Guest Post by Jeffrey Tucker
We still don’t know precisely what caused Donald Trump to flip in his position on the coronavirus. On March 9, 2020, he was tweeting that people die of the flu all the time and no one should freak out about it. On March 11, two days later, he went the other direction, promising to use the “full power of the Federal Government to deal with our current challenge of the CoronaVirus!”
Various writers have drummed up a range of reasons. Deborah Birx reports that Trump shifted because a friend died. Jared Kushner says that he simply listened to reason. Mike Pence says he was persuaded that his staff would respect him more. As I’ve written, “No question (and based on all existing reports) that he found himself surrounded by ‘trusted advisors’ amounting to about 5 or so people (including Mike Pence and Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb).”
Regardless, something was set in motion on March 10th. Two days later, we got travel restrictions, then the emergency declaration and all power granted to the National Security Council, the invocation of the Staford Act, and finally the full lockdowns of all public and private venues.
Continue reading “At the White House, March 10, 2020, Reconstructed”
