President Trump is taking direction from federal government technocrats and the Washington political class as part of his administration’s campaign to neutralize the coronavirus pandemic, a stunning turn for a politician who built his brand on contempt for elite expertise.
Trump regularly dismisses expert opinion on a range of issues, often claiming — sometimes seriously, sometimes facetiously — that he knows more than the professionals. And he has regularly derided the congressional elite as out of touch with the so-called deplorables he leads.
But in crafting administration strategy to address the coronavirus, the president, after initial resistance, has largely adopted the recommendations of respected government scientists and medical professionals. And he is virtually at the mercy of congressional leaders who are crafting must-pass economic bailout bills over which his influence is limited, given the urgency of passing them.
For good measure, Trump is publicly surrounding himself with experts, often, though not entirely, deferring to their assessment of the evolving pandemic in daily White House news conferences.
“It’s a reflection of how perilous this moment is for the nation, in that you can’t really rhetoric your way out of this,” said Doug Heye, a Republican operative and occasional Trump critic. “You need experts and facts and action, or the problem only gets worse.”
During Friday’s coronavirus briefing, Trump was flanked by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who has advised presidents for decades; and Dr. Deborah Birx, a medical researcher and key member of the pandemic task force overseen by Vice President Mike Pence; plus Cabinet officials involved in the response.
The president was not beyond expressing himself with typical Trumpian flourishes. He criticized reporters and media outlets by name for what he claimed were unfair questions of his handling of the crisis and expressed more optimism for the fast development of a treatment for the coronavirus than Fauci was willing to endorse based on available scientific evidence.
But Trump encouraged Fauci, Birx, and the administration officials who joined him at the podium to answer questions that fit their expertise, and he generally supported their conclusions. The president even bragged about getting along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, among his most virulent Democratic critics and a card-carrying member of the establishment, with whom he is negotiating directly on an economic relief package.
“I just spoke to Senator Schumer, we had a wonderful conversation, we both want to get to a good solution,” Trump told reporters. “Seeing people that weren’t speaking, getting along well, because we all have one common aim, and that’s to get rid of this invisible enemy, get rid of it fast and then go back to the kind of economy that we had and maybe even better.”
From the earliest days of his 2016 campaign, Trump has ridiculed every corner of the political establishment, including leaders in his own party. As president, he has dismissed scientists, his administration’s experts in the foreign policy and intelligence and defense communities, and ignored the advice of economic advisers while raining fire on Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell, whom he appointed.
“Technology — nobody knows more about technology than me,” Trump said in December of 2018. The quote is one in a long list compiled by Axios of the president’s claims of superior expertise in various fields of study.
Trump’s rage against the elites was perfectly timed for an electorate that felt betrayed by Washington’s smart set. From the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, to the Iraq War, to the near-collapse of the financial system and the Great Recession, voters lost faith in government and the so-called experts to make good decisions, and the resulting discontent propelled the president to the White House.
Now, Trump is turning to career government officials, and political establishment figures, to help steer the nation out of a near-unprecedented public health and economic crisis. Michael A. Genovese, president of the Global Policy Institute at Loyola Marymount University, said Trump, ironically, might reinvigorate confidence in the federal government, comparing the possibility to President Richard Nixon establishing diplomatic relations with China nearly half-century ago.
“The great irony is that Donald Trump, the grand attacker of government, is in a position, should he be able to marshal the resources of government and put it to use of helping the public, to revive our belief in the need for and role of government in our society,” Genovese said. “Nixon, the great China basher, went to China. Could Trump rebuild our belief in government? These are strange times, so almost anything, however improbable, is possible.”
