Trump Keeps Up His ‘Sharpiegate’ Attack on Science
His appointment of a defender of the hurricane debacle to run NOAA is an ominous sign.
Science takes a back seat to the whims of an uniformed president.
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
President Donald Trump’s executive-order Sharpies have done more work lately, but his most infamous Sharpie is still the one that drew a curve at the end of a hurricane forecast cone in September of 2019.
The ensuing controversy, known as Sharpiegate, was a harbinger of the fact-optional, seat-of-his-pants approach to disaster management Trump would later apply to the Covid-19 pandemic, with catastrophic results. That he has now tapped a key player in the Sharpiegate drama to run the nation’s weather service suggests Trump has learned nothing from these debacles.