Jonathan Bernstein, Columnist

Blame Trump’s Mismanagement for Virus Delays

The president’s indecisiveness and inattention to detail are having deadly consequences.

Too little, too late.

Photographer: Alex Wong/Getty

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Several detailed stories were published over the weekend outlining how slowly President Donald Trump reacted to the coronavirus outbreak. Inevitably, those kinds of stories wind up drawing attention to the personality traits that serve the president — and the nation — badly. Many of these are by now familiar: an inability or unwillingness to learn policy substance; a tendency to treat stuff he sees on TV or hears from his friends as at least as reliable as what experts are saying; a relentless focus on the daily news cycle.