Nothing reveals character like a crisis. The coronavirus crisis has revealed — or rather reinforced — that Joe Biden has what it takes to be an effective president and Donald Trump does not.
At a time like this, you want a leader who is calm, reassuring, knowledgeable and trustworthy. That’s not Trump. As the New York Times summarizes, the president has been a one-man disinformation machine: At first, he played down the pandemic (“We have it totally under control,” he said on Jan. 22), then he played up dubious cures. He has also attempted to blame others — including former president Barack Obama, who left office more than a three years ago — for his own mistakes. Apparently, the buck stops everywhere except the Oval Office.
President Trump’s biggest blunders were the shameful delays in testing and in mobilizing resources to fight the pandemic, due to his ignoring warnings in January and February from his own intelligence community. That negligence, which one expert has called the worst intelligence failure in U.S. history, cost us the opportunity to contain the pandemic before the United States became the world leader in coronavirus cases. That’s the wrong kind of “America First.”
Trump’s trademark vacillations are more dangerous than ever. As recently as Thursday, he said New York doesn’t need 30,000 to 40,000 additional ventilators. Then on Friday he finally invoked the Defense Production Act to ramp up ventilator production — something he should have done weeks ago. He has been equally inconsistent on social distancing: Just days after irresponsibly speculating about lifting restrictions by Easter, he was irresponsibly speculating on Saturday about quarantining New York — which could encourage infected individuals, among others, to flee the city now.
Even in the midst of the worst epidemic in a century, Trump is incapable of putting his monumental ego aside for the common good. He has feuded with governors who are critical of the lack of federal help, bestowing one of his juvenile nicknames on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) of Michigan and blasting Gov. Jay Inslee (D) of Washington as a “failed presidential candidate” and “a snake.”
Trump even said on Friday that he was instructing Vice President Pence, who leads the administration's coronavirus task force, not to return calls from Inslee and Whitmer because “they’re not appreciative to me, they’re not appreciative to the Army Corps, they’re not appreciative to FEMA, it’s not right.” This is reminiscent of a tribal chieftain, king or dictator who demands personal fealty before he will deign to disburse largesse to his subjects. Biden rightly rebukedTrump: “This is not personal. It has nothing to do with you, Donald Trump. Nothing to do with you. Do your job, stop personalizing everything."
We don’t know exactly how Biden would handle such an unprecedented crisis if he were commander in chief, but his long experience in government and his admirable temperament give me confidence that he would do far better than Trump. Biden has urged Trump to listen to the scientists and doctors, and Biden has been following his own advice. The former vice president assembled a top-notch public health advisory committee with scientists, doctors, and former government officials such as Zeke Emanuel of the University of Pennsylvania, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner David Kessler, and former surgeon general Vivek Murthy, to advise his campaign and supporters on ways to reduce the threat of the coronavirus.
The Biden campaign unveiled a coronavirus plan on March 12 that was way ahead of where the Trump administration was at that point. It called not only for more testing and more aid to impacted areas — both of which are now happening — but also for expanding health-insurance coverage and for ramping up international coordination to fight the pandemic. These are both areas in which Trump remains woefully deficient. (The number of Americans without health insurance has been rising under Trump.)
Biden isn’t just superior to Trump in the nuts and bolts of policy. Where Biden really shines is in the human dimension of leadership. Just watch his moving interview Friday with Anderson Cooper. Asked about the grief of those who have lost loved ones, Biden delivered a touching, personal response. He almost gave out his cellphone number on national television and then urged survivors to contact his campaign: “I’m happy to try to talk to you. Not that I’m an expert but just having been there, I’m so sorry for you.”
Contrast Biden’s empathetic, emotional response to Trump’s unfeeling, self-centered response on March 20 when he was asked if he had a message for “Americans who are scared.” His answer was to attack the questioner — NBC’s Peter Alexander — as a “terrible reporter” who asked “a very nasty question.”
That tells you all you need to know about the choice we face in November. Biden has shown that he has the human qualities needed to be a good leader. Trump has shown that he does not.