Digital collage by Hannah Yoest / photos: GettyImages / Shutterstock

For ten weeks President Trump downplayed the threat of and ignored warnings about the potential severity of COVID-19 with a series of lies, exaggerations, and outright fabrications that have been well documented. And yet despite the video record of the president’s words, the White House is trying to establish an alternate reality where in which Trump was a competent, focused leader who saved American people from the coronavirus.

If only it were true.

On March 18 the Trump campaign put out a list of actions the U.S. government took to prepare for COVID-19. They meant this as exculpation; instead, it highlights just how asleep Trump was at the switch, despite warnings from experts within his own government and from former Trump administration officials pleading with him from the outside.

Most prominent among them were former Homeland Security advisor Tom Bossert, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration Scott Gottlieb, and Director for Medical and Biodefense Preparedness at the National Security Council Dr. Luciana Borio who beginning in early January used […]