those requests. But calling for CDC cuts in the midst of a global viral outbreak seemed especially bizarre. Stranger still, the White House apparently hasn't changed its mind. The Hill reported yesterday: Russ Vought, the acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, on Tuesday doubled down on proposed cuts to health services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), despite the coronavirus outbreak.” [MSNBC, 3/11/20]
FY 2020: Trump Sought An Almost $1.3 Billion Cut To The CDC’s Total Discretionary Budget. According to Bloomberg Law, “Senators who hold the purse strings for health dollars will shield the CDC from major cuts proposed by the Trump administration. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would see a nearly $1.3 billion cut to its discretionary funds in fiscal year 2020 to $5.28 billion from $6.56 billion under the Trump administration’s 2020 budget request. It’s part of a White House plan to cull discretionary spending across the board, including $14 billion from the Department of Health and Human Services.” [Bloomberg Law, 3/14/19]
FY 2019: Trump Budget Sought About $900 Million In Cuts To The Centers For Disease Control And Prevention. According to the Hill, “The Department of Health and Human Services would receive $95.4 billion under the budget proposal released by the Trump administration Monday. Under the proposal, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would face a cut but the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration would see increases […] The administration requested $11 billion for 2019 for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a cut of about $900 million.” [The Hill, 2/12/18]
FY 2018: Trump’s Budget Proposed Significant Reductions In CDC And Health Service Funding. According to Fortune, “The cuts started in 2018, as the White House focused on eliminating funding to Obama-era disease security programs. In March of that year, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, whose job it was to lead the U.S. response in the event of a pandemic, abruptly left the administration and his global health security team was disbanded. That same year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was forced to slash its efforts to prevent global disease outbreak by 80% as its funding for the program began to run out. […] Overall in 2018, Trump called for $15 billion in reduced health spending that had previously been approved, as he looked at increasing budget deficits, cutting the global disease-fighting budgets of the CDC, National Security Council (NSC), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Health and Human Services (HHS) in the process.” [Fortune, 3/26/20]
The CDC’s Budget Had Already Been Jeopardized Under The Republican Attempt To Repeal The Affordable Care Act, Which Provided Almost $1 Billion To The Agency. According to the Washington Post, “CDC’s budget is already in jeopardy under the latest Republican health-care bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The GOP repeal plan would eliminate the ACA’s Prevention and Public Health Fund starting in October 2018. That fund provides almost $1 billion annually to CDC, now about 12 percent of CDC’s budget. It includes prevention of bioterrorism and disease outbreaks, as well as money to provide immunizations and heart-disease screenings. No clear replacement has been proposed in Congress, nor is there any mention of its replacement in Trump’s proposed spending plan.” [Washington Post, 3/16/17]
The Trump Administration Planned To Send A $2.5 Billion Budget Request To Congress. According to Politico, “The Trump administration sent to Capitol Hill on Monday night its $2.5 billion supplemental budget request for additional money to fight the coronavirus, but House Democrats immediately labeled it as insufficient, indicating a battle ahead in Congress over the emergency aid. The administration’s request would require enhanced authority to move around federal funds — a non-starter with Democrats, who are already livid over White House moves to reshuffle existing federal funds toward the border wall. The package proposes using untouched money, including hundreds of millions of dollars in fiscal 2020 cash to fight Ebola. In total, the administration is seeking just $1.25 billion in new funding, relying on extra flexibility to unlock the rest.” [Politico, 2/24/20]
Congressional Leaders Expressed Concern That The Trump Administration’s “Lowball Funding Request” Was Evidence Of A Lack Of Preparation And Appreciation For The Potential Severity Of The Outbreak. According to The Washington Post, “The evening before, the administration had unveiled a $2.5 billion spending plan to combat the virus, and both at the closed-door briefing and in a subsequent open hearing with Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, a number of Republican senators voiced a variety of concerns. They fretted about the administration’s level of preparation to date, communication failures with Capitol Hill and, in the words of Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), the ‘lowball’ funding request.” [Washington Post, 2/29/20]
The Trump Administration Proposed Reallocating Funds To Address The Coronavirus By Cutting The Low Income House Energy Assistance Program Budget. According to an opinion piece in the Washington Post, “House Democrats tell us they are outraged by one aspect of the White House response in particular: The White House appears to have informed Democrats that they want to fund the emergency response in part by taking money from a program that funds low-income home heating assistance. A document that the Trump administration sent to Congress, which we have seen, indicates that the administration is transferring $37 million to emergency funding for the coronavirus response from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, which funds heating for poor families. Democrats see this as provoking budgetary bickering and unnecessary political friction at a time when a clean emergency appropriation could easily avoid both.” [Opinion - Washington Post, 2/25/20]
March 6, 2020: Trump Signed $8.3 Billion Funding Bill. According to The Hill, “President Trump on Friday signed a bill providing $8.3 billion in emergency funding to combat the coronavirus outbreak. The bill provides $7.76 billion to federal, state and local agencies to combat the coronavirus and authorizes an additional $500 million in waivers for Medicare telehealth restrictions.” [Hill, 3/6/20]
After Congressional Criticism, Trump Said He Was Willing To Spend More And Let Congress Settle On Amount. According to The Hill, “The House and Senate passed the funding measure in overwhelming bipartisan votes on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, sending the bill to the president’s desk. Trump’s signing of the bill on Thursday capped a week of aggressive action on Capitol Hill to secure a deal on the funding and pass the legislation in both chambers. After lawmakers criticized the initial funding proposal from the White House as too low, Trump said he was willing to spend more to combat the virus, and the White House largely left it up to Congress to settle on a dollar amount.” [Hill, 3/6/20]
2018: Trump Disbanded The Entire National Security Council Global Health Unit Potential Impeding The Government’s Response To Coronavirus. According to MSNBC, “As the federal response to the coronavirus outbreak continues to take shape, among the most important recent reports on the issue is this Foreign Policy piece from a month ago, which said the United States ‘has never been less prepared for a pandemic.’ Of particular interest was the article shining a light on Donald Trump’s May 2018 decision to order the shutdown of the White House National Security Council’s entire global health security unit. NBC News had a good report on this, also, noting that the president’s decision ‘to downsize the White House national security staff -- and eliminate jobs addressing global pandemics -- is likely to hamper the U.S. government’s response to the coronavirus.’” [MSNBC, 3/3/20]
Amid Criticism Over His Decision To Shutter The NSC Global Health Unit, Trump Insisted He Could Reassemble The Team As Needed. According to MSNBC, “For his part, Trump doesn’t deny the fact that he disbanded his global health security team and proposed cuts to programs intended to prevent the spread of infectious disease. Instead, the president has argued that he can simply reassemble the operation as needed. ‘I’m a business person,’ he explained on Wednesday. ‘I don’t like having thousands of people around when you don’t need them. When we need them, we can get them back very quickly.’” [MSNBC, 3/3/20]
The Trump Administration Delayed An Annual Intelligence Report That Warned That The U.S. Remained Unprepared For A Global Pandemic. According to Time, “An annual intelligence report that has been postponed without explanation by President Donald Trump’s administration warns that the U.S. remains unprepared for a global pandemic, two senior government officials who have reviewed a draft of the report tell TIME. The office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) was scheduled to deliver the Worldwide Threat Assessment to the House Intelligence Committee on Feb. 12 and the hearing has not been rescheduled, according to staffers and members of the House and Senate intelligence committees […] The final draft of the report remains classified but the two officials who have read it say it contains warnings similar to those in the last installment, which was published on January 29, 2019. The 2019 report warns on page 29 that, ‘The United States will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large-scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support.’” [Time, 3/9/20]
In 2017, The Department Of Homeland Security Stopped Updating Its Annual Models Of The Havoc That Pandemics Would Wreak On America’s Critical Infrastructure. According to Politico, “The Department of Homeland Security stopped updating its annual models of the havoc that pandemics would wreak on America’s critical infrastructure in 2017, according to current and former DHS officials with direct knowledge of the matter. From at least 2005 to 2017, an office inside DHS, in tandem with analysts and supercomputers at several national laboratories, produced detailed analyses of what would happen to everything from transportation systems to hospitals if a pandemic hit the United States.” [Politico, 3/24/20]
Former Officials Claimed That The Trump Administration Stopped Updating The Models After A Bureaucratic Dispute Over Their Value. According to Politico, “But the work abruptly stopped in 2017 amid a bureaucratic dispute over its value, two of the former officials said, leaving the department flat-footed as it seeks to stay ahead of the impacts the COVID-19 outbreak is having on vast swathes of the U.S. economy. Officials at other agencies have requested some of the reports from the pandemic modeling unit at DHS in recent days, only to find the information they needed scattered or hard to find quickly.And while department leaders dispute that, others say the confusion is just the latest example of the Trump administration’s struggle to respond to an outbreak that has sickened more than 50,000 Americans and threatens to overwhelm hospitals and other healthcare providers. Officials are now scrambling to secure enough masks, respirators and ventilators to meet the rapidly exploding need. Doctors and nurses are reusing their protective gear as supplies dwindle; governors are begging the administration for federal help that has been slow to arrive.” [Politico, 3/24/20]
2017: The Trump Administration Ended The Development Of Regulations That Would Have Required The Health Care Industry To Effectively Prepare For Airborne Infectious Diseases. According to NPR, “When President Trump took office in 2017, his team stopped work on new federal regulations that would have forced the health care industry to prepare for an airborne infectious disease pandemic such as COVID-19. That decision is documented in federal records reviewed by NPR. ‘If that rule had gone into effect, then every hospital, every nursing home would essentially have to have a plan where they made sure they had enough respirators and they were prepared for this sort of pandemic,’ said David Michaels, who was head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration until January 2017.” [NPR.org, 5/26/20]
Trump Administration Cut Infectious Disease Rule As A Part Of Run-Of-The-Mill Effort To Cut Regulations. According to NPR, “In the spring of 2017, the Trump team formally stripped OSHA’s airborne infectious disease rule from the regulatory agenda. NPR could find no indication the new administration had specific policy concerns about the infectious disease rules. Instead, the decision appeared to be part of a wider effort to cut regulations and bureaucratic oversight. [NPR.org, 5/26/20]
HHS Ignored An 8 Year-Old Executive Order Mandating The Agency To Disclose Their Plan For The Procurement And Distribution Of Medication And Essential Supplies During A National Emergency. According to Los Angeles Times, “Even as President Trump ordered General Motors Friday to begin manufacturing ventilators, the president’s broader strategy to get desperately needed medical supplies to hospitals and doctors across the country remained shrouded in uncertainty. Administration officials have refused to provide answers to questions from lawmakers, governors and healthcare leaders who have been pleading for federal assistance with masks, ventilators and other equipment. And the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services hasn’t outlined a plan for procuring and distributing medical supplies, despite an 8-year-old executive order that directed the agency to detail how it would identify and prioritize equipment and medications needed in a national emergency.” [Los Angeles Times, 3/27/20]
A Congressional Report Outlined That HHS Failed To Develop A System To Identify And Prioritize Needed Medication And Equipment. According to Los Angeles Times, “Neither the Department of Health and Human Services nor the Federal Emergency Management Agency would answer questions from The Times about federal planning to address the crisis. Efforts to come up with a more effective system go back years. In 2012, President Obama issued an executive order directing the Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies to develop systems for prioritizing supplies in an emergency and establishing standards for ordering and distributing the supplies. But the federal health agency did not complete the regulations to develop this system, according to a June 2019 report to Congress by FEMA. Nor has the agency posted any regulations related to the act since then.” [Los Angeles Times, 3/27/20]
Trump Administration Cut U.S. CDC Expert Embedded In China’s CDC. According to Reuters, “WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Several months before the coronavirus pandemic began, the Trump administration eliminated a key American public health position in Beijing intended to help detect disease outbreaks in China, Reuters has learned. The American disease expert, a medical epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency, left her post in July, according to four sources with knowledge of the issue. The first cases of the new coronavirus may have emerged as early as November, and as cases exploded, the Trump administration in February chastised China for censoring information about the outbreak and keeping U.S. experts from entering the country to help.” [Reuters,3/22/20]
U.S. Expert Left After Learning Her Post Would Be Discontinued In September, 2019. According to Reuters, “Quick left amid a bitter U.S. trade dispute with China when she learned her federally funded post, officially known as resident adviser to the U.S. Field Epidemiology Training Program in China, would be discontinued as of September, the sources said. The U.S. CDC said it first learned of a “cluster of 27 cases of pneumonia” of unexplained origin in Wuhan, China, on Dec. 31.” [Reuters, 3/22/20]
The Trump Administration Slashed Staff By More Than Two-Thirds At A Key CDC Public Health Agency Operating Inside China As Part Of A Larger Rollback. According to Reuters, “The Trump administration cut staff by more than two-thirds at a key U.S. public health agency operating inside China, as part of a larger rollback of U.S.-funded health and science experts on the ground there leading up to the coronavirus outbreak, Reuters has learned.Most of the reductions were made at the Beijing office of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and occurred over the past two years, according to public CDC documents viewed by Reuters and interviews with four people familiar with the drawdown.The Atlanta-based CDC, America’s preeminent disease fighting agency, provides public health assistance to nations around the world and works with them to help stop outbreaks of contagious diseases from spreading globally. It has worked in China for 30 years. [Reuters, 3/25/20]
The Staff Cuts Included Epidemiologists And Other Health Professionals. According to Reuters, “The CDC’s China headcount has shrunk to around 14 staffers, down from approximately 47 people since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, the documents show. The four people, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the losses included epidemiologists and other health professionals […] ‘The CDC office in Beijing is a shell of its former self,’ said one of the people, a U.S. official who worked in China at the time of the drawdown.” [Reuters, 3/25/20]
2018: USDA Transferred Animal Disease Monitoring Program Manager Out Of China. According to Reuters, “Separately, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the global relief program which had a role in helping China monitor and respond to outbreaks, also shut their Beijing offices on Trump’s watch. Before the closures, each office was staffed by a U.S. official. In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture(USDA) transferred out of China in 2018 the manager of an animal disease monitoring program.” [Reuters, 3/25/20]
The National Science Foundation (NSF) And USAID, Which Had A Role In Helping China Monitor And Respond To Outbreaks Also Shut Down Their Beijing Offices On Trump’s Watch. According to Reuters, “Separately, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the global relief program which had a role in helping China monitor and respond to outbreaks, also shut their Beijing offices on Trump’s watch. Before the closures, each office was staffed by a U.S. official. In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture(USDA) transferred out of China in 2018 the manager of an animal disease monitoring program.” [Reuters, 3/25/20]
Two Months Prior To The Advent Of COVID-19, The Trump Administration Ended The $200-Million Pandemic Early Warning Program. According to the Los Angeles Times, “Two months before the novel coronavirus is thought to have begun its deadly advance in Wuhan, China, the Trump administration ended a $200-million pandemic early-warning program aimed at training scientists in China and other countries to detect and respond to such a threat. The project, launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2009, identified 1,200 different viruses that had the potential to erupt into pandemics, including more than 160 novel coronaviruses. The initiative, called PREDICT, also trained and supported staff in 60 foreign laboratories — including the Wuhan lab that identified SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Field work ceased when the funding ran out in September, and organizations that worked on the PREDICT program laid off dozens of scientists and analysts, said Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a key player in the program.” [Los Angeles Time, 4/2/20]
PREDICT Aimed To Train Scientists In China And Abroad To Detect And Respond To Threats. According to the Los Angeles Times, “Two months before the novel coronavirus is thought to have begun its deadly advance in Wuhan, China, the Trump administration ended a $200-million pandemic early-warning program aimed at training scientists in China and other countries to detect and respond to such a threat. The project, launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2009, identified 1,200 different viruses that had the potential to erupt into pandemics, including more than 160 novel coronaviruses. The initiative, called PREDICT, also trained and supported staff in 60 foreign laboratories — including the Wuhan lab that identified SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Field work ceased when the funding ran out in September, and organizations that worked on the PREDICT program laid off dozens of scientists and analysts, said Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a key player in the program.” [Los Angeles Time, 4/2/20]
USAID Granted A Six Month Emergency Extension To The Program And Allocated 2.26 Million Dollars Despite Program Leaders Claims The Funding Will Fail To Support The Original Preventative Goal Of The Initiative. According to Los Angeles, “On Wednesday, USAID granted an emergency extension to the program, issuing $2.26 million over the next six months to send experts who will help foreign labs squelch the pandemic. But program leaders say the funding will do little to further the initiative’s original mission. ‘Look at the name: Our efforts were to predict this before it happens. That’s the part of the program that was exciting — and that’s the part I’m worried about,’ Daszak said. ‘It’s absolutely critical that we don’t drop the idea of a large-scale, proactive, predictive program that tries to catch pandemics before they happen. Cutting a program that could in any way reduce the risk of things like COVID-19 happening again is, by any measure, shortsighted,’ he added. It is unclear whether another five-year grant would have dulled the impact of the current pandemic. But the Trump administration has come under increased criticism for its past moves to downgrade global health security, including proposals to slash funding to science agencies and the elimination of the National Security Council’s key global health post.” [Los Angeles Time, 4/2/20]
February 2018: Researchers At The World Bank Pointed To Unknown Epidemic Causing Diseases As The Most Dangerous To Humanity, Fingering Southern China As A Place From Which One Might Emerge. According to The Wall Street Journal, “Hunkered around conference tables at the World Health Organization’s Geneva headquarters, a group of scientists debated which of the world’s most frightening epidemic diseases deserved the greatest attention. Ebola, a ferocious killer that drains its victims of bodily fluids, made the list. So did Nipah, which makes the brain swell before most of its victims die. So, too, did severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which burrows into the lungs, leaving the sick gasping for air. At the end of the two-day gathering in February 2018, the group topped the list off with the most terrifying entry of all: Disease X. It was meant to capture what scientists had warned about for decades: an unknown pathogen with no known treatment or cure that would likely originate in animals, jump to humans and start spreading silently and quickly. Scientists couldn’t predict the precise genetic makeup of the pathogen, or when it would strike. But they knew it would come. A succession of outbreaks and near misses since the late 1990s, along with increasingly sophisticated scientific research, made clear a major pandemic was inevitable. Researchers pinpointed hot spots, including southern China, where such a virus might originate. They had ideas about how it might begin infecting people and how easily transmissible it could be. They even had plans for how to detect and stop it.” [Wall Street Journal, 08/13/20]
The Center For Disease Control Was Responsible For The U.S. Government’s Public Health Response To COVID-19. According to remarks by CDC Director Dr. Redfield during a press briefing by members of the President’s Coronavirus Task Force, “CDC has launched an aggressive public health response focused on early case recognition, isolation of those cases identified, and contact tracing around those individuals.” [White House – Press Briefing by Members of the President’s Coronavirus Task Force, 1/31/20]
Federal Budget Passed In 2018 Cut $1.35 Billion From The Prevention And Public Health Fund (PPHF) Over 10 Years.According to Modern Healthcare, “The massive tax cut passed in 2017 cut another $750 million from the fund to cover the costs of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, while the budget bill passed in 2018 cut $1.35 billion from the PPHF over 10 years. ‘(The fund) has been used to backfill cuts in well-established programs or it’s been decreased to fund other kinds of activities,’ Auerbach said. ‘An important way of improving the financial status of the public health system would be to restore the fund to its original allocation ($15 billion over 10 years) and not have it redirected to other sources.’ Auerbach wished public health efforts could receive more established funding to handle emerging threats without having to wait for Congress to approve resources. For example, experts had to request emergency funding to address the Ebola outbreak in 2014, the Zika virus in 2016, and more recently, the opioid epidemic. ‘That kind of funding impedes the ability of public health to actually prevent risk or to respond in a timely manner,’ Auerbach said. ‘If the funding comes in the midst of an emergency you’re quickly doing catch-up.’” [Modern Healthcare, 4/24/19]
The Funding Cut Harmed Public Health Initiatives Including Immunizations And Outbreak Responses. According to the Scientist, “‘CDC’s mission is to keep Americans safe,’ the agency’s former director, Tom Frieden, now president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative to bolster public health, tells The Scientist. ‘But without funding, the CDC won’t be able to protect us.’ The CDC deferred questions about its finances to the Office of Management and Budget, which did not respond to requests for an interview […] After sequestration in 2017 trimmed $69 million from the fund, PPHF was left with $931 million annually to support public health, wellness, and prevention activities. In the same fiscal year, the CDC received more than $891 million from PPHF to support vaccine coverage, respond to outbreaks of foodborne infections and waterborne diseases, develop programs to counter the leading causes of death and disability, such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, and eliminate childhood lead poisoning, among other initiatives.” [The Scientist, 2/9/18]
The Prevention And Public Health Fund Was Created To Support Disease-Prevention Programs. According to McClatchy, “The prevention fund was created by the health law to support community-based disease-prevention programs that operate outside traditional health care settings. A study by the Trust for America's Health found that every $10 per person per year invested in such programs could save the nation more than $16 billion a year within five years - a return of $5.60 for every $1. The CDC gets more than $891 million from the fund each year, most of which goes back to states as grants to fund a variety of programs targeting obesity, suicide, stroke, diabetes, heart disease, maternal health and even prevention of falls among the elderly.” [McClatchy, 2/3/17]
Public Health Organizations Appealed To Congress Emphasizing That The Cut “Would Equate To A Massive Reduction In State Efforts To” […] "Prevent Emerging Infectious Diseases Like Ebola And Zika.” According to McClatchy, “That same year, Congress did cut it - by $5 billion over 10 years through the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act. More than 300 organizations have written to congressional leaders asking them to save the fund. Fourteen public health organizations have made the same appeal. In their letter to congressional leaders, the groups said the program's demise without replacement funding ‘would equate to a massive reduction in state efforts to respond to food-borne outbreaks, prevent emerging infectious diseases like Ebola and Zika, and jeopardize the health response to natural and man-made disasters.’ The fund's Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant provides $160 million a year to help states respond to health emergencies or funding shortfalls in other programs. The fund supplied nearly 5,000 doses of measles vaccine to county health departments in California during the state's 2015 outbreak. It also helped Florida's state laboratory respond quickly to the Zika virus, Kyriacopoulos said.” [McClatchy, 2/3/17]
FY 21 Request: Trump Requested A $65 Million Cut To WHO, More Than 50 Percent Of The U.S. Contribution. According to CNN, “The newly unveiled Trump administration budget proposal includes steep cuts for global health programs and the World Health Organization, even as the world grapples with the spread of the novel coronavirus. However, it does increase its proposed funding for Global Health Security. The FY21 Budget Proposal, released today, outlines a nearly $65M proposed cut to the World Health Organization – a more than 50% decrease from FY20 funding.” [CNN, 2/10/20]
April 14, 2020: Trump Withdrew All U.S. Funding From The World Health Organization Blaming The Organization For The Mismanagement And Cover Up Of The Spread Of COVID-19. According to Politico, “President Trump announced on April 14 that he is cutting off U.S. funding to WHO in the middle of the pandemic, while his administration conducts a review of the international group’s record of ‘severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.’ Echoing criticisms aired by GOP lawmakers and conservative pundits, Trump is accusing the international health body of have a pro-China bias and of wrongly advising against travel bans in the early months of the pandemic. His aides have also pushed for the creation of an alternative institution. The U.S. contributes the biggest share of WHO’s 194 member states to its $4.8 billion annual budget, and cutting off that funding is likely to be a major blow to the organization as it conducts vaccine trials, distributes test kits and advises governments on public health around the world.” [Politico, 4/14/20]
Trump Previously Threatened To Cut WHO Funding After Alleging That The WHO Leadership Made Mistakes In Early Days Of Coronavirus. According to Politico, “U.S. agencies and departments that channel money to the World Health Organization have been asked not to send more such funds this fiscal year without first obtaining higher-level approval, two people familiar with the issue said. The decision comes after President Donald Trump threatened to cut off funding to the U.N. global health body over allegations that the WHO’s leaders are too friendly to China and made missteps in the early days of the coronavirus crisis. The U.S. is the top donor to the WHO; it gave it more than $400 million in 2019, according to the State Department, which noted that China gave $44 million. Trump said this week that the U.S. is evaluating its WHO funding, and the directive on getting higher-level clearance appears to be a part of that. The State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Agency for International Development are expected to be affected. One of the people familiar with the issue said it’s not entirely clear yet who must give the ultimate signoff for forwarding funds to the WHO. It’s likely, however, to come out of the White House, possibly the National Security Council.” [Politico, 4/9/20]
US Did Not Fund WHO COVID-19 Vaccine Research Effort. According to The Hill, “The head of the European Commission is holding out hope the U.S. will join a global effort to fund vaccine research for COVID-19, despite the Trump administration’s absence from a world-wide pledging effort that kicked off on Monday. The U.S. is funding research and development domestically for a vaccine to address the coronavirus pandemic but was absent from the launch of the E.U.’s global initiative to raise $8 billion on vaccine development. ‘The United States are doing a lot domestically, what research for a vaccine is concerned and indeed they are informed about our global initiative and I hope that in the one or the other way they decide to join,’ President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. ‘But for sure the American footprint is there because we have outstanding American scientists and philanthropists that are joining our call for action and I’m very glad for that. So we invited the whole world and I think the whole world is joining,’ von der Leven added.” [Hill, 5/4/20]
May 2020: Trump Announced Intent To Break U.S. Ties To The World Health Organization
Without Addressing Specifics, Trump Announced The United States Intended To Cut Ties To The World Health Organization, Claiming China Had, “Total Control” Over The Organization. According to CNBC, “President Donald Trump announced Friday that the United States will cut ties with the World Health Organization. ‘China has total control over the World Health Organization despite only paying $40 million per year compared to what the United States has been paying, which is approximately $450 million a year,’ Trump said during a press conference from the White House Rose Garden. ‘The world needs answers from China on the virus. We must have transparency. Why is it that China shut off infected people from Wuhan to all other parts of China?’ he added. ‘It didn’t go to Beijing, it went nowhere else, but they allowed them to freely travel throughout the world, including Europe and the United States.’ Trump has repeatedly criticized the WHO’s response to the coronavirus, which has hit the U.S. worse than any other country, amid scrutiny of his own administration’s response to the pandemic. He has claimed WHO is ‘China-centric’ and blames the agency for advising against China travel bans early in the outbreak. […] On Friday, Trump said WHO ‘failed to make the requested greatly needed reform’ and the U.S. ‘will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs.’ The WHO’s funding runs in two-year budget cycles. For the 2018 and 2019 funding cycle, the U.S. paid a $237 million required assessment as well as $656 million in voluntary contributions, averaging $446 million a year and representing about 14.67% of its total budget, according to WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic. It’s unclear exactly what mechanism Trump intends to use to terminate WHO funding, much of which is appropriated by Congress. The president typically does not have the authority to unilaterally redirect congressional funding.” [CNBC, 5/29/20]
NIH Cut Funding To EcoHealth Alliance Whose Research In China Was Focused On Studying How Coronaviruses Spread From Bats To People. According to Politico, “The Trump administration abruptly cut off funding for a project studying how coronaviruses spread from bats to people after reports linked the work to a lab in Wuhan, China, at the center of conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 pandemic’s origins. The National Institutes of Health on Friday told EcoHealth Alliance, the study’s sponsor for the past five years, that all future funding was cut. The agency also demanded that the New York-based research nonprofit stop spending the $369,819 remaining from its 2020 grant, according to emails obtained by POLITICO.” [Politico, 4/27/20]
EcoHealth Had Worked With The Wuhan Institute Of Virology In The Past. According to Politico, “The group caught national attention a week ago after reports swirled that millions from its NIH grants had been sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a research facility in the city where the coronavirus pandemic originated. In an email last week to NIH officials, EcoHealth Alliance President Pete Daszak denied giving any money this year to the Wuhan lab, although researchers from the facility have collaborated with EcoHealth Alliance scientists on research supported by an earlier grant.” [Politico, 4/27/20]
Wuhan Lab Was Center Of Conspiracy Theories. According to Politico, “The Wuhan lab is at the center of conspiracy theories alleging that the coronavirus outbreak began when the virus escaped the facility. U.S. intelligence agencies and scientists have not found any evidence to support the rumors.” [Politico, 4/27/20]
EcoHealth Had Received $3.7 Million Since 2015. According to Politico, “The EcoHealth Alliance has received more than $3.7 million since 2015 for its research on the risks of coronavirus spread through bats and the potential for spillover into humans. The effort has produced at least 20 scientific papers, including several published in prominent journals such as Nature.” [Politico, 4/27/20]
Trump Promised To End A Non-Existent $3.7 Million Grant To The Wuhan Lab When Asked About It By A Newsmax Reporter. According to Politico, “A Newsmax reporter asked President Donald Trump about the research project in an April 17 press briefing, suggesting that all $3.7 million had gone to the Wuhan lab. "We will end that grant very quickly,” Trump said. “It was granted quite awhile ago,” he added, referencing the Obama administration. “Who was president then, I wonder?” [Politico, 4/27/20]
Bat Coronaviruses Identified By EcoHealth And Wuhan Institute Of Virology Were Used To Test Redemsivir At UNC Chapel Hill Study. According to the Washington Post, “Some of the bat coronaviruses EcoHealth identified with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Daszak said, were used at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to test the effectiveness of remdesivir, the antiviral medication the United States recently approved as a therapy for covid-19 patients.” [Washington Post, 5/12/20]
White House Told NIH To Cancel Funding For Study By EcoHealth Alliance Into How Viruses Spread From Bats To Humans. According to Politico, “The White House directed the National Institutes of Health to cancel funding for a project studying how coronaviruses spread from bats to people, the government's top infectious disease expert said Tuesday. “Why was it canceled? It was canceled because the NIH was told to cancel it," said Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in response to a question during a House Energy & Commerce Hearing. "I don’t know the reason, but we were told to cancel it.” Fauci later told POLITICO that the White House ordered NIH to cut the research grant to the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance.” [Politico, 6/23/20]
Trump Administration Halted Funding For Lung Treatments For Coronavirus; Kept Funding Vaccine Development. According to Politico, “But earlier this month, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, a federal health agency, abruptly notified companies and researchers that it was halting funding for treatments for this severe form of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. The new policy highlights how staunchly the Trump administration has placed its bet on vaccines as the way to return American society and the economy to normal in a presidential election year. BARDA has pledged more than $2.2 billion in deals with five vaccine manufacturers for the coronavirus, compared with about $359 million toward potential Covid-19 treatments.” [Politico, 6/19/20]
After Minimizing The Severity Of The Coronavirus And Overselling The Preparedness Of HHS, Azar Appointed His Chief Of Staff, Brian Harrison To Lead The National Coronavirus Response Efforts. According to Reuters, “On January 21, the day the first U.S. case of coronavirus was reported, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services appeared on Fox News to report the latest on the disease as it ravaged China. Alex Azar, a 52-year-old lawyer and former drug industry executive, assured Americans the U.S. government was prepared. ‘We developed a diagnostic test at the CDC, so we can confirm if somebody has this,’ Azar said. ‘We will be spreading that diagnostic around the country so that we are able to do rapid testing on site.’ While coronavirus in Wuhan, China, was ‘potentially serious,’ Azar assured viewers in America, it ‘was one for which we have a playbook.’ Azar’s initial comments misfired on two fronts. Like many U.S. officials, from President Donald Trump on down, he underestimated the pandemic’s severity. He also overestimated his agency’s preparedness. As is now widely known, two agencies Azar oversaw as HHS secretary, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, wouldn’t come up with viable tests for five and half weeks, even as other countries and the World Health Organization had already prepared their own. Shortly after his televised comments, Azar tapped a trusted aide with minimal public health experience to lead the agency’s day-to-day response to COVID-19. The aide, Brian Harrison, had joined the department after running a dog-breeding business for six years. Five sources say some officials in the White House derisively called him ‘the dog breeder.’” [Reuters, 4/22/20]
Harrison, A Former Labradoodle Breeder, Had Limited Public Health Education Or Experience. According to Reuters, “Two years later, at the dawn of the coronavirus crisis, Azar appointed his most trusted aide and chief of staff, Harrison, as HHS’s main coordinator for the government’s response to the virus. Harrison, 37, was an unusual choice, with no formal education in public health, management, or medicine and with only limited experience in the fields. In 2006, he joined HHS in a one-year stint as a ‘Confidential Assistant’ to Azar, who was then deputy secretary. He also had posts working for Vice President Dick Cheney, the Department of Defense and a Washington public relations company. Before joining the Trump Administration in January 2018, Harrison’s official HHS biography says, he ‘ran a small business in Texas.’ The biography does not disclose the name or nature of that business, but his personal financial disclosure forms show that from 2012 until 2018 he ran a company called Dallas Labradoodles. The company sells Australian Labradoodles, a breed that is a cross between a Labrador Retriever and a Poodle. He sold it in April 2018, his financial disclosure form said. HHS emailed Reuters that the sale price was $225,000. At HHS, Harrison was initially deputy chief of staff before being promoted, in the summer of 2019, to replace Azar’s first chief of staff, Peter Urbanowicz, an experienced hospital executive with decades of experience in public health. This January, Harrison became a key manager of the HHS virus response. ‘Everyone had to report up through him,’ said one HHS official.” [Reuters, 4/22/20]
Azar’s Chief Of Staff Decided To Leave FDA And FDA Commissioner Hahn Off Of Coronavirus Task Force
When Tasked With Convening The Coronavirus Task Force, Harrison Decided To Exclude The FDA And Commissioner Stephen Hahn. According to Reuters, “One questionable decision, three sources say, came that month, after the White House announced it was convening a coronavirus task force. The HHS role was to muster resources from key public health agencies: the CDC, FDA, National Institutes of Health, Office of Global Affairs and the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response. Harrison decided, the sources say, to exclude FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn from the task force. ‘He said he didn’t need to be included,’ said one official with knowledge of the matter. When task force members were announced January 29, neither Hahn nor the FDA were included. Hahn wasn’t put on the task force until Vice President Mike Pence took over in February. Two of Hahn’s high-profile counterparts were on it from the start: CDC director Robert Redfield and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The HHS denied it was Harrison’s decision to leave out Hahn and the FDA, but declined to say who made the call. The agency lauded Harrison’s work on the task force.” [Reuters, 4/22/20]
Azar Failed To Effectively Lead The Early Response Efforts By Waiting Weeks To Brief Trump, Overselling HHS’ Abilities, And Failing To Coordinate Across Agencies. According to The Wall Street Journal, “Many factors muddled the administration’s early response to the coronavirus as officials debated the severity of the threat, including comments from Mr. Trump that minimized the risk. But interviews with more than two dozen administration officials and others involved in the government’s coronavirus effort show that Mr. Azar waited for weeks to brief the president on the threat, oversold his agency’s progress in the early days and didn’t coordinate effectively across the health-care divisions under his purview. The ramp-up of the nation’s diagnostic testing for the disease caused by coronavirus, which many health experts regard as critical for limiting new infections and safely reopening the economy, has been slower than promised and hampered by obstacles. As of Wednesday, more than four million government and private-lab tests had been administered. The president now says states bear the primary responsibility for testing, and that the federal government plays only a supporting role.” [Wall Street Journal, 4/22/20]
Amid Criticism Of The Poor Federal Response To The Coronavirus Outbreak Trump Took To Twitter To Defend HHS Secretary Azar’s Role As Part Of The White House Taskforce. According to CNBC, “President Donald Trump on Friday defended Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar as he faces mounting criticism for his response to the deadly coronavirus outbreak. ‘It is FAKE NEWS that @HHSGov @SecAzar is ‘sidelined’ from the great job he is doing on the Coronavirus Task Force,’ Trump tweeted Friday. ‘He has the total confidence of the @VP and myself, and is doing a fantastic job, as the numbers would indicate!” [CNBC, 3/6/20]
The White House And HHS Both Maintained That The Task Force Was Working Effectively And Stood By Azar’s Leadership. According to Politico, “The White House and HHS both maintained that the task force is working in tandem and defended Azar’s leadership. ‘There is zero disagreement between HHS, [National Security Council], the White House, and other members of the task force,’ Mulvaney said in a statement. ‘Secretary Azar is the right person to lead this effort, and any reporting to the contrary is just false.’ ‘OMB and HHS have been in lockstep throughout this entire process,’ said Derek Kan, a top White House budget deputy who's also working on coronavirus efforts. An HHS spokesperson denied that the White House and Azar had disagreed over the emergency-funding request.” [Politico, 2/24/20]
Trump Blamed Azar For Not Informing Him Earlier About The Threat Posed By Coronavirus And Subsequently Minimized Azar’s Roll Within The White House Taskforce Coronavirus Response. According to The Wall Street Journal, “Mr. Trump, who says he has responded to the virus aggressively, tweeted on April 12 that Mr. Azar ‘told me nothing until later.’ He didn’t offer details on what he meant, and a White House spokesman said the president feels Mr. Azar ‘provided him with the most accurate and factual information we had at that time.’ White House officials say there is no plan to replace Mr. Azar during a pandemic. Still, the president last week installed a former campaign aide, Michael Caputo, to serve as assistant secretary for public affairs at HHS. The White House also appointed policy adviser Emily Newman as a liaison to HHS who will oversee the agency’s political hires. Mr. Azar has largely been sidelined over the past several weeks from discussions with the president and with the White House task force, administration officials said. He hasn’t attended the daily briefing since April 3.” [Wall Street Journal, 4/22/20]
The White House Believed Azar Had Attempted To Shift Blame Onto Trump And Installed Trump Campaign Vet Michael Caputo To Take Control Of HHS Communications. According to Politico, “The White House is installing Trump campaign veteran Michael Caputo in the health department’s top communications position, Caputo confirmed to POLITICO. The move is designed to assert more White House control over Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, whom officials believe has been behind recent critical reports about President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, according to two officials with knowledge of the move. Caputo, whose title will be assistant secretary of HHS for public affairs, said in a text message, ‘I am honored to serve the President to the best of my abilities in this time of crisis and, in so doing, the American people.’ Caputo is an intense Trump loyalist whose recent book ‘The Ukraine Hoax,’ alleged a conspiracy behind Trump’s impeachment. The high-level move comes after a series of news reports that portrayed Azar as warning Trump about the pending Covid-19 pandemic in January but having the president and his aides dismiss his concerns. Trump on Sunday tweeted that Azar ‘told me nothing until later,’ appearing to refute those reports. White House officials believe that Azar has been shaping favorable coverage of his handling of the Covid-19 outbreak and trying to shift blame for the administration’s mishandled response, said two officials with knowledge of the situation. White House frustration with Azar also dates back to last year, with officials unhappy about his long-running feud with Medicare chief Seema Verma, Azar’s nominal deputy who maintains her own strong relationship with Trump.” [Politico, 4/15/20]
Caputo Trafficked In Conspiracy Theories And Took A Leave Of Absence
September 2020: Caputo Accused The CDC Of Acting As A “Resistance Unit” Engaged In “Sedition” Against Trump. According to The New York Times, “The top communications official at the powerful cabinet department in charge of combating the coronavirus made outlandish and false accusations on Sunday that career government scientists were engaging in ‘sedition’ in their handling of the pandemic and that left-wing hit squads were preparing for armed insurrection after the election. Michael R. Caputo, the assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, accused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of harboring a ‘resistance unit’ determined to undermine President Trump, even if that opposition bolsters the Covid-19 death toll.” [New York Times, 09/14/20]
Caputo Claimed There Were “Hit Squads Being Trained” Against Trump. According to The New York Times, “Over all, his tone was deeply ominous: He warned, again without evidence, that ‘there are hit squads being trained all over this country’ to mount armed opposition to a second term for Mr. Trump. ‘You understand that they’re going to have to kill me, and unfortunately, I think that’s where this is going,’ Mr. Caputo added. In a statement on Monday, Mr. Caputo told The Times: ‘Since joining the administration, my family and I have been continually threatened’ and harassed by people who have later been prosecuted. ‘This weighs heavily on us, and we deeply appreciate the friendship and support of President Trump as we address these matters and keep our children safe.’” [New York Times, 09/14/20]
September 2020: Following Caputo’s “Bizarre And Inflammatory” Public Outburst Where He Accused Government Scientists Of Working To Undermine Trump, He Announced He Would Take A Leave Of Absence. According to The New York Times, “Michael R. Caputo, the embattled top spokesman of the Department of Health and Human Services, will take a leave of absence ‘to focus on his health and the well-being of his family,’ the department announced on Wednesday, three days after Mr. Caputo accused federal scientists of ‘sedition.’ A science adviser Mr. Caputo hired to help him, Dr. Paul Alexander, will be leaving the department. The announcement came after Mr. Caputo posted a bizarre and inflammatory Facebook video in which he accused government scientists of working to defeat President Trump and urged his followers to buy ammunition ahead of what he predicted would be an armed insurrection after the election. It also followed disclosures over the weekend that he and Dr. Alexander had tried to water down or delay official reports of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to bolster Mr. Trump’s message that the pandemic is under control.” [New York Times, 09/18/20]
White House Officials Reviewed Options For The Removal And Replacement Of HHS Secretary Azar Following Internal Disputes Over The Handling Of The COVID-19 Pandemic. According to Politico, “White House officials are weighing a plan to replace Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, according to four people familiar with the discussions. Among the names on the short list to replace Azar are White House coronavirus coordinator Deborah Birx, Medicare chief Seema Verma and deputy HHS Secretary Eric Hargan, said the four people familiar with the talks.. Senior officials’ long-standing frustrations with the health chief have mounted during the pressure-packed response to the Covid-19 outbreak, with White House aides angry this week about Azar’s handling of the ouster of vaccine expert Rick Bright. At a recent task force meeting, Azar assured Vice President Mike Pence that Bright’s move to the National Institutes of Health was a promotion — only for Bright and his lawyers to release a statement that he would soon file a whistleblower complaint against HHS leadership, blindsiding White House officials, according to three officials familiar with the meeting. White House officials also have blamed Azar for long-running turmoil at the health department and a series of media reports that portrayed him as urging Trump to act on the Covid-19 outbreak in January, only for the president and his aides to disregard Azar’s warnings as alarmist. Azar has denied the reports, saying that Trump ‘never once rejected, turned down or dismissed a recommendation’ of his or the task force’s. The White House disputed that officials were considering a plan to replace Azar.” [Politico, 4/25/20]
Trump Denied He Sought To Fire And Replace HHS Secretary Azar. According to CNN News, “The fate of the person who previously led the task force -- Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar -- remains uncertain. Trump on Sunday evening was forced to deny he was going to fire Azar after a series of news reports Saturday night quoted anonymous sources saying White House officials were looking at the possibility of replacing the health chief. The public pushback came after multiple calls between Trump, Azar, Meadows and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, who addressed the stories in the conversations and worked through the best way to respond, according to people familiar with the matter.” [CNN News, 4/27/20]
Trump Put Vice President Pence In Charge Of The Coronavirus Response, As Opposed To Appointing An Outside Expert.According to Politico, “President Donald Trump on Wednesday appointed Vice President Mike Pence to lead a task force to combat the spread of the coronavirus, defying calls to appoint an outside expert to coordinate the response. Speaking during a rare appearance in the White House briefing room, Trump said Pence's experience handling health crises as Indiana governor qualified him to spearhead the growing threat of a global coronavirus outbreak. The move came as the Centers for Disease Control confirmed a coronavirus infection in California that was not linked to overseas travel, a concerning development that brought the total number of U.S. infections to 15.” [Politico, 2/26/20]
Then Governor Pence Was Criticized For Opposing A Clean-Needle Exchange Program To Slow The Worst Outbreak Of HIV In Indiana’s History. According to ABC News, “Others, however, have criticized Pence's response to the state's worst outbreak of HIV in its history and the nation's first HIV outbreak linked to the injection of oral painkillers while he was Indiana's governor in 2015. The crisis began when people started injecting a liquid form of a potent painkiller multiple times a day and sharing needles. While health officials advocated for a clean-needle exchange to slow the spread of infection, Pence staunchly opposed the program on grounds it could encourage or support drug abuse. ‘I don’t believe effective anti-drug policy involves handing out drug paraphernalia,’ Pence said at the time. ‘I don't believe that effective anti-drug policy involves handing out paraphernalia to drug users by government officials.’” [ABC News, 2/27/20]
Two Months After The HIV Outbreak Was Detected And At Least 75 People Tested Positive, Pence Allowed A Temporary Need Exchange Program For 30 Days, But Threatened To Veto Any Additional Needle Exchange Programs. According to ABC News, “It wasn't until two months after the outbreak was detected -- and at least 75 people were confirmed HIV-positive -- that Pence declared a state of emergency. He announced he'd allow a needle exchange program for 30 days but added that if the legislature sent him a broader needle exchange program bill, he would veto it. The outbreak highlighted the weaknesses in Indiana's health infrastructure as it placed 41st nationally in America's health rankings.” [ABC News, 2/27/20]
Public Health Experts Involved In The Response To The 2015 HIV Crisis Questioned Whether Pence Can Put Evidence Ahead OF His Own Beliefs. According to the Guardian, “Public health experts who offered recommendations on combatting the HIV outbreak in Indiana have questioned whether Pence can put evidence ahead of his own beliefs. In combatting Covid-19 ‘we need a leader who is not only data-driven, but somebody who understands evidence – and somebody who can communicate it. Neither one of those things is in Mike Pence’s skillset,’ said Beth Meyerson, the co-director of Indiana University’s Rural Center for Aids/STD Prevention. Carrie Lawrence, the associate director of the center, said the Austin HIV outbreak showed that when Pence has to make a public health decision ‘his go to is his ideology or faith instead of going to the data or the evidence.’” [Guardian, 3/7/20]
Of The Task Force’s 16 Members – 17, Including Pence – Only Four Had Training In Science And Medicine. According to the Intercept, “Although Grogan and his friends may have a lot to gain from his participation on the task force, it is not clear what expertise he and most of the others serving on the group bring to it. Of the task force’s 16 members — 17, if you include Vice President Mike Pence, who is heading the effort — only four have any training in science or medicine. The others mostly hail from the business world, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, an investment banker who was sued for asset stripping; Ken Cuccinelli, a lawyer and self-described ‘opponent of homosexuality’ now serving as acting deputy secretary of homeland security; and Christopher Liddell, a former executive at Microsoft and General Motors, who worked with Jared Kushner on the modernization of federal IT systems before directing the country’s response to what may be the biggest public health crisis in over a century.” [The Intercept, 2/29/20]
Alex Azar, Former President Of Eli Lilly’s U.S. Operations Profited At The Expense Of People Relying On The Company’s Medications. According to the Intercept, “ALEX AZAR, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, admitted Wednesday that a vaccine for the coronavirus might not be affordable for all Americans. “We can’t control that price,” Azar told Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., during a congressional hearing about the virus, which has been spreading throughout the world and is widely expected to become a serious public health issue in the United States […] But Azar, who served as the top lobbyist for Eli Lilly before becoming president of the drug company’s U.S. operations in 2012 and the secretary of Health and Human Services in 2018, knows of what he unthinkingly speaks. Exorbitant drug pricing often leaves life-saving treatment out of reach for the poorest Americans. And to the extent that Azar and the other businessmen who make up the majority of the president’s task force on the coronavirus have any experience with pharmaceuticals, one of the most profitable sectors of the economy, it’s been making money off the system that keeps them out of reach. In the case of Azar, who earned nearly $2 million during his last year at Lilly, that profit came at the expense of the people who needed the drugs, according to a lawsuit filed in 2017. While Azar was leading the pharmaceutical giant, the cost of its drugs went up significantly.” [The Intercept, 2/29/20]
Member Of Coronavirus Task Force, Director Of Domestic Policy Council Joe Grogan Who Was Formerly A Lobbyist For Pharmaceutical Company Gilead Sciences. According to the Intercept, “For another task force member, the profits could come from the coronavirus itself. Joseph Grogan was a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences before he joined the Trump administration as director of the Domestic Policy Council and led the Drug Pricing and Innovation Work Group. On Wednesday, after Gilead announced that it would be starting two clinical trials of an antiviral drug that could be used to treat the virus, the company’s stock price surged. As a former lobbyist for a company that stands to gain hugely from a possible treatment for the virus, Grogan’s participation on the task force poses a host of ethical problems, according to Robert Klitzman, professor of psychiatry and director of the bioethics master’s program at Columbia University. ‘Does he have a conflict of interest? Yes!’ said Klitzman, who points out that the government is likely to spend money on both the research and purchase of treatments for the virus.” [The Intercept, 2/29/20]
Trump Vaccine Czar Slaoui Held More Than $12 Million In Shares Of Vaccine Developer Moderna Therapeutics. According to ABC News, “The move follows sparks of conflict of interest concerns from ethics experts in part regarding more than $12 million-worth of shares underlying stock options Slaoui holds at Moderna Therapeutics, one of the biotech companies leading the coronavirus vaccine development efforts with sizable funding from the federal government.” [ABC News, 5/18/20]
Trump’s Vaccine Czar Slaoui Planned To Divest His Holdings In Moderna. Accordign to ABC News, “President Donald Trump's newly appointed vaccine czar, Moncef Slaoui, plans to divest his equity holdings in a company leading the coronavirus vaccine development effort, the Department of Health and Human Services told ABC News on Monday.” [ABC News, 5/18/20]
Trump’s Admin Did Not Require Former Pharmaceutical Executive Slaoui To Make A Public Ethics Disclosure. According to The New York Times, “The scientist leading the Trump administration’s coronavirus vaccine program will be allowed to remain a government contractor, a decision that permits him to avoid ethics disclosures required of federal employees and maintain his investments in pharmaceutical companies. Two prominent watchdog groups as well as some Democrats in Congress had called for the Department of Health and Human Services to require that the scientist, Dr. Moncef Slaoui, a venture capitalist and a former executive at the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, fall under the same ethics rules as federal employees. The office of the inspector general at H.H.S. responded this week that it could not require such a shift, citing the unusual role that Dr. Slaoui was playing in the administration amid the pandemic. As the chief adviser for the vaccine program — called Operation Warp Speed — Dr. Slaoui is working on a contract that pays him $1. Under the arrangement, he is exempt from federal disclosure rules that would require him to list his outside positions, stock holdings and other potential conflicts of interest.” [New York Times, 07/15/20]
Seema Verma Was Added To The White House Coronavirus Taskforce. According to The Hill, “CMS Administrator The Trump administration has added Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma to its coronavirus task force. The office of Vice President Pence, who is overseeing the White House’s response to the disease, announced their additions on Monday. Wilkie and Verma will join a handful of officials, many of them focused on health and national security issues, already on the task force led by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.” [Hill, 3/2/20]
Verma Further Fueled Her Rivalry With Secretary Azar By Delivering A Well Received Policy Announcement Originally Meant For The Secretary. According to Politico, “Medicare administrator Seema Verma announced on Tuesday night that hospitals could tap $30 billion in ‘no-strings-attached’ coronavirus grants — a move that won her plaudits from health care providers but also one that her rival, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, had planned to make, according to three people close to the situation. Azar, however, was away from Washington because of the death of his father, and two of his advocates in the agency insist Verma should have waited for his return the next day.” [Politico, 4/8/20]
February 25, 2020: Wolf Was Unable To Give A Number On How Many Cases Of Coronavirus Had Been Repatriated Back To The United States. According to the Washington Post. “Wolf got started on the wrong foot almost immediately, when Kennedy asked him how many cases of the coronavirus there were in the United States. Wolf stated there were 14 but was uncertain about how many cases had been repatriated back to the United States from cruise ships, placing the number at ‘20- or 30-some-odd.’ Asked how many DHS was anticipating, Wolf didn’t have an answer and suggested this was the Department of Health and Human Services’ territory. ‘We do anticipate the number will grow; I don’t have an exact figure for you, though,’ Wolf said. ‘You’re head of Homeland Security, and your job is to keep us safe,’ Kennedy responded, asking him again what the estimates might be. Wolf talked around the question, which led Kennedy to say, ‘Don’t you think you ought to check on that, as the head of Homeland Security?’ ‘We will,’ Wolf responded. He referred to a task force that is working on that issue. ‘I’m all for committees and task forces,” Kennedy said. “I think you ought to know that answer.’” [Washington Post, 2/25/20]
DHS Lacked A Senate-Confirmed Leader And Had Vacancies Or Acting Appointees In 65 Percent Of The Top Department Jobs. According to NBC News, “As President Donald Trump imposes sweeping entry restrictions in a bid to stop the spread of the coronavirus — and considers still more — he's relying on an agency to help implement them that has been hollowed out at the top ranks in a revolving door of leadership, potentially hampering his administration's response to the crisis. It has been nearly a year since the Department of Homeland Security has had a Senate-confirmed leader. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, the fourth person to lead the agency in three years, has been on the job less than six months. In addition, 65 percent of top jobs in the department are vacant or filled by acting appointees, more than in any other federal agency, according to the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that advocates for more effective government. Among the vacancies are the No. 2 official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the department's top lawyer and the head of the country's immigration system.” [NBC News, 3/18/20]
Unfilled Jobs And A Leadership Vacuum Caused Major Decisions To Be Deferred And A Drop In Morale. According to NBC News, “That has led to a cascade of other unfilled jobs, a vacuum of leadership causing major decisions to be deferred and a drop in morale at the agency that was born out of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to coordinate the government's response to threats, said people close to DHS. After a chaotic rollout over the weekend of restrictions on many travelers from Europe — where those returning to the U.S. were held for hours in cramped conditions — there are new concerns that the agency isn't prepared to manage what's to come. ‘You have the vacancies, the musical chairs with positions throughout the organization and policies that come down without a lot of forethought putting added stress on a workforce that already has an extremely crucial job to protect the homeland,’ said David Lapan, who was a spokesman for DHS during Trump's first year in office. ‘So at what point do we break them?’” [NBC News, 3/18/20]
20 Of The 75 Senior Positions At DHS Were Either Vacant Or Filled By Acting Officials. According to the New York Times, “The Department of Homeland Security, the agency tasked with screening at airports and carrying out the travel restrictions that were Mr. Trump’s first major action to combat the coronavirus, is full of vacancies. Of the 75 senior positions listed on the department’s website, 20 are either vacant or filled by acting officials. Mr. Wolf is the acting homeland security secretary, and Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, a representative on the coronavirus task force, is the department’s acting deputy secretary. The deputy administrators of the Transportation Security Administration and Federal Emergency Management Agency also serve in acting capacities.[New York Times, 3/26/20]
Trump Rejected The Proposal To Appoint A Military Commander As Czar Over Medical Supply Distribution For The Covid-19 Crisis. According to HuffPost, “President Donald Trump is rejecting calls to put a single military commander in charge of medical supplies for the COVID-19 pandemic. He says that his administration has the supply situation under control and that appointing a new ‘czar’ makes no sense when he’s already got several military commanders working on the federal response. But the calls for a czar, a single authority, are coming from a lot of people, including Democratic elected officials and advocates for frontline medical workers. They say the supply situation remains a crisis, especially when it comes to the widespread shortages of protective gear. And although critics have high regard for the military commanders working with Trump, they say the multitude of advisers (including civilians) and their overlapping portfolios mean no single person has control over both the production and distribution of critical equipment.” [HuffPost, 4/6/20]
The Trump Administration Dismissed Democratic Leadership’s Call For A Covid-19 Supply Czar As A Political Ploy. According to HuffPost, “One Democratic official, Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), has become so frustrated with the lack of response that on Monday he proposed three possible czars, all military commanders with experience in logistics. ‘This is a massive undertaking, and the country needs an undisputed person who is organizing all facets of it ― someone with experience, someone with strength, someone who will have the full authority of the president behind them,’ Schumer said during a call with reporters on Monday. ‘The best place to find somebody like this is in the military.’ But at the now-daily White House coronavirus briefing, Trump dismissed Schumer’s suggestion as a political stunt. ‘When Schumer makes a statement like that, he’s only doing it for politics,’ Trump said. ‘We have the best generals, the best admirals, we have the best people. These are incredible leaders.’” [HuffPost, 4/6/20]
Top Trump Administration Official For Public Health Preparedness Prioritized Stockpiles Of Defenses Against Biological And Chemical Weapons Over Pandemic Preparedness. According to the Washington Post, “After Robert Kadlec was confirmed as President Trump’s top official for public health preparedness in 2017, he began pressing to increase government stocks of a smallpox vaccine. His office ultimately made a deal to buy up to $2.8 billion of the vaccine from a company that once paid Kadlec as a consultant, a connection he did not disclose on a Senate questionnaire when he was nominated. […] The 10-year contract is part of an effort by Kadlec to bolster the nation’s stockpile of defenses against biological and chemical weapons, a focus he made a priority over preparing for a natural pandemic, an examination by The Washington Post found. Kadlec, a decorated veteran and biodefense expert, has argued for more than two decades in government and the private sector that the nation should devote more of its resources to preparing for bioweapon attacks.” [WaPo, 5/4/20]
Kadlec Bought $2.8 Billion In Smallpox Vaccine At Twice The Previous Price From Emergent BioSolutions, A Company For Which He Had Previously Been A Consultant; The Contract Was Negotiated Through Kadlec’s Office. According to the Washington Post, “After Robert Kadlec was confirmed as President Trump’s top official for public health preparedness in 2017, he began pressing to increase government stocks of a smallpox vaccine. His office ultimately made a deal to buy up to $2.8 billion of the vaccine from a company that once paid Kadlec as a consultant, a connection he did not disclose on a Senate questionnaire when he was nominated. Under the agreement struck last year with Emergent BioSolutions, Kadlec’s office at the Department of Health and Human Services is paying more than double the price per dose it had previously paid for the drug. Because Emergent is the only licensed maker of the vaccine, Kadlec’s office arrived at the price through negotiations with the company rather than through bidding.” [WaPo, 5/4/20]
After Acquisitions For The Strategic National Stockpile Was Moved From The CDC To Under Kadlec, Kadlec Scaled Back The Interagency Process And Consolidated Decisions To Himself And Advisors. According to the Washington Post,“In the two years before the coronavirus pandemic, Kadlec aggressively pursued efforts to fulfill his vision for national preparedness, the Post examination found. He assumed greater control over acquisitions for the Strategic National Stockpile, which in 2018 was moved from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and placed under his authority, the examination found. Kadlec scaled back a long-standing interagency process for spending billions of dollars on stockpile purchases, diminishing the role of government experts and restricting decision-making to himself and a small circle of advisers, according to three former officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.” [WaPo, 5/4/20]
Kadlec’s Office Stopped Spending On Obama Era Initiative To Build A Machine That Could Produce 1.5 Million N95 Masks Per Day. According to the Washington Post,“Kadlec committed additional spending to biodefense countermeasures such as smallpox and anthrax vaccines while cutting planned spending on emerging infectious diseases, despite warnings from scientists that a natural contagion could also be devastating. Citing limited resources, his office halted an Obama-era initiative to spend $35 million to build a machine that could produce 1.5 million N95 masks per day, as The Post previously reported.” [WaPo, 5/4/20]
Dr. Rick Bright Filed A Whistleblower Complaint Alleging The Trump Administration Ignored Early Warnings About The Coronavirus. According to CNN, “Dr. Rick Bright, the ousted director of the office involved in developing a coronavirus vaccine, formally filed an extensive whistleblower complaint Tuesday alleging his early warnings about the coronavirus were ignored and that his caution at a treatment favored by President Donald Trump led to his removal. ‘I was pressured to let politics and cronyism drive decisions over the opinions of the best scientists we have in government,’ Bright said on a call with reporters after filing his complaint. Bright said in the complaint he raised urgent concerns about shortages of critical supplies, including masks, to his superiors in the Trump administration but was met with skepticism and surprise. While Bright said some officials shared his concerns -- including top White House trade adviser Peter Navarro -- he describes an overall lack of action at the top of the administration even as the virus was spreading outside of China. Bright had led the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority since 2016 when he was reassigned last month to a narrower position at the National Institutes of Health.” [CNN, 5/5/20]
The Whistle Blower Report Filed By Rick Bright Accused His Superior, Robert Kadlec And Other Officials Of Cronyism And Placing Politics Over Science. According to New York Times, “The call in early February from the White House Situation Room came as a surprise to Rick Bright: Peter Navarro, President Trump’s trade adviser, wanted him to come present his ideas for fighting the coronavirus, alone. Dr. Bright, whose tiny federal research agency was pursuing a coronavirus vaccine, had long been at odds with his boss at the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert Kadlec. His White House visits, twice in a single weekend, only exacerbated those tensions. ‘Weekend at Peter’s,’ Dr. Kadlec quipped in the subject line of an email that expressed his displeasure. The hostility between these two key officials in the government’s response to a pandemic that has claimed more than 75,000 American lives burst into public view Tuesday when Dr. Bright — who was abruptly dismissed last month as head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority — filed a formal whistle-blower complaint. The document accuses Dr. Kadlec and other top administration officials of ‘cronyism’ and putting politics ahead of science.” [New York Times, 5/11/20]
After Pressing For Masks And Drugs Stockpiling Early On, Bright Was Sidelined By Kadlec As The Coronavirus Arrived. According to New York Times, “The internal clashes extend beyond Drs. Bright and Kadlec. Fierce battles have erupted between Alex M. Azar II, the health and human services secretary, and Seema Verma, the Medicare and Medicaid administrator. Mr. Azar has also clashed with a senior White House policymaker, Joe Grogan. But the consequences of such clashes were vividly brought to life by Dr. Bright’s complaint. Email messages show that, as early as January, when President Trump was saying the outbreak was ‘totally under control,’ Dr. Bright was pressing for the government to stock up on masks and drugs and to commence a ‘Manhattan Project’ effort to develop a vaccine. But Dr. Bright was largely sidelined by personal disputes with Mr. Kadlec and his aides, some of which long predated the coronavirus, the documents suggest. By the time the pandemic arrived in force, the relationship between them had become toxic, with Dr. Bright increasingly left out of key decisions. His ideas about battling the threat ‘were met with skepticism,’ the complaint says, ‘and were clearly not welcome.’” [New York Times, 5/11/20]
Trump And Pence Shared Plans To Disband The Coronavirus Taskforce As The Administration Refocused On Reopening The US Economy And Vaccine Development. According to Politico, “The White House is planning to wind down its coronavirus task force in the coming weeks as it shifts focus to reopening the economy. The move is a more formal recognition of a strategy that has been developing in recent weeks. President Donald Trump and his aides have been shifting their attention toward jolting the country’s finances and speeding up vaccine development — even as the virus continues to spread to new areas of the country and the overall caseload climbs. On Tuesday, Trump said the task force will be replaced by advisory groups of ‘a different form.’ ‘That form is safety and opening,’ Trump told reporters during a trip to Arizona. ‘We will have a different group probably set up.’ Efforts to mitigate the ongoing coronavirus outbreak will ultimately be shifted to agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Vice President Mike Pence. ‘We’re having a conversation about that and about what the proper time is for the task force to complete its work,’ Pence told reporters at a briefing Tuesday. ‘We’ve already begun to talk about a transition plan with FEMA.’” [Politico, 5/5/20]
Trump Reversed Plans To Disband The Coronavirus Taskforce Attempting Instead To Redefine The Group’s Mission To Focus On Reopening The Country. According to The New York Times, “He tried to signal that this week by saying that his coronavirus task force would soon begin winding down. By his own admission, Mr. Trump was surprised to discover that many others thought it was too soon to do that. By Wednesday he reversed course, vowing to keep the task force going ‘indefinitely’ and promising that health experts like Dr. Anthony S. Fauci and Dr. Deborah L. Birx would remain part of the group even as he added other members. Even then, the president tried to pivot by redefining the task force’s mission to figuring out how to reopen the country safely and soon. ‘I thought we could wind it down sooner,’ Mr. Trump told reporters as he hosted nurses in the Oval Office to sign a proclamation honoring National Nurses Day. ‘But I had no idea how popular the task force is until actually yesterday. When I started talking about winding it down, I got calls from very respected people saying, ‘I think it would be better to keep it going.’” [New York Times, 5/6/20]
As Trump’s Priorities Shifted To The Economy, Administration Officials Planned To Reduce The Public Role Of Trump’s Top Health Advisors. According to Axios, “The White House plans to shift its coronavirus messaging toward boosting the economy and highlighting ‘success stories’ of businesses, reducing its public emphasis on health statistics, according to two officials familiar with the planning. Driving the news: The Coronavirus Task Force — and the doctors who’ve become household names, Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci — ‘will continue but take a back seat to the forward-looking, ‘what’s next’ message,’ a White House official told Axios. President Trump is expected to make fewer, shorter appearances at press conferences, as we reported on Friday. Nothing’s ever set with Trump, and these decisions will be made day by day. But on Saturday, for the first day in weeks, the White House didn’t hold a press briefing and the president made no public appearances. What we’re hearing: ‘Expect to see a pivot from the White House in the days ahead, focusing on the economy and a more hopeful, forward-looking message,’ one of these officials said.” [Axios, 4/26/20]
White House Planned To Book Appearances By Kudlow, Hassett, And Mnuchin More; Fauci And Birx, Less. According to The Washington Post, “Even as Trump berated aides last week over the poor pace of testing — ‘We have no message on testing,’ he complained, according to a senior administration official who directly heard the president — he publicly focused elsewhere. West Wing aides are planning to book more media appearances by Kudlow, Hassett and Mnuchin in coming weeks, with fewer by Birx and Fauci. ‘The White House apparatus is totally shifting to the economy,’ the senior official said, noting that Trump is convening discussions about reopening this weekend at Camp David.” [Washington Post, 5/2/20]
Dr. Fauci And Dr. Birx Absence From Media Appearances Coincided With Trump Administration Shifting Focus On Reopening The Economy Despite The Ongoing Pandemic. According to CNN, “Fauci’s absence comes as the newly implemented White House communications team has changed its public relations strategy for the pandemic. President Trump, who previously held freewheeling news conferences, has stopped doing so on a daily basis following an effort among aides and allies who believed the briefings damaged him politically. And in recent weeks, the White House has refocused its message on reopening the country amid the economic havoc wreaked by the virus. While the President and White House have pushed for the reopening of the economy, some experts have cautioned it could be too soon. Amid the debate, the nation’s top physicians, such as Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, have largely been absent from the conversation.” [CNN, 5/20/20]
Trump Minimized The Role Of The White House Coronavirus Taskforce
May: The Trump Administration Significantly Reduced The Role White House Coronavirus Taskforce Despite The Total Number Of Coronavirus Related Deaths Surpassing 100,000. According to CNN, “As the American death count from coronavirus ticks above 100,000, the panel assembled by President Donald Trump to confront the pandemic has been sharply curtailed as the White House looks ahead to reopening. Vice President Mike Pence convened the White House coronavirus task force on Thursday for the first time in a week. The group of doctors and high-ranking administration officials, which met daily even on weekends at the height of the pandemic, has seen its formal sessions reduced from three per week at the start of May to one per week now, according to White House schedules. The task force has essentially been sidelined by Trump, said senior administration officials and others close to the group, who described a greatly reduced role for the panel created to guide the administration’s response to the pandemic. Asked about the dwindling number of task force meetings, one administration official said there are not as many decisions that need to be made on an urgent basis. ‘You don’t need a decision every day’ on some of the items on the task force’s agenda, the official said. ‘We’re monitoring things,’ the official added.” [CNN, 5/28/20]
Top US Health Officials Said They Had Not Been In Contact With Trump For More Than Two Weeks. According to Bloomberg, “Top U.S. health officials told lawmakers Tuesday that they haven’t discussed the Covid-19 pandemic with President Donald Trump for more than two weeks, a period in which cases have surged in some of the most populous states.” [Bloomberg, 6/23/20]
Fauci Said He Had Not Briefed Trump For Over Two Months. According to the Financial Times, “Fauci last saw Trump in person at the White House on June 2 — and says he has not briefed the president for at least two months. He tells me this in a matter-of-fact tone, but I suspect that his indifference is feigned. While Trump holds potential superspreader events, Fauci meets with the task force run by the vice-president.” [FT, 7/10/17]
The White House Attempted To Discredit Dr. Anthony Fauci By Providing NBC News With A List Of Past Comments By Fauci. According to CNBC, “The White House is seeking to discredit Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, as it works to marginalize him and his dire warnings about the shortcomings in the U.S. coronavirus response. A White House official told NBC News that ‘several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci has been wrong on things.’ The official provided NBC News with a lengthy list of past comments by Fauci earlier in the pandemic, including Fauci saying in January that coronavirus was ‘not a major threat’ and ‘not driven by asymptomatic carriers’ and Fauci’s comment in March that ‘people should not be walking around with masks.’ Many of the past statements the White House is criticizing Fauci for are ones that were based on the best available data at the time and were widely echoed by Trump, other members of the task force and senior White House officials.” [CNBC, 7/12/20]
Meadows Eschewed Morning Meetings With Health Officials For A Meeting With Political Aides. According to the Washington Post, “Meadows no longer holds a daily 8 a.m. meeting that includes health professionals to discuss the raging pandemic. Instead, aides said, he huddles in the mornings with a half-dozen politically oriented aides — and when the virus comes up, their focus is more on how to convince the public that President Trump has the crisis under control, rather than on methodically planning ways to contain it.” [WaPo, 8/8/20]
August 2020: With The Coronavirus Showing No Signs Of Slowing Down, Trump Elevated Dr. Scott Atlas Because Of His More Optimistic Assessment, Despite No Expertise In Epidemiology Or Infectious Diseases. According to Politico, “Dr. Scott Atlas warns against coronavirus overreaction and hysteria, pushes for the reopening of schools and sports leagues, and downplays the need for broader testing to root out the virus. Unlike bigger-name, more circumspect public health officials, who’ve watched their luster dim at the White House, Atlas has become a star adviser in President Donald Trump’s inner circle at a crucial moment during the pandemic. With the virus showing no sign of letting up — the U.S. has recorded roughly 5.4 million Covid-19 cases and 170,000 deaths — and with less than three months to go in an uphill reelection battle, the president is betting that a telegenic physician with a positive outlook, but no expertise in infectious diseases or epidemiology, can change his fortunes.” [Politico, 08/17/20]
Atlas Had No Background Related To The Pandemic, But Had Connections In Conservative Circles. According to The New York Times, “Dr. Atlas’s medical background — chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center from 1998 to 2012 and editor of the textbook ‘Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain and Spine’ — appears incongruous with his current role. But Dr. Atlas does have political connections in Mr. Trump’s world. He has advised the president’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, and his Hoover Institution employs several staunch supporters of Mr. Trump’s handling of the virus. Some Hoover scholars were early opponents of state and local government moves to shut down economic activity in March and April, including Richard Epstein, a law professor who predicted in March that only 500 Americans would die of the virus. Another Hoover scholar, David R. Henderson, wrote in May: ‘If the lockdowns are ended immediately, will there be more deaths than if the they were not ended forthwith? Probably. But that won’t be enough to declare that ending the lockdown was a failure.’” [New York Times, 09/02/20]
Atlas Contrasted School Officials In Cautioning Against Taking Strict Anti-COVID Measures In Reopening Schools, Claiming “It Is Proven Children Have No Significant Risk.” According to Politico, “Atlas, upbeat and relentlessly on message that Americans should resume life as much as they can, is the living embodiment of the president’s Covid-is-not-that-big-of-a-deal approach. Where school superintendents and football conference officials see a risk of the virus’ spread this fall, Atlas cautions against too-strict measures. During Fox News appearances, he has downplayed the need for students to wear face coverings or practice social distancing if schools do reopen. ‘It is proven children have no significant risk,’ he said during a July 15 TV appearance. It’s a line that Trump has parroted but that hasn’t been borne out in districts where in-person learning has resumed: Schools in Georgia, North Carolina and Indiana have had to shut down shortly after starting the year because of positive cases.” [Politico, 08/17/20]
Atlas Argued Against Expanded Testing And Downplayed The Effectiveness Of Masks. According to Politico, “In private meetings at the White House, Atlas has irritated other aides by arguing against expanded Covid-19 testing. He opposed a proposal championed by Dr. Deborah Birx, the response coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force, to scale up home testing through methods such as saliva tests. And recently, in a task force meeting, he told Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, that science does not definitively support government mandates on wearing masks. (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that Americans wear masks when they interact with those outside the home and in instances when social distancing is not possible.)” [Politico, 08/17/20]
August 2020: Atlas Pushed For The White House To Follow The Swedish Model Of “Herd Immunity” To Combat The Coronavirus. According to The Washington Post, “One of President Trump’s top medical advisers is urging the White House to embrace a controversial ‘herd immunity’ strategy to combat the pandemic, which would entail allowing the coronavirus to spread through most of the population to quickly build resistance to the virus, while taking steps to protect those in nursing homes and other vulnerable populations, according to five people familiar with the discussions. The administration has already begun to implement some policies along these lines, according to current and former officials as well as experts, particularly with regard to testing. The approach’s chief proponent is Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist and fellow at Stanford’s conservative Hoover Institution, who joined the White House in August as a pandemic adviser. He has advocated that the United States adopt the model Sweden has used to respond to the virus outbreak, according to these officials, which did not impose lockdown orders or close most schools and businesses. Instead, Sweden recommended social distancing measures and masks, while keeping bars and restaurants open with restrictions.” [Washington Post, 08/31/20]
Trump Sought To Develop A New Task Force Comprised Of Administration Officials And Private Sector Representatives In A Push To Reopen The US Economy. According to Axios, “President Trump is preparing to launch a second coronavirus task force focused on reviving the U.S. economy, which has been battered by the coronavirus, two administration officials tell Axios. Why it matters: There is growing energy within the West Wing to start easing people back to work by May 1. But some public health officials, including those on the coronavirus task force, have warned against doing so, raising concerns about reopening America too soon. What we’re hearing: The economic task force will include people from the private sector as well as top administration officials, some of whom also serve on the coronavirus task force — though the two will be separate.” [Axios, 4/9/20]
Trump Identified Prominent Business Advisors For His “Opening The Country” Council And Suggested The Listed Wall Street And Silicon Valley Leaders Would Assume Formalized Roles In His Administration. According to The New York Times, “President Trump stood in the Rose Garden on Tuesday evening and recited a list of dozens of prominent business and labor leaders who he said would be advising him in deciding when and how to reopen the country’s economy, even as governors made it clear they will make those decisions themselves. The president’s announcement came after days of confusion about the makeup of what Mr. Trump has described as his ‘Opening the Country’ council. Some business leaders were reluctant to have to defend Mr. Trump’s actions and risk damaging their brands, people with knowledge of the process said. Among those Mr. Trump said he had plans to speak with were some of the most prominent names of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Those included Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase; Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of Blackstone; Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple; and Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, who he implied would be acting as consultants to his administration. He described them as the leaders of ‘companies that no other country will catch, if they’re smart’ and suggested they were taking on formal roles advising his administration.” [New York Times, 4/14/20]
Some Business Leaders Identified By Trump As Advisors Were Blindsided By The Announcement, Others Felt They Lacked Information About The Council’s Objectives, And Some Were Unable To Participate In The Council’s First Hastily Organized Conference Call. According to The New York Times, “Some business leaders had no idea they were included until they heard that their names had been read in the Rose Garden on Tuesday night by President Trump. Some of those who had agreed to help said they received little information on what, exactly, they were signing up for. And others who were willing to connect with the White House could not participate in hastily organized conference calls on Wednesday because of scheduling conflicts and technical difficulties. In short, the rollout of what the president referred to last week as his ‘Opening Our Country Council’ was as confusing as the process of getting there. Instead of a formal council, what Mr. Trump announced on Tuesday was a watered-down version that included 17 separate industry groups, including hospitality, banking, energy and ‘thought leaders.’ And on Wednesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers received emails inviting them to join another task force.” [New York Times, 4/15/20]
Infections That Killed Americans Largely Came From New York City From Travelers From Europe, Not China. According to The New York Times, “The release of the report also comes as new evidence emerges that the tidal wave of infections that has killed more than 75,000 Americans came largely from New York City, via travelers from Europe, not China.” [New York Times, 5/7/20]
Trump Announced China Travel Ban 10 Days After First Travel Related Coronavirus Case. According to the Washington Post, “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Jan. 21 announced the first travel-related case of novel coronavirus in the United States. Trump unveiled his plan 10 days later, making the restrictions effective Feb. 2. (On Jan. 17, the CDC had begun health screenings of passengers on direct or connecting flights from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak.)” [Washington Post, 4/7/20]
After China Travel Ban In January, Trump Announced European Ban In March. According to The New York Times, “After announcing the barring of foreigners from China in late January, Mr. Trump expanded the travel restrictions to more than two dozen European countries in March. American citizens returning from those countries or South Korea were funneled to 13 designated airports, where they were met by a customs officer, asked questions about their travel and medical history, and could be referred to a screening by a medical official.” [New York Times, 5/7/20]
In The Months Following Trump’s Imposed Travel Restriction Roughly 40,000 Travelers Arrived In The United States Via Direct Flights From China, Including Thousands On Flights Directly From Wuhan. According to The New York Times, “Since Chinese officials disclosed the outbreak of a mysterious pneumonia like illness to international health officials on New Year’s Eve, at least 430,000 people have arrived in the United States on direct flights from China, including nearly 40,000 in the two months after President Trump imposed restrictions on such travel, according to an analysis of data collected in both countries. The bulk of the passengers, who were of multiple nationalities, arrived in January, at airports in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Newark and Detroit. Thousands of them flew directly from Wuhan, the center of the coronavirus outbreak, as American public health officials were only beginning to assess the risks to the United States.” [New York Times, 4/4/20]
Trump’s Closure Of American Borders Led To An Influx Of American Travelers; House Oversight Found That Only 10% Of 250,000 Travelers Were Screened For Temperatures Over A Ten Week Period Between January And March. According to The New York Times, “President Trump’s go-to defense of his early response to the coronavirus is his decision to close down travel from China, the virus’s original epicenter, and then from ravaged Europe. But those hasty decisions led to exoduses of American citizens, with packed, chaotic airports and, according to a new congressional report, porous screenings for passengers who could have been bringing the coronavirus home with them. Medical officials on contract from the Department of Homeland Security checked the temperature of just 10 percent of more than 250,000 travelers at U.S. airports arriving from travel-restricted countries during a 10-week span from January to March, according to a report released Thursday by the House Oversight and Reform Committee, undercutting one of the centerpieces of Mr. Trump’s argument that his administration responded aggressively to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.” [New York Times, 5/7/20]
DHS Officials Said Their Informal Policy Was To Check One In Ten Because The “Don’t Want To Slow Things Down.”According to The New York Times, “Homeland security officials from the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office told the committee that the informal policy was to check one of every 10 passengers because they “don’t want to slow things down,” according to the report.” [New York Times, 5/7/20]
Mid-May: Trump Had Not Implemented A Screening Procedure For Domestic Air Travelers. According to Yahoo News, “Despite these concerns, there are currently no coronavirus screening procedures for domestic air travelers, and a congressional investigation has also raised questions about the level of screening being conducted for international passengers. Speaking in the Oval Office on April 28, President Trump told reporters his administration is working on implementing a procedure for temperature checks and COVID-19 tests for air travelers.” [Yahoo News, 10/16/20]
September 2020: The Trump White House Decided Travelers Coming Into The United States No Longer Had To Go Through Health Screening Or Provide Contact Information. According to Yahoo, “The U.S. government on Monday will stop conducting enhanced screening of passengers on inbound international flights for COVID-19, Yahoo News has learned. The screening operations have been held at select airports since January, when the first cases of the disease began to emerge from Wuhan, China. Since March, incoming international flights from select high-risk countries, including much of Europe, China and Iran, among other regions, have been funneled through 15 designated airports in the United States. As of Monday, however, international flights will no longer be funneled into select airports for screening purposes and all screenings will come to a halt, according to communications and sources. All screenings and rerouting of select international flights will cease at exactly 12:01 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 14. Currently, travelers upon arrival to the United States are sent to health screeners who take their temperatures and conduct a basic health screening with questions about typical COVID-19 symptoms. After the health screening, passengers proceed through passport control and customs. One aspect of the screening is that travelers provide contact information, which can be used to perform contact tracing for infections. Without that information, it likely won’t be possible to contact passengers on a flight who may have potentially been exposed to someone infected with COVID-19. The orders to cease prescreening operations came from the White House, with strict orders to keep the information secret until a public announcement is made. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the various agencies — and contractors — involved in the airport screening operations are working frantically to prepare for Monday’s shutdown.” [Yahoo, 09/09/20]
Trump Was Reluctant To Make An Emergency Declaration Fearing That It Would Stoke Panic And Contradict Coronavirus Messaging. According to Politico, “Trump’s concern at this point is that going further could hamper his narrative that the coronavirus is similar to the seasonal flu and could further agitate Wall Street, said the three people familiar with the discussions. ‘The president isn’t persuaded because [an emergency declaration] contradicts his message that this is the flu,’ said a Republican who speaks to Trump. Health experts have rigorously disputed any assertion that the coronavirus is equivalent to the seasonal flu, noting it is much more lethal and particularly dangerous to the elderly and those with other health conditions. Trump is walking a fine line as coronavirus cases in the U.S. sail past 1,000. As the president ramps up for a 2020 reelection campaign, he is trying to simultaneously signal calm to the American public, comfort businesses whose customers have disappeared amid self-isolation directives and ensure there‘s enough money to combat the still-new disease.” [Politico, 3/11/20]
Trump Planned To Wait On Jared Kushner Before Deciding To Make Emergency Declaration For Coronavirus. According to Politico, “President Donald Trump is reluctant to declare an expansive emergency to combat the escalating coronavirus outbreak, fearful of stoking panic with such a dramatic step, according to three people familiar with the situation […] There’s no deadline for a decision, but one of the people familiar with the talks said Trump's aides will not give the president a final verdict until Jared Kushner, the president’s senior adviser and son-in-law, talks to relevant parties and presents his findings to the president.” [Politico, 3/11/20]
Kloss Followed Up: “Jared Is Reading Now.” According to Politico, “Tonight I was asked by Jared through my son-in-law for my recommendations, that’s when I turned to you my fellow BAFERD’s for help,” he wrote using a nickname for Bad Ass Fucking Emergency Room Doctors. “Between patients tonight I have reviewed your responses and will summarize what I am sending to Jared for your PEER review before I send it.” “Jared is reading now,” Kloss followed up later.” [Politico, 3/13/20]
March 13, 2020: Trump Declared Coronavirus National Emergency. According to the Washington Post, “Trump declared a national emergency over the coronavirus pandemic Friday as public life in America continued to grind to a halt. Trump’s announcement sent the Dow soaring nearly 2,000 points.” [WaPo, 3/13/20]
HHS Secretary Azar Declined To Promise That A Potential Coronavirus Vaccine Would Be Made Affordable For All American, But The Trump Administration Reversed The Statement Following Public And Political Condemnation. According to Business Insider, “As of Monday, the coronavirus had spread to more than 60 countries and infected more than 88,000 people, with the vast majority of cases in China. The disease it causes, COVID-19, has killed more than 3,000 people. The briefing came a few days after Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar initially declined to promise that a coronavirus vaccine would be affordable for all Americans. ‘We would want to ensure that we work to make it affordable, but we can’t control that price because we need the private sector to invest,’ Azar told members of Congress on Wednesday during a hearing concerning the coronavirus outbreak and the administration’s budget request. ‘Price controls won’t get us there.’ After massive backlash and condemnation from Democrats and others, the administration reversed course on Thursday and said any future COVID-19 vaccine would be made affordable.” [Business Insider, 3/2/20]
CMS Administrator Seema Verma Doubted Her Agency Would Cover The Costs Of The Treatment And Services Needed By Victims Of Coronavirus. According to Business Insider, “Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said on Monday evening that her agency may not be able to pay for all ‘products and services’ required for coronavirus patients dependent on government insurance. ‘We are looking at what we cover and clarifying the types of products and services that our programs will be able to pay for in terms of Medicare and Medicaid,’ Verma said. Verma made the comments during a press briefing held by Vice President Mike Pence on Monday to discuss the novel coronavirus, the risk it poses to Americans, and the government’s response efforts. It opens the door to the possibility that older Americans — a demographic at greater risk from coronavirus — will have to pay up to receive medical treatment. Many Medicare beneficiaries are subject to a $1,408 deductible, with coinsurance that kicks in after the second month starting at $352 per day and gradually scaling upward.” [Business Insider, 3/2/20]
CMS Released Billing Codes For The Administration Of COVID-19 Testing, The Prices To Be Determined By The Insurance Industry Until CMS Determines A National Payment Rate. According to National Law Review, “On February 13, 2020, CMS announced the development of HCPCS code U0001 used by laboratories to bill for performing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s real-time RT PCR (rRT-PCR) assays for the detection of 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV).On February 29, 2020, the US Food & Drug Administration issued a new policy streamlining the process for certain laboratories to develop COVID-19 diagnostics. HCPCS code U0002 allows laboratories and healthcare facilities to bill Medicare for validated, in-house-developed COVID-19 diagnostic tests. CMS expects these codes to encourage testing and improve tracking of COVID-19. Medicare will accept claims with U0001 and U0002 starting on April 1, 2020, for dates of service on or after February 4, 2020. These codes will be paid at rates established by Medicare Administrative Contractors until CMS establishes national payment rates.” [National Law Review, 3/9/20]
The Trump Administration Decided Against Reopening Affordable Care Act Enrollment To Assist Uninsured Americans Get Coverage. According to Politico, “The Trump administration has decided against reopening Obamacare enrollment to uninsured Americans during the coronavirus pandemic, defying calls from health insurers and Democrats to create a special sign-up window amid the health crisis. President Donald Trump and administration officials recently said they were considering relaunching HealthCare.gov, the federal enrollment site, and insurers said they privately received assurances from health officials overseeing the law’s marketplace. However, a White House official on Tuesday evening told POLITICO the administration will not reopen the site for a special enrollment period, and that the administration is ‘exploring other options.’ The annual enrollment period for HealthCare.gov closed months ago, and a special enrollment period for the coronavirus could have extended the opportunity for millions of uninsured Americans to newly seek out coverage. Still, the law already allows a special enrollment for people who have lost their workplace health plans, so the health care law may still serve as a safety net after a record surge in unemployment stemming from the pandemic.” [Politico, 3/31/20]
While State Agencies Promoted Coverage Eligibility For Those Who Had Lost Job-Based Coverage, HealthCare.gov Under The Trump Administration Made No Attempt To Highlight Information And Resources Supporting ACA Coverage. According to The Associate Press, “State-run exchanges prominently promote the availability of coverage, but users of HealthCare.gov have to go through a series of clicks to get that information. ‘There is definitely a greater prioritization of coronavirus on the state exchange websites,’ said Katherine Hempstead of the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. ‘The state exchanges put a message about coronavirus along the top of their home page — ‘above the fold’ — while on HealthCare.gov it appears that it’s business as usual until you scroll down.’ On Monday, leading congressional Democrats wrote Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to urge reopening HealthCare.gov and a focused effort to inform people who lose job-based coverage of their rights to an ACA plan.” [Associate Press, 4/13/20]
Trump Said The Federal Government Would Give Direct Reimbursements To Hospitals That Treat Uninsured COVID-19 Patients. According to NBC News, “Trump offers no details on a replacement plan on his campaign website or on WhiteHouse.gov, where the health care section argues that Obamacare is ‘hurting American families, farmers, and small businesses’ and calls for a replacement with lower costs and more competition without explaining how such a system would work. Asked how Trump wants to fix the system, a White House official referred to his comments at the coronavirus briefings, at which he has offered piecemeal ideas for the immediate crisis. ‘Hospitals and health care providers treating uninsured coronavirus patients will be reimbursed by the federal government using funds from the economic relief package Congress passed last month,’ Trump told reporters Friday. ‘This should alleviate any concern uninsured Americans may have about seeking the coronavirus treatment.’ But it’s unclear whether that will be enough. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said people who lose their job-based coverage are eligible for ACA enrollment, although he didn’t mention the administration’s push to eliminate the law.” [NBC News, 4/6/20]
Because Trump’s Program To Cover Treatment For The Uninsured Only Applied To People Whose Primary Diagnosis Was COVID-19, It Disqualified Americans With Preexisting Conditions. According to The New York Times, “‘This should alleviate any concern uninsured Americans may have about seeking the coronavirus treatment,’ Mr. Trump said in April about the program, which is supposed to cover testing and treatment for uninsured people with Covid-19, using money from the federal coronavirus relief package passed by Congress. The program has drawn little attention since, but a review by The New York Times of payments made through it, as well as interviews with hospital executives, patients and health policy researchers who have examined the payments, suggest the quickly concocted plan has not lived up to its promise. It has caused confusion at participating hospitals, which in some cases have mistakenly billed patients like Ms. Cortez who should be covered by it. Few patients seem to know the program exists, so they don’t question the charges. And some hospitals and other medical providers have chosen not to participate in the program, which bars them from seeking any payment from patients whose bills they submit to it. Large numbers of patients have also been disqualified because Covid-19 has to be the primary diagnosis for a case to be covered (unless the patient is pregnant). Since hospitalized Covid patients often have other serious medical conditions, many have other primary diagnoses. At Jackson Health in Miami, for example, only 60 percent of uninsured Covid-19 patients had decisively met the requirements to have their charges covered under the program as of late July, a spokeswoman said.” [New York Times, 08/29/20]
Trump’s Program Did Not Cover Prescriptions Once A Patient Leaves The Hospital, A Serious Problem When Patients Face Long Term Issues. According to The New York Times, “The program has clearly paid what, in many cases, would be staggering and unaffordable bills for thousands of Covid-19 patients. In addition to hospital care, it covers outpatient visits, ambulance rides, medical equipment, skilled nursing home care and even future Covid vaccines for the uninsured, “subject to available funding.” It does not cover prescriptions once patients leave the hospital, or treatment of underlying chronic conditions that make many more vulnerable to the virus.” [New York Times, 08/29/20]
In The Middle Of The Coronavirus Outbreak, The Trump Administration Confirmed Plans To Proceed With Implementing The SNAP Eligibility Work Requirements Which Threaten To Strip SNAP From Over 700,000 People With Food Insecurity. According to BuzzFeed, “The Trump administration is moving ahead with its plan to enact strict work requirements on people who use food stamps despite the coronavirus pandemic — a move that could result in hundreds of thousands of people losing their eligibility for the program. People could soon be forced to work public-facing jobs when they should stay home or else risk losing access to the assistance they get to buy food. The Department of Agriculture confirmed this week it is sticking to its timeline to tighten work requirements starting April 1. People without a disability or children must work 20 hours per week to qualify for SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as food stamps. The White House projects 700,000 people would lose SNAP eligibility. Lauren Bauer, a fellow with the Brookings Institution, filed access to information requests for figures from all 50 states and projected the number of people losing assistance would be much higher, at 1.3 million to 1.5 million. But those projections all came out before the novel coronavirus swept across the United States, causing a wave of self-quarantines and threatening economic downturn. ‘That number is going to be much, much higher,’ she said. ‘It’s going to cause harm both to the people who are eligible for SNAP, but it’s also going to cause harm for the economy.’” [BuzzFeed, 3/12/20]
A Federal Judge Stopped The Trump Administration From Implementing SNAP Work Rules That Would Potentially Kick 700,000 Citizens Off The Program. According to Vox, “A federal judge blocked a new Trump administration rule on Friday that would have kicked at least 700,000 people off of food stamps in the next month — and she cited the coronavirus pandemic as part of the reason for her ruling. Despite indications that the outbreak of the novel coronavirus is slowing the global economy and the fact that it has already resulted in job losses, US Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue declined to delay the implementation of the rule, which tightens work requirements for access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) among able-bodied people without dependents. Federal regulations on SNAP benefits have long required ‘work-eligible’ adults to meet a 20-hour-a-week work requirement in order to be eligible for the program. But states have had the ability to waive that requirement, which has proved particularly helpful for individuals in areas where meeting that work requirement is difficult, if not impossible, due to high unemployment, poor infrastructure, or other issues. The new Trump rule puts restrictions on states’ ability to issue those waivers, meaning the roughly 700,000 people who currently receive SNAP benefits under the waivers would no longer be eligible to do so.” [Vox, 3/14/20]
USDA Announced Plans To Appeal The Court Order Barring SNAP Work Requirements. According to The Hill, “The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) will appeal a court order barring a change to the food stamps program that could remove up to 700,000 recipients, the Associated Press reports. While the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program requires non-disabled adults without dependents to document that they have worked at least 80 hours a month for more than three months, states have the option to waive the requirements for areas with high unemployment rates. The proposed change would do away with this option. Judge Beryl Howell, an Obama appointee, ruled last week that the changes could not take effect, citing the coronavirus pandemic. ‘Especially now, as a global pandemic poses widespread health risks, guaranteeing that government officials at both the federal and state levels have flexibility to address the nutritional needs of residents and ensure their well-being through programs like SNAP, is essential,’ Howell wrote in her ruling. Asked for comment, the Department of Agriculture told the AP the ‘USDA disagrees with the court’s reasoning and will appeal its decision.’” [Hill, 3/18/20]
July 2020: The Trump Administration Resisted Extending A Program That Allowed Families To Pick Up Food From Whichever School Was Most Convenient Without Means Testing, Potentially Increasing The Amount Of Means Testing And Raising Logistical Hurdles For Families. According to Politico, “During the spring and summer, as the coronavirus health crisis exploded, the government allowed most families to pick up free meals from whichever school was closest or most convenient without proving they were low-income. But that effort is on the verge of expiring as states prepare for children to return to school, and as school systems are pushing the federal government to continue the free meals program through the fall. So far, President Donald Trump’s Agriculture Department isn’t on board with an extension. School leaders are now asking Congress to force the government’s hand as lawmakers buckle down to work on the next coronavirus aid package. ‘It’s impossible. It’s insane,’ said Katie Wilson, executive director of the Urban School Food Alliance, which represents the largest school districts in the country, including those in New York, Chicago and Dallas. ‘Our districts have been screaming about it. They’re panicked.’ Schools already face enormous logistical challenges as they decide whether to have students learn online, in classrooms or in some combination of both this fall. Expanding free meal access would also cut down the pile of paperwork needed to enroll the millions of children expected to become newly eligible for government-subsidized or free meal programs. If USDA doesn’t extend the flexibility through the fall, families may be able to get food for their children only from the school where they are enrolled, after being deemed eligible for help — a change that would create logistical barriers for many families, particularly those without cars or with parents working multiple jobs.” [Politico, 07/20/20]
The FDA Refused To Waive Regulations On Abortion Medication That Requires Patients To Receive Medication In-Person. According to VICE, “When Donald Trump used ‘two very big words’ to declare a national emergency over the novel coronavirus on Friday, he bragged about giving his top health official the ‘ability to waive laws to enable telehealth’ during the pandemic. But it appears that the president’s latitude will not apply to medication abortion care, a federal agency confirmed to VICE. People who want to end their pregnancies will have to navigate the same restrictions as always, which will become all the more complicated in a pandemic environment. While telemedicine abortion specifically enables providers to prescribe abortion pills from a distance, longstanding federal regulations require that clinics dispense mifepristone, one of the two drugs commonly used together in medication abortions, in person—meaning the drugs can’t be picked up at a pharmacy or sent in the mail. An abortion patient can choose to take their medication at home, but they can’t get it without leaving their home. These federal rules prevent people from staying home and flattening the pandemic curve, an action that saves lives.” [VICE, 3/19/20]
The Trump Administration Rejected Appeals To Slow Deregulatory Action By EPA. According to Associated Press, “The Trump administration is rejecting appeals to slow its deregulatory drive while Americans grapple with the coronavirus, pushing major public health and environmental rollbacks closer to enactment in recent days despite the pandemic. As Americans stockpiled food and medicine and retreated indoors and business shuttered in hopes of riding out COVID-19, federal agencies in recent days moved forward on rollbacks that included a widely opposed deregulatory action by the Environmental Protection Agency. The proposed rule would require disclosure of the raw data behind any scientific study used in the rulemaking process. That includes confidential medical records that opponents say could be used to identify people […] The EPA has dismissed demands from 14 attorneys general, the National Governors Association, the National League of Cities and dozens of other government, public health and environmental groups and officials that it at least tap the brakes on that proposed rule while officials confront “the national emergency that arises from the COVID-19 pandemic.” [Associated Press, 3/25/20]
Trump Tweeted Intent To Sign An Executive Order To Freeze To All U.S. Immigration. According to The Washington Post, “Attorneys and senior Trump administration officials are meeting Tuesday to work out the logistics and legal implications of the president’s order to freeze the U.S. immigration system in response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to senior officials involved with the plans. Trump decreed via tweet late Monday that he intends to sign an executive order suspending immigration to the United States, but the president appears to have again publicly declared a U.S. policy that was not yet ready for implementation, leaving his aides rushing to deliver on his pronouncement. The order is currently with the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel for a review, as that office reviews all executive orders, a Justice Department spokeswoman said. It is unclear if the office’s legal opinion on the matter would be released publicly, as some are.” [Washington Post, 4/21/20]
Department Of Education Issued Guidance Not Prescribed In Law That Restricted Emergency Cash Assistance To Students Who Qualified For Financial Aid, Which Restricted Assistance To DACA Recipients. According to Politico, “The Trump administration on Tuesday prohibited undocumented college students from receiving emergency federal cash assistance for expenses like food, child care and housing. The economic rescue law passed by Congress gives $6 billion to colleges to dole out to students for expenses stemming from the disruption on campuses caused by the pandemic. But Education Department officials in new guidance said the money can go only to students who qualify for federal financial aid — U.S. citizens and some legal permanent residents. That prevents undocumented students from accessing the money, although the law includes no explicit restrictions on which students could receive the emergency grants. The group that won’t receive assistance includes hundreds of thousands of members of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has provided work authorization and deportation protections for undocumented people who were illegally brought to the United States as children or overstayed a visa. The Supreme Court is considering whether the program should continue and is expected to issue a decision by June. Aides to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said she is following the economic relief law.” [Politico, 4/21/20]
HHS ORR Officials Considered Eliminating A Policy That Allowed Undocumented Immigrants To Take Custody Of Refugee Children. ORR Also Sought To Fingerprint All Adults In Households To Which Refugee Children Are Released. According to Politico, “Refugee office leaders are reviewing the policy of allowing undocumented immigrant adults to take custody of refugee children — a longstanding practice that dates back to the George W. Bush administration but has been opposed by Miller and other anti-immigration hardliners, who think it rewards adults who are in the country illegally, officials said. The office also is pushing to resume fingerprinting all of the adults in households where refugee children are released. HHS had rejected that policy in December 2018 for being ineffective and slowing down operations, and two officials said it could make some sponsors less likely to step forward to take custody of the children. But the policy has been championed by Miller and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, who historically have used the fingerprints to expedite deportations. The moves are being overseen by a team of loyalists to President Donald Trump, including two former campaign staffers who were installed in their new roles after the White House last month abruptly reassigned the office’s director.” [Politico, 4/16/20]
HHS ORR Sought To Delay The Placement Of Migrant Children In HHS Shelters Thereby Leaving Them In The Custody Of The Border Patrol. According to Politico, “After the Trump administration abruptly installed a new hardline leader last month, the health department’s refugee office is pushing to implement immigration policies favored by White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, according to four health department officials and internal documents reviewed by POLITICO. The office — which takes custody of thousands of migrant children — is now seeking to delay placing migrant children in shelters operated by the health department, which would instead leave those children in the custody of the border patrol for an extended length of time, according to an internal email sent last week and reviewed by POLITICO.” [Politico, 4/16/20]
Trump Administration Accomplished A Long Held Goal Of Stephen Miller’s By Denying Border Crossing To Unaccompanied Children Through The Public Health Authority. According to The New York Times, “The coronavirus pandemic has created an opening for some of Mr. Miller’s other longstanding policy goals, such as finding a way to quickly deport children who travel to the United States without a parent or other adult. Mr. Miller considered that category of migrants among the most difficult to stop, said one official who had discussed it with him, because the young people are protected legally by substantial due process requirements designed to ensure that deportation would not place them in harm’s way. Since border crossings were scaled back under the coronavirus restrictions, even unaccompanied children and teenagers have been turned away. While the administration succeeded in invoking the public health authority to impose the new border restrictions, that is only one of a number of aggressive legal strategies Mr. Miller has proposed, some of which have not been adopted.” [New York Times, 5/3/20]
Trump Extended Immigration Restrictions Through December, 2020; Limited Foreign Workers. “President Trump issued a proclamation Monday barring many categories of foreign workers and curbing immigration visas through the end of the year, moves the White House said will protect U.S. workers reeling from job losses amid the coronavirus pandemic. The ban expands earlier restrictions, adding work visas that many companies use, especially in the technology sector, landscaping services and the forestry industry. It excludes agricultural laborers, health-care professionals supporting the pandemic response and food-service employees, along with some other temporary workers.” [Washington Post, 6/22/20]
PIIE Report Found That The Trump Administration Kept U.S Tariffs On Medical Supplies; 7% On N-95 Masks, 6.4-8.3% On Medical Headware, 5% On Hand Sanitizer, 4.5% On Protective Medical Clothing, And 2.5% On Goggles. According to Politico, “Trump should also temporarily remove duties on all medical equipment and supplies that were in place before he took office, said Kelly Ann Shaw, a former Trump White House trade official who recently joined the Hogan Lovells law firm to work with clients who have trade concerns. A standard disposable N-95 mask faces a 7 percent U.S. tariff, while other medical headwear have import duties between 6.4 percent and 8.3 percent, a report by the Peterson Institute for International Economics found. The U.S. imposes a 5 percent duty on hand sanitizer, a 4.5 percent duty on protective medical clothing and a 2.5 percent duty on protective goggles. Since the U.S. government is using taxpayer money to buy massive amounts of those goods to refill the Strategic National Stockpile and to distribute to hospitals, Shaw argued it makes little sense to increase the cost of those purchases by leaving the duties in place. ‘It’s really important that the administration addresses this as soon as possible,’ she said.” [Politico, 4/21/20]
Former Trump White House Trade Official: Leaving Tariffs In Place Increased Cost Of U.S. Government Purchases. According to Politico, “Trump should also temporarily remove duties on all medical equipment and supplies that were in place before he took office, said Kelly Ann Shaw, a former Trump White House trade official who recently joined the Hogan Lovells law firm to work with clients who have trade concerns. A standard disposable N-95 mask faces a 7 percent U.S. tariff, while other medical headwear have import duties between 6.4 percent and 8.3 percent, a report by the Peterson Institute for International Economics found. The U.S. imposes a 5 percent duty on hand sanitizer, a 4.5 percent duty on protective medical clothing and a 2.5 percent duty on protective goggles. Since the U.S. government is using taxpayer money to buy massive amounts of those goods to refill the Strategic National Stockpile and to distribute to hospitals, Shaw argued it makes little sense to increase the cost of those purchases by leaving the duties in place. “It’s really important that the administration addresses this as soon as possible,” she said.” [Politico, 4/21/20]
FDA Increased Seizures Of Prescription Medications Sent To US Customers From Canada And Other Countries. According to KHN, “The Food and Drug Administration in the past month has stepped up seizures of prescription drugs being sent to American customers from pharmacies in Canada and other countries, according to operators of stores in Florida that facilitate the transactions. While seizures at the nation’s international mail facilities have periodically spiked during the past two decades, the latest crackdown is distressing many older customers whose goal is to stay home during the coronavirus pandemic. ‘It’s very aggravating,’ said Cabot Jaffe Sr., 83, of Maitland, Florida, who had his asthma drug seized by the FDA in March. He gets his inhaler through Canadian MedStore, a Florida storefront business that facilitates the sale from a Canadian pharmacy for Americans with prescriptions from their doctor for the medications. It is 35% cheaper than the cost from his local pharmacy, Jaffe said, saving him hundreds of dollars a year. The FDA notice he received said the drug, Breo, was not labeled correctly because it did not state for ‘RX-only.’ ‘Foreign-made versions of U.S. approved drugs have generally not received FDA approval for use or sale in the United States,’ the FDA letter said. But, Jaffe said, the drug he gets through Canadian MedStore looks exactly like what he previously bought at a pharmacy in Florida. Many drugs sold in the United States are made in other countries. Bill Hepscher, co-owner of Canadian MedStore, said more than 200 of his customers have had drugs seized since early March. They have to reorder the medication or pay higher prices at their local pharmacy. ‘How can the FDA justify spending resources on this during a worldwide pandemic?’ Hepscher asked. FDA officials refused to comment.” [KHN, 4/20/20]
Trump Admin Awarded $354 Million Contract To New Pharma Company Phlow Corp To Manufacture Generic Medicines And Pharma Ingredients. According to the New York Times, “The Trump administration will announce on Tuesday that it has signed a $354 million four-year contract with a new company in Richmond, Va., to manufacture generic medicines and pharmaceutical ingredients that are needed to treat Covid-19 but are now made overseas, mostly in India and China. The contract, awarded to Phlow Corp. by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, meshes President Trump’s ‘America First’ economic promises with concerns that coronavirus treatments be manufactured in the United States. It may be extended for a total of $812 million over 10 years, making it one of the largest awards in the authority’s history. ‘This is an historic turning point in America’s efforts to onshore its pharmaceutical production and supply chains,’ Peter Navarro, Mr. Trump’s trade adviser, whose White House portfolio includes the global supply chain, said in a brief interview on Monday evening.” [New York Times, 5/18/20]
Phlow CEO Eric Edwards Previously Founded Company With His Brother That Jacked Up Price Of Opioid Overdose Antidote By 600% Between 2014 And 2017. According to Stat News, “As the chief executive of Phlow, the new company awarded $354 million by the federal government this week to make generics that are in short supply during the pandemic, Eric Edwards maintains his business is a public benefit corporation. Besides generating a profit, Phlow is supposed to serve a greater good. But in his last role in the pharmaceutical industry, Edwards fell short of benefiting the public, at least according to a U.S. Senate subcommittee report released in 2018. Kaleo, a company Edwards founded with his twin brother, jacked up the price of its Evzio opioid overdose antidote by more than 600% between 2014 and 2017, which cost U.S. taxpayers more than $142 million.” [Stat, 5/19/20]
Grassley Investigated Edwards Company Kaleo After It Charged $4,500 For Its Version Of The EpiPen. According to Stat News, “The company also drew the attention of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who launched a probe into Kaleo in 2017 after the company charged $4,500 for its rival to the EpiPen allergic reaction device. The price was part of a complicated strategy some called a Rube Goldberg scheme, because most insured consumers paid nothing, but insurers picked up the bill. Grassley was concerned Kaleo was shifting the burden and cost to others in the health care system.” [Stat, 5/19/20]
The Contract Negotiated By Navarro Overpaid By $500 Million Relative To The Price Per Ventilator The Obama Administration Had Paid. According to ProPublica, “The congressional investigation determined that the deal would have resulted in the U.S. overpaying for the ventilators by as much as $500 million, thanks to ‘inept contract management and incompetent negotiating by the Trump Administration.’ ProPublica first wrote about the U.S. government’s relationship with Philips in March, detailing how a decade ago government planners had paid Philips millions of dollars to develop a low-cost ventilator that could be stockpiled and deployed if ever there were a pandemic. The U.S. ordered 10,000 once the company received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration. But when COVID-19 cases overwhelmed hospitals in New York in the spring, Philips hadn’t delivered any. Instead, ProPublica found, Philips was selling a commercial version of that ventilator — manufactured at its Pennsylvania factory — overseas at far higher prices. Rather than force production of low-cost ventilators, a White House team led by Navarro cut a new deal for more ventilators, agreeing to pay more than four times the price. ProPublica in April revealed that this new deal boosted the price of what appeared to be similar ventilators from $3,280 each under the Obama administration deal to $15,000 under the Trump administration. Neither Philips nor HHS would explain how the two models were different.” [ProPublica, 09/01/20]
Following ProPublica’s Reporting, The Federal Government Backed Away From A $646.7 Million Contract For Ventilators. According to ProPublica, “The federal government is backing out of a controversial $646.7 million deal to buy ventilators from Royal Philips N.V., acting before the company had delivered a third of the order. The deal has been the focus of several ProPublica stories since March. That reporting prompted a congressional investigation that last month found “evidence of fraud, waste and abuse” in the acquisition of the Philips ventilators. This week, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy announced it is expanding its probe to look at other coronavirus-related deals negotiated by Peter Navarro, the president’s trade adviser, who served as the point man on the Philips deal. In addition, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversaw the Philips contract, confirmed that the deal is the subject of an internal investigation and legal review. ‘It was ProPublica’s reporting that got my subcommittee interested in this contract,’ Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the Illinois Democrat who chairs the subcommittee, said in a statement. ‘It prompted our investigation where we uncovered unfathomably inept dealmaking by top Administration officials like Peter Navarro.’” [ProPublica, 09/01/20]
DeVos Distributed Millions In Coronavirus Relief Funds Intended To Support Public Education For School Vouchers And Private And Religious Institutions Regardless Of Their Financial Need. According to New York Times, “Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is using the $2 trillion coronavirus stabilization law to throw a lifeline to education sectors she has long championed, directing millions of federal dollars intended primarily for public schools and colleges to private and religious schools. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, signed in late March, included $30 billion for education institutions turned upside down by the pandemic shutdowns, about $14 billion for higher education, $13.5 billion to elementary and secondary schools, and the rest for state governments. Ms. DeVos has used $180 million of those dollars to encourage states to create ‘microgrants’ that parents of elementary and secondary school students can use to pay for educational services, including private school tuition. She has directed school districts to share millions of dollars designated for low-income students with wealthy private schools. And she has nearly depleted the 2.5 percent of higher education funding, about $350 million, set aside for struggling colleges to bolster small colleges — many of them private, religious or on the margins of higher education — regardless of need.” [New York Times, 5/15/20]
Education Secretary DeVos Demanded That Public School Districts Share Pandemic Relief Aid With Private Institutions.According to New York Times, “Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, defiant amid criticism that she is using the coronavirus to pursue a long-sought agenda, said she would force public school districts to spend a large portion of federal rescue funding on private school students, regardless of income. Ms. DeVos announced the measure in a letter to the Council of Chief State School Officers, which represents state education chiefs, defending her position on how education funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, should be spent. ‘The CARES Act is a special, pandemic-related appropriation to benefit all American students, teachers and families,’ she wrote in the letter on Friday. ‘There is nothing in the act suggesting Congress intended to discriminate between children based on public or nonpublic school attendance, as you seem to do. The virus affects everyone.’” [New York Times, 5/27/20]
DeVos Said She Would Draft A Rule To Codify Her Guidance Before The School Year. According to New York Times, “A range of education officials say Ms. DeVos’s guidance would divert millions of dollars from disadvantaged students and force districts starved of tax revenues during an economic crisis to support even the wealthiest private schools. The association representing the nation’s schools superintendents told districts to ignore the guidance, and at least two states — Indiana and Maine — said they would. Ms. DeVos accused the state education chiefs of having a ‘reflex to share as little as possible with students and teachers outside of their control,’ and said she would draft a rule codifying her position to ‘resolve any issues in plenty of time for the next school year.’ The proposed rule would need to go through a public comment process before it could take effect.” [New York Times, 5/27/20]
Trump Told Republican Senators During Luncheon That He Did Not Support Extending Unemployment Benefits To Coronavirus Impacted Workers. According to the Washington Post, “President Trump on Tuesday privately expressed opposition to extending a weekly $600 boost in unemployment insurance for laid-off workers affected by the coronavirus pandemic, according to three officials familiar with his remarks during a closed-door lunch with Republican senators on Capitol Hill. The increased unemployment benefits — paid by the federal government but administered through individual states — were enacted this year as part of a broader $2 trillion relief package passed by Congress. The boost expires this summer, and House Democrats have proposed extending the aid through January 2021.” [WaPo, 5/19/20]
White House Planned To Launch Effort To Repeal And Suspend Regulations To Stimulate The Economy. According to the Washington Post, “Senior White House and Trump administration officials are planning to launch a sweeping effort in the coming days to repeal or suspend federal regulations affecting businesses, with the expected executive action seen by advisers as a way to boost an economy facing its worst shock in generations, two people familiar with the internal planning said. The White House-driven initiative is expected to center on suspending federal regulations for small businesses and expanding an existing administration program that requires agencies to revoke two regulations for every new one they issue, the two people said.” [WaPo, 4/21/20]
Amid The Pandemic Trump’s Administration Waived Training Requirements For Nurses Aids Dropping The Required 75 Hours Of Training For 8 Hours Online. According to Politico, “Shortly after the first coronavirus outbreak ravaged a nursing home in Kirkland, Wash., the Trump administration moved to fulfill a longstanding industry goal — waiving the requirement that nurse’s aides receive 75 hours of training and allowing people who study only eight hours online to become caregivers during the pandemic. The industry had been fighting for years to reduce training requirements, saying they make it harder to recruit staff. The day after the administration announced the change, the industry rolled out a free online training program for certifying the new role — called a ‘temporary nurse aide’ — that has since been adopted by at least 19 states. Now, after more than 55,000 nursing home residents and workers across the country have died from the coronavirus, advocates for older adults and families of residents say they fear the change was premature, and contributed to the spread of the disease. Nurse’s aides are often the main caretakers of residents, some of whom need round-the-clock monitoring; nurse’s aides are also on the front lines in implementing the cleaning and disinfecting practices that prevent the spread of Covid-19.” [Politico, 7/15/20]
March 2020 – September 2020: OSHA Received Almost 10,000 Requests To Investigate Workplace Violations Of Virus Safety, Two Resulted In Fines. In Total, Osha Had Issued Eight Citations And Fines Related To The Virus. According to The Washington Post, “Of the nearly 10,000 virus-related requests OSHA received to investigate workplaces in all industries since early March, Smithfield and JBS are the only ones that have so far resulted in a citation and fine. Unrelated to the complaints, OSHA has issued six other virus-related citations and fines for industries other than the meat industry, which resulted from routine reports the agency received from hospitals and employers about workers being hospitalized or fatally injured, records show.” [Washington Post, 09/13/20]
September 2020: Despite More Than 40,000 Cases And More Than 200 Deaths, Only Two Meatpacking Plants Received Fines For A Total Of Three Safety Violations. According to The Washington Post, “Federal regulators knew about serious safety problems in dozens of the nation’s meat plants that became deadly coronavirus hot spots this spring but took six months to take action, recently citing two plants and finally requiring changes to protect workers. The financial penalties for a Smithfield Foods plant in South Dakota and a JBS plant in Colorado issued last week total about $29,000 — an amount critics said was so small that it would fail to serve as an incentive for the nation’s meatpackers to take social distancing and other measures to protect their employees. Meat plant workers, union leaders and worker safety groups are also outraged that the two plants, with some of the most severe outbreaks in the nation, were only cited for a total of three safety violations and that hundreds of other meat plants have faced no fines. The companies criticized federal regulators for taking so long to give them guidance on how to keep workers safe. At least 42,534 meatpacking workers have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in 494 meat plants, and at least 203 meatpacking workers have died since March, according to an analysis by the Food Environmental Reporting Network, a nonprofit investigative news organization.” [Washington Post, 09/13/20]
Trump Removed The Inspector General Selected To Lead The Monitoring And Implementation Of The $2 Trillion Coronavirus Relief Effort And Attacked The HHS IG After A Report That Described Widespread Testing Delays And Supply Issues. According to Politico, “President Donald Trump has upended the panel of federal watchdogs overseeing implementation of the $2 trillion coronavirus law, tapping a replacement for the Pentagon official who was supposed to lead the effort. A panel of inspectors general had named Glenn Fine — the acting Pentagon watchdog — to lead the group charged with monitoring the coronavirus relief effort. But Trump on Monday removed Fine from his post, instead naming the EPA inspector general to serve as the temporary Pentagon watchdog in addition to his other responsibilities. […] Fine’s removal is Trump’s latest incursion into the community of independent federal watchdogs — punctuated most dramatically by his late Friday ouster of the intelligence community’s inspector general, Michael Atkinson, whose handling of a whistleblower report ultimately led to Trump’s impeachment. Trump has also begun sharply attacking Health and Human Services Inspector General Christi Grimm, following a report from her office that described widespread testing delays and supply issues at the nation’s hospitals.” [Politico, 4/7/20]
Trump Indicated He Could Ignore Additional Mismanagement Protections Built Into The Congressional Stimulus Bill That Required Executive Branch Watchdogs To Report Obstruction Of Their Investigations. According to Politico, “An inspector general nominated by President Donald Trump intended to provide a second check has already generated controversy among Democrats and is unlikely to see swift Senate confirmation. And a panel of federal watchdogs meant to be a third independent overseer was upended Tuesday when Trump sidelined its chairman, setting back the one mechanism that appeared on track to begin oversight. Trump has also indicated he might ignore additional protections built into the law meant to keep Congress apprised of any concerns about mismanagement, issuing a signing statement that said it would be unconstitutional to require Executive Branch watchdogs to report any obstruction in their investigations, unless Trump himself approves.” [Politico, 4/8/20]
Trump Replaced The HHS Inspector General Who Identified Resource Shortages Across The US. According to Politico, “The administration also found itself in two other controversies Friday night. First, it was revealed the White House had blocked Fauci from testifying before a Democratic-controlled House committee, although Fauci is still expected to appear before the Republican-controlled Senate sometime over the next two weeks, according to a senior administration official. Then, late Friday night, Trump also moved to replace the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services who, in a report, had identified problems with testing and supplies at hospitals.” [Politico, 5/2/20]
White House Blocked Fauci From Testifying Before House Committee, Fauci Was Still Expected To Appear Before The Senate. According to Politico, “The administration also found itself in two other controversies Friday night. First, it was revealed the White House had blocked Fauci from testifying before a Democratic-controlled House committee, although Fauci is still expected to appear before the Republican-controlled Senate sometime over the next two weeks, according to a senior administration official. Then, late Friday night, Trump also moved to replace the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services who, in a report, had identified problems with testing and supplies at hospitals.” [Politico, 5/2/20]
The White House Prohibited Members Of The Coronavirus Task Force And Deputies From Testifying Before Congress, And Instructed Agencies To Limit The Hearings They Attend. According to Politico, “White House coronavirus task force members are prohibited from testifying before Congress this month under new guidance issued by the Trump administration Monday. Task force members and key deputies have been instructed not to accept invitations to participate in congressional hearings in May, while other agencies responding to the pandemic are being advised to limit the number of hearings they attend. Top administration officials argue the coronavirus task force and the primary agencies responding to the pandemic need to focus their attention and resources on response efforts, and that having them testify could use up critical hours. ‘We’re telling agencies that during this unprecedented time our resources need to be dedicated toward the coronavirus. At this stage we really need everybody manning their stations and prioritizing coronavirus response work,’ a senior administration official told The Hill. The move comes just days after the White House blocked Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and a task force member, from testifying before a House panel.” [Politico, 5/4/20]
Trump Administration Said It Would Not Release Data On Companies That Received PPP Loans. According to the Washington Post, “The Trump administration doesn’t plan to release details about companies that received billions of dollars through a high-profile federal coronavirus-relief initiative, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said this week -- reversing earlier guidance. The Trump administration believes names of borrowers from the Paycheck Protection Program and the amounts they receive are “proprietary,” and “confidential” in many cases, Mnuchin said Wednesday during a Senate committee hearing.” [WaPo, 6/12/20]
Government Watchdogs Warned Congress Of Trump Administration’s Previously Unknown legal Decisions That Could Curtail Oversight Of Cares Act. According to the Washington Post, “The Trump administration’s intensifying efforts to block oversight of its coronavirus-related rescue programs are raising new alarms with government watchdogs and lawmakers from both parties amid concerns about the anonymity of companies receiving unprecedented levels of taxpayer funds. Government watchdogs warned members of Congress last week that previously unknown Trump administration legal decisions could substantially block their ability to oversee more than $1 trillion in spending related to the coronavirus pandemic. In a letter to four congressional committee chairs Thursday, two officials in charge of a new government watchdog entity revealed that the Trump administration had issued legal rulings curtailing independent oversight of Cares Act funding.” [WaPo, 6/15/20]
Trump Administration Said It Would Disclose Borrower Information For PPP. According to the New York Times, “WASHINGTON — Bowing to political pressure, the Trump administration said on Friday evening that it would disclose borrower information for recipients of millions of small-business loans through the $660 billion Paycheck Protection Program.” [NYT, 6/19/20]
Trump Admin Planned To Disclose Loans Of Greater Than $150,000. According to the New York Times, “The new disclosures will apply to loans of more than $150,000. The information will be broken down into five loan ranges, topping out at the maximum amount of $10 million. The Small Business Administration will release business names, addresses, demographic data and jobs supported.” [NYT, 6/19/20]
Trump And Members Of The Coronavirus Taskforce Pushed The CDC To Change It Method Of Calculating Coronavirus Related Deaths In Order To Lower Total Number Reported. According to The Daily Beast, “President Donald Trump and members of his coronavirus task force are pushing officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change how the agency works with states to count coronavirus-related deaths. And they’re pushing for revisions that could lead to far fewer deaths being counted than originally reported, according to five administration officials working on the government’s response to the pandemic. Though he has previously publicly attested to the accuracy of the COVID-19 death count, the president in recent weeks has privately raised suspicion about the number of fatalities in the United States, which recently eclipsed 80,000 recorded deaths. In talks with top officials, Trump has suggested that those numbers could have been incorrectly tallied or even inflated by current methodology, two individuals with knowledge of those private comments said. The White House has pressed the CDC, in particular, to work with states to change how they count coronavirus deaths and report them back to the federal government, according to two officials with knowledge of those conversations. And Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the administration’s coronavirus task force, has urged CDC officials to exclude from coronavirus death-count reporting some of those individuals who either do not have confirmed lab results and are presumed positive or who have the virus and may not have died as a direct result of it, according to three senior administration officials.” [Daily Beast, 5/13/20]
Scientists Across The US Challenged The CDC For Allegedly Under-Reporting The Coronavirus Related Fatalities In Their Newest Death Toll Estimate. According to Buzzfeed News, “New CDC estimates of coronavirus death rates look suspiciously low and present almost no data to back them up, say public health experts who are concerned that the agency is buckling under political pressure to restart the economy. A week ago, as the US began to reopen, the CDC put out five scenarios for how the coronavirus crisis could play out across the country. This ‘pandemic planning’ document is being used throughout the federal government and is meant to help public officials make decisions about when and how to reopen, according to the CDC. In addition to providing various rates of hospitalizations and infections, the CDC gave new estimates of the total fatality rate of the virus, ranging from about 0.1% (its least deadly scenario) to 0.8% (its deadliest scenario). The agency also cited a ‘best estimate’ of 0.26%. While no one yet knows the coronavirus’s actual death rate, the agency’s range of possible rates seemed alarmingly low to many epidemiologists, compared to existing data in places both inside and outside the US. For instance, estimates of New York City’s total death rate, 0.86% to 0.93%, are even higher than the CDC’s worst-case scenario. Estimates from countries like Spain and Italy are also higher, ranging from 1.1% to 1.3%.” [Buzzfeed News, 5/27/20]
May 2020: After Trump Officials Felt That A CDC Report Reviewing The Spread Of COVID-19 In The United States Implied The Administration Moved Too Slowly, They Began To Push For Political Review Of The Reports. According to Politico, “The efforts to modify the CDC reports began in earnest after a May report authored by senior CDC official Anne Schuchat, which reviewed the spread of Covid-19 in the United States and caused significant strife within the health department. HHS officials, including Secretary Alex Azar, believed that Schuchat was implying that the Trump administration moved too slowly to respond to the outbreak, said two individuals familiar with the situation. The HHS criticism was mystifying to CDC officials, who believed that Schuchat was merely recounting the state of affairs and not rendering judgment on the response, the individuals familiar with the situation said. Schuchat has made few public appearances since authoring the report.” [Politico, 09/11/20]
After Trump Officials Complained About CDC Reports Undermining Trump’s Public Statements, His HHS Communications Appointees Demanded The Right To Review Scientific Reports. According to Politico, “The health department’s politically appointed communications aides have demanded the right to review and seek changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly scientific reports charting the progress of the coronavirus pandemic, in what officials characterized as an attempt to intimidate the reports’ authors and water down their communications to health professionals. In some cases, emails from communications aides to CDC Director Robert Redfield and other senior officials openly complained that the agency’s reports would undermine President Donald Trump's optimistic messages about the outbreak, according to emails reviewed by POLITICO and three people familiar with the situation. CDC officials have fought back against the most sweeping changes, but have increasingly agreed to allow the political officials to review the reports and, in a few cases, compromised on the wording, according to three people familiar with the exchanges. The communications aides’ efforts to change the language in the CDC’s reports have been constant across the summer and continued as recently as Friday afternoon.” [Politico, 09/11/20]
Trump Appointees Have Attempted To: Add Caveats, Make Retroactive Changes, And Halt Releases Of The CDC’s Weekly Morbidity And Mortality Reports. According to Politico, “The CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports are authored by career scientists and serve as the main vehicle for the agency to inform doctors, researchers and the general public about how Covid-19 is spreading and who is at risk. Such reports have historically been published with little fanfare and no political interference, said several longtime health department officials, and have been viewed as a cornerstone of the nation's public health work for decades. But since Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official with no medical or scientific background, was installed in April as the Health and Human Services department's new spokesperson, there have been substantial efforts to align the reports with Trump's statements, including the president's claims that fears about the outbreak are overstated, or stop the reports altogether. Caputo and his team have attempted to add caveats to the CDC's findings, including an effort to retroactively change agency reports that they said wrongly inflated the risks of Covid-19 and should have made clear that Americans sickened by the virus may have been infected because of their own behavior, according to the individuals familiar with the situation and emails reviewed by POLITICO. Caputo's team also has tried to halt the release of some CDC reports, including delaying a report that addressed how doctors were prescribing hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug favored by Trump as a coronavirus treatment despite scant evidence. The report, which was held for about a month after Caputo’s team raised questions about its authors’ political leanings, was finally published last week. It said that ‘the potential benefits of these drugs do not outweigh their risks.’” [Politico, 09/11/20]
The CDC Combined Viral And Antibody Testing Result, Overstating The Measure Of Viral Testing Used To Test Those That Are Sick And Determine The U.S.’ Ability To Safely Reopen. According to The Atlantic, “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is conflating the results of two different types of coronavirus tests, distorting several important metrics and providing the country with an inaccurate picture of the state of the pandemic. We’ve learned that the CDC is making, at best, a debilitating mistake: combining test results that diagnose current coronavirus infections with test results that measure whether someone has ever had the virus. The upshot is that the government’s disease-fighting agency is overstating the country’s ability to test people who are sick with COVID-19. The agency confirmed to The Atlantic on Wednesday that it is mixing the results of viral and antibody tests, even though the two tests reveal different information and are used for different reasons. This is not merely a technical error. States have set quantitative guidelines for reopening their economies based on these flawed data points. Several states—including Pennsylvania, the site of one of the country’s largest outbreaks, as well as Texas, Georgia, and Vermont—are blending the data in the same way. Virginia likewise mixed viral and antibody test results until last week, but it reversed course and the governor apologized for the practice after it was covered by the Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Atlantic. Maine similarly separated its data on Wednesday; Vermont authorities claimed they didn’t even know they were doing this. The widespread use of the practice means that it remains difficult to know exactly how much the country’s ability to test people who are actively sick with COVID-19 has improved.” [Atlantic, 5/21/20]
The CDC Withheld Daily Test Result Data And Published Altered Data That Increased The Number Of Tests Conducted And Reduced The Number Positive Test Results. According to The Atlantic, “The CDC stopped publishing anything resembling a complete database of daily test results on February 29. When it resumed publishing test data last week, a page of its website explaining its new COVID Data Tracker said that only viral tests were included in its figures. ‘These data represent only viral tests. Antibody tests are not currently captured in these data,’ the page said as recently as May 18. Yesterday, that language was changed. All reference to disaggregating the two different types of tests disappeared. ‘These data are compiled from a number of sources,’ the new version read. The text strongly implied that both types of tests were included in the count, but did not explicitly say so. The CDC’s data have also become more favorable over the past several days. On Monday, a page on the agency’s website reported that 10.2 million viral tests had been conducted nationwide since the pandemic began, with 15 percent of them—or about 1.5 million—coming back positive. But yesterday, after the CDC changed its terms, it said on the same page that 10.8 million tests of any type had been conducted nationwide. Yet its positive rate had dropped by a percent. On the same day it expanded its terms, the CDC added 630,205 new tests, but it added only 52,429 positive results.” [Atlantic, 5/21/20]
At Least A Dozen States Reported Misleading COVID-19 Testing And Death Toll Data While Trump Continued To Promote Reopening The Country. According to Politico, “Federal and state officials across the country have altered or hidden public health data crucial to tracking the coronavirus’ spread, hindering the ability to detect a surge of infections as President Donald Trump pushes the nation to reopen rapidly. In at least a dozen states, health departments have inflated testing numbers or deflated death tallies by changing criteria for who counts as a coronavirus victim and what counts as a coronavirus test, according to reporting from POLITICO, other news outlets and the states’ own admissions. Some states have shifted the metrics for a ‘safe’ reopening; Arizona sought to clamp down on bad news at one point by simply shuttering its pandemic modeling. About a third of the states aren’t even reporting hospital admission data — a big red flag for the resurgence of the virus. The spotty data flow is particularly worrisome to public health officials trying to help Americans make decisions about safely venturing out. The lack of accurate and consistent Covid-19 data, coupled with the fact that the White House no longer has regular briefings where officials reinforce the need for ongoing social distancing, makes that task even harder.” [Politico, 5/27/20]
When Congress Requested Data Related To The Effects Of Coronavirus On Communities of Color, The CDC Responded By Providing A Two-Page Report Referencing Inadequate And Incomplete Records Available On Its Public Website. According to Buzzfeed News, “As communities of color are disproportionately dying from the coronavirus, Congress asked the CDC to collect national data on the race and ethnicity of COVID-19 cases and deaths. On the day of the deadline set in law by Congress, the CDC responded with a page of links that referred back to its public website. The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, ‘should be embarrassed by the lazy, incomplete, 2.5-page copy-and-paste job it calls a ‘report’ on the racial disparities of COVID-19 cases,’ Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted last week. Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the CDC, sent the report to Congress on March 15. The links that CDC forwarded include some racial and ethnic data on the coronavirus, but it is incomplete. The report includes a link to the CDC’s updating data on cases and deaths across the US, but only includes race and ethnicity information for less than half of the 1.7 million people who have tested positive for COVID-19. The report also linked to the CDC’s data on hospitalizations broken down by race and ethnicity, but that page only includes data from specific network hospitals in 14 states, totaling just about 10% of the US population.” [Buzzfeed News, 5/28/20]
After Several Requests Were Made Of The White House And Agency, The CDC Did Not Respond To Questions Of How It Said It Was Studying The Impact Of COVID-19 On Racial And Ethnic Groups. According to Buzzfeed News, “The CDC did not respond to several questions on how it obtained its data or the timeframe in which it will update the information. And while incomplete, Redfield wrote that the CDC data does suggest ‘a disproportionate burden of illness and death among racial and ethnic minority groups,’ adding that ‘studies are underway to confirm these data.’ The CDC did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ requests to specify what kind of studies are being conducted. The report comes after Congress passed its most recent coronavirus stimulus package, which required the CDC to report COVID-19 race and ethnicity data to several congressional committees, as they investigate the disproportionate effects of COVID-19 on black and Hispanic people. Last month, a group of bipartisan members of Congress urged the Trump administration to gather data on high-risk communities in order to better understand the racial disparity and aid those communities in response to the pandemic. Health experts say complete reports are key to addressing COVID-19 disparities in communities of color.” [Buzzfeed News, 5/28/20]
The Trump Administration Pushed American Intelligence Agencies To Find Evidence Of An Unsubstantiated Theory That The Chinese Government Developed Coronavirus. According to The New York Times, “Senior Trump administration officials have pushed American spy agencies to hunt for evidence to support an unsubstantiated theory that a government laboratory in Wuhan, China, was the origin of the coronavirus outbreak, according to current and former American officials. The effort comes as President Trump escalates a public campaign to blame China for the pandemic. Some intelligence analysts are concerned that the pressure from administration officials will distort assessments about the virus and that they could be used as a political weapon in an intensifying battle with China over a disease that has infected more than three million people across the globe. Most intelligence agencies remain skeptical that conclusive evidence of a link to a lab can be found, and scientists who have studied the genetics of the coronavirus say that the overwhelming probability is that it leapt from animal to human in a nonlaboratory setting, as was the case with H.I.V., Ebola and SARS. Mr. Trump’s aides and Republicans in Congress have sought to blame China for the pandemic in part to deflect criticism of the administration’s mismanagement of the crisis in the United States, which now has more coronavirus cases than any country. More than one million Americans have been infected, and more than 60,000 have died.” [New York Times, 4/30/20]
ODNI Released A Public Statement Saying The Coronavirus Was Not Man-Made Or Genetically Modified. According to Politico, “The agency that oversees the entire U.S. intelligence community has released an unusual public statement on Thursday outlining its ongoing investigation of the origins of the novel coronavirus outbreak, amid reports suggesting the White House has been pressuring analysts to conclude that the outbreak spread from a lab in Wuhan, China. ‘The entire Intelligence Community has been consistently providing critical support to U.S. policymakers and those responding to the COVID-19 virus, which originated in China,’ reads the statement released from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. ‘The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified.’” [Politico, 4/30/20]
Fauci Denounced Conspiracy Theories That Coronavirus Was Man-Made As “A Circular Argument.” According to National Geographic, “Anthony ‘Tony’ Fauci has become the scientific face of America’s COVID-19 response, and he says the best evidence shows the virus behind the pandemic was not made in a lab in China. Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, shot down the discussion that has been raging among politicians and pundits, calling it ‘a circular argument’ in a conversation Monday with National Geographic. ‘If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species,’ Fauci says. Based on the scientific evidence, he also doesn’t entertain an alternate theory—that someone found the coronavirus in the wild, brought it to a lab, and then it accidentally escaped.” [National Geographic, 5/4/20]
Five Eyes Intelligence Report Concluded It Was Highly Unlikely That The Origin Of The Coronavirus Was An Accident In A Lab, But Highly Likely It Was The Result Of Human Animal Interaction. According to CNN, “Intelligence shared among Five Eyes nations indicates it is ‘highly unlikely’ that the coronavirus outbreak was spread as a result of an accident in a laboratory but rather originated in a Chinese market, according to two Western officials who cited an intelligence assessment that appears to contradict claims by President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. ‘We think it’s highly unlikely it was an accident,’ a Western diplomatic official with knowledge of the intelligence said. ‘It is highly likely it was naturally occurring and that the human infection was from natural human and animal interaction.’ The countries in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing coalition are coalescing around this assessment, the official said, and a second official, from a Five Eyes country, concurred with it. The US has yet to make a formal assessment public. The Five Eyes alliance is made up of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand -- and the countries share a broad range of intelligence in one of the world’s tightest multilateral arrangements. The assessment from members of the exclusive intelligence-sharing group seems to undermine forceful claims by Trump and Pompeo in recent days, as they have doubled down on the assertion that the outbreak originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, rather than a market in the same region.” [CNN, 5/4/20]
Sierra Nevada’s MACE Group Report That Circulated In Trump Administration And Right Wing Circles Based On Social Media Posts, Satellite Images, And Cell Phone Data Claimed Virus Was Released From Wuhan Institute Of Virology. According to the Daily Beast, “A shocking report suggesting that the coronavirus was “release[d from] the Wuhan Institute of Virology” in China is now circulating in U.S. military and intelligence circles and on Capitol Hill. But there’s a critical flaw in the report, a Daily Beast analysis reveals: Some of its most seemingly persuasive evidence is false—provably false. Multiple congressional committees have obtained and are scrutinizing the 30-page report, produced by the Multi-Agency Collaboration Environment (MACE), a part of Sierra Nevada, a major Department of Defense contractor. The report claims to rely on social media postings, commercial satellite imagery, and cellphone location data to draw the conclusion that some sort of “hazardous event” occurred at the Wuhan virology lab in October 2019—an event that allowed COVID-19 to escape. It’s a theory that has gained currency on the political right and in the upper tiers of the Trump administration.” [Daily Beast, 5/19/20]
Report Centered Around Missing Phone Location Data, False Social Media Data Points To Claim There Was An Event That Forced The Cancellation Of A Conference. According to the Daily Beast, “But the report’s claim centers around missing location data for up to seven phones — and in many cases, less than that. It’s too small a sample size to prove much of anything, especially when the same devices showed similar absences in the spring of 2019. The MACE document claims a November 2019 conference was canceled because of some calamity; in fact, there are selfies from the event.” [Daily Beast, 5/19/20]
Alternative Source Satellite Images Pointed To Road Constructin As The Source Of Roadblocks Near The Lab, Images Also Showed Normal Traffic Patterns After The Supposed Accident. According to the Daily Beast, “What’s more, imagery collected by DigitalGlobe’s Maxar Technologies satellites and provided to The Daily Beast reveals a simpler, less exotic reason for why analysts believed “roadblocks” went into place around the lab after the supposed accident: road construction. The Maxar images also show typical workdays, with normal traffic patterns around the lab, after the supposedly cataclysmic event.” [Daily Beast, 5/19/20]
DOD Spokesperson Said MACE Did Not Produce Report “In Coordination With The DoD.” According to the Daily Beast, “A Department of Defense spokesperson told The Daily Beast that MACE did not produce the report “in coordination with the DoD.” Sierra Nevada did not respond to a request for comment.” [Daily Beast, 5/19/20]
Trump And Administration Officials Attended Political Fundraisers And Rallies As The Coronavirus Situation In The U.S. Escalated. According to The Washington Post, “For a president and campaign team that have long relied on a strong economy to help buoy Trump’s reelection prospects, the precipitous market plunge raised deep concerns. Yet administration officials plowed forward with their previous schedules, modifying them only slightly as they tried to minimize the coronavirus threat. Mulvaney spoke, as previously planned, at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, where he assured the crowd, ‘We know how to handle this,’ and accused the news media of overhyping the virus to ‘bring down the president.’ Pence, too, continued with a prior commitment Friday evening — a closed-door, high-dollar fundraiser in Sarasota, Fla. — while tacking on a brief coronavirus response meeting with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) at the airport when he landed in the state. And Trump held a long-standing campaign rally Friday in North Charleston, S.C., where he accused Democrats of ‘politicizing’ the coronavirus.” [Washington Post, 2/29/20]
At A Rally Trump Dismissed The Coronavirus As A Serious Threat And Misidentified The First US Casualty Of The Disease. According to The Washington Post, “As Trump was dismissing the virus as a serious threat, the infection continued spreading in the country. California officials Friday evening announced the state’s second case of coronavirus of unknown origin, and just hours later, a northwest Oregon resident tested positive for the virus. By Saturday, officials in Washington state revealed the first U.S. death attributed to the virus — the person misidentified by Trump at a hastily called news conference as a ‘wonderful woman’ in her 50s who had underlying health problems. The CDC later said that it had erroneously identified the patient as female in a briefing earlier Saturday with Trump and Pence and that the patient was a man.” [Washington Post, 2/29/20]
Unable To Host Campaign Rallies, Trump’s Organized His Daily Coronavirus Press Conferences To Serve As A Replacement. According to CNN Politics, “President Donald Trump complained that he is treated unfairly. He touted his tax cuts. He told his usual lie about how he is the one who got the Obama-era Veterans Choice program passed into law. He told a story about how he had never been booed before 2015. He said, three times, that his wife is ‘very popular.’ The coronavirus crisis has prevented Trump from holding his signature campaign rallies. So he has turned his daily White House coronavirus briefings, like the one on Sunday, into a kind of special spinoff of the familiar Trump Show -- replete with all the usual misinformation, self-promotion and potshots. Trump’s marathon Monday briefing ran for more than 100 minutes. Like his arena addresses, his appearances in the briefing room tend to follow a rough formula” [CNN Politics, 3/23/20].
May, 2020: Trump’s Campaign Advisors Attempted To Get Him To End Daily Press Briefings Amid Political Backlash And Falling Poll Numbers, Trump Declined Ending The Briefings. According to The Washington Post, “The next day, Trump’s focus was squarely on his declining political fortunes. His reelection team — including Kushner, campaign manager Brad Parscale and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel — staged something of an intervention. They presented fresh polls that painted a picture so grim they hoped the president would be persuaded to curtail his daily press briefings, as the data suggested the performances had damaged him. […] The decision to share the data with Trump backfired. The president went into one of his rages. He said he did not believe the numbers, arguing that people ‘love’ his performances at the briefings and think he is ‘fighting for them,’ according to a person with knowledge of the conversation. He berated Parscale for the polling data, threatening that he might sue his campaign manager — although it was unclear whether he made the remark in jest, and the two would later bury the hatchet. On April 23, the day after his campaign team’s polling intervention, Trump continued with his usual behavior.” [Washington Post, 5/2/20]
Trump Used His Daily Coronavirus Press Briefing To Show A Video Praising His Handling Of The Coronavirus Crisis.According to the Associated Press, “President Donald Trump on Monday used the daily White House briefing to air a taxpayer-funded promotional video praising his own handling of the coronavirus outbreak and slamming his critics and the press. In a highly unusual move at a briefing meant to inform Americans about the pandemic, the lights in the briefing room dimmed for a video running more than 3 minutes that was a montage of officials offering laudatory comments about the president and of Trump discussing his steps to contain the virus. ‘Everything we did was right,’ Trump said, complaining at length about negative press coverage. He said of the video, ‘I’ve think I’ve educated a lot of people as to the press.’ It amounted to a telling demonstration of the president’ growing defensiveness in the face of criticism that the administration should have acted more aggressively and sooner to combat the virus.” [Associated Press, 4/14/20]
TRUMP WAS ACCUSED OF USING CORONAVIRUS BRIEFINGS AS CORPORATE ADVERTISING SPOT
Donald Trump Was Accused Of Turning His Daily White House Coronavirus Briefing Into An Advertising Spot For Corporate Allies. According to the Guardian, “Donald Trump was accused on Monday of turning his daily White House coronavirus briefing into an advertising spot for corporate allies, even as the number of US cases topped 160,000. The president paraded several company leaders in the White House Rose Garden, starting with Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow, who has become a regular cheerleader for Trump at his campaign rallies.Trump praised companies for doing their ‘patriotic duty’ by producing or donating medical equipment to meet America’s most urgent needs. ‘What they’re doing is incredible,’ he said. ‘These are great companies.’” [The Guardian, 3/30/20]
Trump Coronavirus Briefings With Businesses Often Gave More Time To Executives Than Medical Professionals.According to the Washington Post, “Often, these sessions are part theater and part news conference. Reporters sit, and the television cameras roll as Trump recaps the day’s meetings and invites a series of testimonials. Often, the executives get more airtime than the medical professionals who are part of the White House virus task force.” [Washington Post, 3/31/20]
The Trump Campaign Released An Attack Ad Which Falsely Suggested Former Washington State Governor Gary Locke Was Chinese. According to The New York Times, “A new attack ad by President Trump’s re-election campaign portraying former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as soft on China includes an image of an Asian-American former governor of Washington State that appears to falsely suggest he is Chinese. The image, which appears briefly, was pulled from a 2013 event in Beijing, where Mr. Biden, now the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, shared a stage with Gary Locke, the former governor of Washington, who also served as President Barack Obama’s commerce secretary and ambassador to China. Mr. Locke is Chinese-American. […] Mr. Trump’s campaign released the ad on Thursday at a time of rising xenophobia and violence in the United States aimed at Chinese-Americans, as bigots blame them and other Asian-Americans for the outbreak of the coronavirus, which originated in China.” [New York Times, 4/10/20]
Trump Demanded A Traditional Republican Convention Despite A Surge In Coronavirus Cases Within The Projected Host City. According to Associated Press, “President Donald Trump’s demand for a full-capacity Republican convention in August is putting pressure on North Carolina health officials — and local Republicans — as coronavirus cases surge in the host county and statewide. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration has refused to give in, though, responding with a letter demanding a written safety plan from organizers of the Republican National Convention, slated for August in Charlotte. Even local Republican officials note that Trump doesn’t have the power to unilaterally move the event scheduled to start in 90 days after two years of planning. Asked about Trump’s tweets threatening to move the convention, Cooper said Tuesday he’s ‘not surprised at anything that happens on Twitter,’ without mentioning the president by name. He said discussions with RNC organizers are continuing. ‘We have asked them to present a plan on paper to us laying out the various options that we’ve already discussed,’ Cooper said. ‘They know we’re talking about a time that’s three months from now, so we have to have options regarding how this convention is going to be run depending on where we are with the virus in August.’” [Associated Press, 5/26/20]
June, 2020: Donald Trump Planned Extensive Official And Campaign Travel And Events. According to Politico, “For the first time since before the coronavirus gripped the United States and protesters took to the streets, Trump is lining up in-person fundraisers, trips to his luxury resort in New Jersey and campaign rallies. It’s a sign of the president’s approach to a series of historic crises that lack easy solutions and the longstanding comfort he draws from being bathed in adoration by rally-goers, donors and the rest of his base. Trump is scheduled to fly to Dallas on Thursday for an event on the nation’s racial disparities and a $10 million fundraiser and then head to his luxury golf club in Bedminster, N.J. — his first weekend trip to one of his namesake resorts since the pandemic forced Americans into their homes in March. During the weekend, Trump will deliver a commencement address in New York. Next week, he will headline a campaign rally next week in Tulsa, Okla. And the next month he will view fireworks in South Dakota. He also expects to hold rallies in Florida, Arizona and North Carolina in the coming weeks. Plans are also being made for larger fundraisers in the Hamptons, as well as in Tampa the first week of July and in Mississippi the last week of August.” [Politico, 6/11/20]
Trump Told Woodward He Was Not Worried About People At His Rallys Giving Him The Virus Because He Was “On Stage And It’s Very Far Away.” According to Axios, “Bob Woodward shared an April clip with late-night show host Stephen Colbert Monday where President Trump spoke of the dangers of the coronavirus, noting he ‘bailed out’ of a White House room after someone sneezed. Why it matters: Trump's comments to the veteran journalist regarding the coronavirus pandemic deeply contrast with what he has said publicly. The president argued for weeks that the virus would ‘disappear’ and slow-walked economic lockdowns. Trump has tweeted that Woodward withheld recordings of Trump saying his strategy was to intentionally downplay the threat of the coronavirus in February and March because ‘he knew they were good and proper answers.’ Of note: Woodward told Colbert Trump's response makes him wonder if the president would bail on a rally if someone in the front sneezed. Trump has said he's not worried about catching the virus at rally because he is ‘on stage and it's very far away ... and so I'm not at all concerned,’ per The Las Vegas Review-Journal.” [Axios, 09/15/20]
Trump Held Tulsa Rally With “Underwhelming” Attendance. According to NBC News, “WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is "furious" at the "underwhelming" crowd at his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday evening, a major disappointment for what had been expected to be a raucous return to the campaign trail after three months off because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to multiple people close to the White House.” [NBC News, 6/21/20]
Trump Held Rally At Dream City Megachurch In Arizona. According to Politico, “PHOENIX — After a disappointing showing at his campaign rally over the weekend, President Donald Trump renewed his performance for a packed crowd of students on Tuesday, telling his Arizona audience that they were guardians in a cultural war over the heritage of the country. […] The appearance, at the Dream City megachurch, was one of his first rallies since taking a three-month hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic. Images from the event showed a large crowd tightly packed together, with almost no one wearing protective masks. There were no temperature checks for the estimated 3,000 cheering attendees who, like many of Trump’s staunchest fans, ignored a new local ordinance requiring them to wear a mask, despite a public-health plea from the Democratic mayor on Monday.” [Politico, 6/24/20]
Trump Administration Gave Nigel Farage A “National Interest” Waiver To Attend Trump Tulsa Rally; Campaign Flew Farage In On Chartered Jet. According to HuffPost, “WASHINGTON ― Donald Trump’s presidential reelection campaign chartered jets to fly in VIPs to attend his much-hyped but ultimately flopped Oklahoma rally on Saturday, including his pro-Brexit ally Nigel Farage, who was given a “national interest” waiver to enter the country despite the coronavirus travel ban. Farage, who recently lost his radio show in Britain after comparing Black Lives Matter protesters to the Taliban, was flown from Palm Beach, Florida, to Tulsa for the evening rally, and then to New York City, according to an informal Trump adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity.” [HuffPost, 6/22/20]
Trump’s Tulsa Campaign Rally “More Than Likely” Contributed To The Area’s Spike In Covid-19 Cases
Tulsa City-County Health Department Director Stated Trump’s Campaign Rally “More Than Likely” Contributed The Dramatic Surge In COVID-19 Cases. According to The Associated Press, “President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa in late June that drew thousands of participants and large protests ‘likely contributed’ to a dramatic surge in new coronavirus cases, Tulsa City-County Health Department Director Dr. Bruce Dart said Wednesday. Tulsa County reported 261 confirmed new cases on Monday, a one-day record high, and another 206 cases on Tuesday. By comparison, during the week before the June 20 Trump rally, there were 76 cases on Monday and 96 on Tuesday. Although the health department’s policy is to not publicly identify individual settings where people may have contracted the virus, Dart said those large gatherings ‘more than likely’ contributed to the spike. ‘In the past few days, we’ve seen almost 500 new cases, and we had several large events just over two weeks ago, so I guess we just connect the dots,’ Dart said.” [Associated Press, 7/8/20]
The Administration Included A Letter Signed By Trump Touting His Administration’s Response To The Virus In Food Aid Boxes. According to ProPublica, “Millions of Americans who are struggling to put food on the table may discover a new item in government-funded relief packages of fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy and meat: a letter signed by President Donald Trump. The message, printed on White House letterhead in both English and Spanish, touts the administration’s response to the coronavirus, including aid provided through the Farmers to Families Food Box Program, a U.S. Department of Agriculture initiative to buy fresh food and ship it to needy families.” [ProPublica, 09/01/20]
HHS Planned To Begin Before Election Day A $300 Million Public Relations Campaign Organized By Michael Caputo To Tout The Administration’s Response To The Virus. According to Politico, “The health department is moving quickly on a highly unusual advertising campaign to ‘defeat despair’ about the coronavirus, a $300 million-plus effort that was shaped by a political appointee close to President Donald Trump and executed in part by close allies of the official, using taxpayer funds. The ad blitz, described in some budget documents as the ‘Covid-19 immediate surge public advertising and awareness campaign,’ is expected to lean heavily on video interviews between administration officials and celebrities, who will discuss aspects of the coronavirus outbreak and address the Trump administration's response to the crisis, according to six individuals with knowledge of the campaign who described its workings to POLITICO. Senior administration officials have already recorded interviews with celebrities like actor Dennis Quaid and singer CeCe Winans, and the Health and Human Services Department also has pursued television host Dr. Mehmet Oz and musician Garth Brooks for roles in the campaign. The public awareness campaign, which HHS is seeking to start airing before Election Day on Nov. 3, was largely conceived and organized by Michael Caputo, the health department's top spokesperson who took medical leave last week and announced on Thursday that he had been diagnosed with cancer. Caputo, who has no medical or scientific background, claimed in a Facebook video on Sept. 13 that the campaign was ‘demanded of me by the president of the United States. Personally.’” [Politico, 09/25/20]
Three Months Into The Pandemic Trump Administration Was Still Attempting To Formulate A Plan To Help Minority Communities Hurt By Coronavirus. According to Politico, “Nearly three months into the pandemic, administration officials are still trying to formulate a comprehensive plan for helping minority communities — particularly African Americans and Latinos — hit disproportionately hard by the virus. The mounting concerns about inaccessible testing and high hospitalization rates are highlighting a gaping hole in Trump’s pandemic response — worries that also threaten to ricochet through the president’s 2020 reelection operation six months out from Election Day.” [Politico, 5/15/20]
Council In Charge Of Effort Was Still Assembling Proposals. According to Politico, “Little has come of it. The White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council, repurposed by Trump on April 22 to confront the pandemic’s disproportionate damage to communities of color, is still assembling proposals to reduce racial health disparities that have been magnified by the coronavirus outbreak, according to four people familiar with the planning.” [Politico, 5/15/20]
January 2020 – July 2020: The CDC Counted 215,000 Excess Deaths, Half Of Which Were People Of Color. According to The Associated Press, “As many as 215,000 more people than usual died in the U.S. during the first seven months of 2020, suggesting that the number of lives lost to the coronavirus is significantly higher than the official toll. And half the dead were people of color — Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and, to a marked degree unrecognized until now, Asian Americans. The new figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlight a stark disparity: Deaths among minorities during the crisis have risen far more than they have among whites. As of the end of July, the official death toll in the U.S. from COVID-19 was about 150,000. It has since grown to over 170,000. But public health authorities have long known that some coronavirus deaths, especially early on, were mistakenly attributed to other causes, and that the crisis may have led indirectly to the loss of many other lives by preventing or discouraging people with other serious ailments from seeking treatment. A count of deaths from all causes during the seven-month period yields what experts believe is a fuller — and more alarming — picture of the disaster and its racial dimensions. People of color make up just under 40% of the U.S. population but accounted for approximately 52% of all the ‘excess deaths’ above normal through July, according to an analysis by The Associated Press and The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the criminal justice system.” [Associated Press, 08/21/20]
April: Trump Pushed To Reopen The Country Before The Coronavirus Was Eradicated. According to the Washington Post, “The Trump administration is pushing to reopen much of the country next month, raising concerns among health experts and economists of a possible covid-19 resurgence if Americans return to their normal lives before the virus is truly stamped out. Behind closed doors, President Trump — concerned with the sagging economy — has sought a strategy for resuming business activity by May 1, according to people familiar with the discussions.” [Washington Post, 4/9/20]
May: Trump Said The Country Must Reopen Regardless Of Damage Caused. According to Bloomberg, “President Donald Trump launched headlong into his push to reopen the country on Tuesday, saying Americans should begin returning to their everyday lives even if it leads to more sickness and death from the pandemic. Trump, speaking in Phoenix during his first trip outside Washington in more than a month, said he’s preparing for “phase two” of the U.S. response to the coronavirus. That will include disbanding the White House task force of public health experts, including Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, that have steered the government response to the outbreak so far. Trump acknowledged that reopening the economy would likely lead to more suffering. “Will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes,” Trump said. “But we have to get our country open and we have to get it open soon.” [Bloomberg, 5/5/20]
Poll: Frontline Healthcare Workers Experienced Shortages Of PPE Through Early May. According to the Washington Post, “Front-line health-care workers still experienced shortages of critical equipment needed for protection from the coronavirus into early May — including nearly two-thirds who cited insufficient supplies of the face masks that filter out most airborne particles, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll. More than 4 in 10 also saw shortages of less protective surgical masks and 36 percent said their supply of hand sanitizer was running low, according to the poll. Roughly 8 in 10 reported wearing one mask for an entire shift, and more than 7 in 10 had to wear the same mask more than once.” [Washington Post, 5/20/20]
Trump Regularly Said Allowing Vote By Mail Would Promote Election Fraud. According to the New York Times, “Even as the president has offered support for some groups of absentee voters like older Americans and military serving abroad — and even as he votes absentee himself — Mr. Trump has regularly warned with no factual basis that allowing widespread voting by mail was a recipe for election theft. “You get thousands and thousands of people sitting in somebody’s living room, signing ballots all over the place,” Mr. Trump said at a White House briefing last month.” [NYT, 5/21/20]
Trump Threatened To Withhold Grants To Michigan And Nevada Over Absentee Ballot Applications And Applications To Vote. According to the New York Times, “By threatening on Wednesday to withhold federal grants to Michigan and Nevada if those states send absentee ballots or applications to voters, President Trump has taken his latest stand against what is increasingly viewed as a necessary option for voting amid a pandemic.” [NYT, 5/21/20]
Researchers Found Strong Connection Between In Person Voting And Spikes In Cases. According to Newsweek, “Anew study published Monday suggests in-person voting during Wisconsin's primary election on April 7 may have led to "large" increases in the state's number of COVID-19 cases. Though the data gathered by economists at University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and Ball State University was not complete, the researchers said their assessment of COVID-19 cases by county thus far indicates a strong connection between each county's number of in-person polling locations and spikes in positive cases. The real impact of in-person voting on rising case numbers could have been even broader than the data suggests, researchers said.” [Newsweek, 5/18/20]
April 2020: Two Weeks After The Primary Election, Wisconsin’s Health Officials Tracking COVID-19 Found 52 Positive Cases Among People Who Had Voted In-Person Or Worked The Polls. According to The Associated Press, “More than 50 people who voted in person or worked the polls during Wisconsin’s presidential primary this month have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the latest count by state health officials tracking the impact of holding the election in the middle of a pandemic. It remains unclear how many — if any — of those people contracted the virus at the polls and health officials are still collecting testing and tracing information. But officials say they don’t expect the number of known cases potentially tied to the election to grow substantially. […] The 52 positive cases were people who tested positive in the two weeks after the election — the typical window for showing symptoms after exposure.” [Associated Press, 04/29/20]