Trump’s Epic Coronavirus Fail Follows Bush’s 9/11 Playbook

Hopeful, rousing, presidential—former U.S. President George W. Bush’s video message calling for national unity during the COVID-19 crisis struck all the right notes we have learned not to expect from Donald Trump. True to his vindictive form, Trump lost no time mocking Bush, whose message quickly went viral after it was released on May 2.

The exchange put the contrast between the two men’s characters in stark relief. On the one side, an unstable and irresponsible Trump, presiding over an administration that has more to do with Barnum & Bailey than Franklin D. Roosevelt or Harry S. Truman. On the other, Bush—not a poseur but a wartime president who staffed his administration with deeply experienced officials who took foreign policy seriously in a way that seems alien to the grifter commune that has coalesced around Trump.