Science and Politics: The Lessons of Trump’s Failed COVID Task Force

On March 29, 2020, President Donald Trump spoke to the media at a briefing of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. He praised the medical doctors on his team who had become the face of American public health expertise, Drs. Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci, calling them “the best in the world,” and he took up their call to extend mitigation measures through April 30—a whole month after his previously touted “15 days to slow the spread” came to an end. He ended his remarks with a stirring vote of confidence in the American...