"The roots of the nation’s current inability to control the pandemic can be traced to mid-April, when the White House embraced overly rosy projections to proclaim victory and move on."
"WASHINGTON — Each morning at 8 as the coronavirus crisis was raging in April, Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, convened a small group of aides to steer the administration through what had become a public health, economic and political disaster.
Seated around Mr. Meadows’s conference table and on a couch in his office down the hall from the Oval Office, they saw their immediate role as practical problem solvers. Produce more ventilators. Find more personal protective equipment. Provide more testing.
But their ultimate goal was to shift responsibility for leading the fight against the pandemic from the White House to the states. They referred to this as “state authority handoff,” and it was at the heart of what would become at once a catastrophic policy blunder and an attempt to escape blame for a crisis that had engulfed the country — perhaps one of the greatest failures of presidential leadership in generations."
SEE ALSO:
"As Trump Ignores Virus Crisis, Republicans Start to Break Ranks" (New York Times)
"The Crisis That Shocked The World: America’s Response To The Coronavirus" (Washington Post)
"Trump Defends Bungled Handling Of Coronavirus With Falsehoods And Dubious Claims" (Washington Post)
"'A Wake-Up Call': States Battle New Surge In COVID-19 Cases" (NPR)
"GOP Leaders Head To White House As Virus Crisis Deepens" (AP)
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