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donathos on 06 April 2020
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NightlyPoe said:
donathos said:

"Nobody really knows" whether the situation would, at that point, get worse -- or maybe just go away? Not true. Plenty of people knew. Scientists knew and specialists knew, and doubtless people advising Trump knew. If Trump didn't know, then he's just about the dumbest person on the planet. Or the most disingenuous. Or both.

Specialists didn't know.  It was very possible at the time (and we're still debating whether it will help) that the illness was seasonal and would become much less transmissible in short order, more or less disappearing.  I didn't include it because I couldn't find the full transcript for that particularly quote (weirdly the only one), but if it's the same soundbite I'm thinking of, Trump was actually talking about the possibility of the illness being seasonable when he said the above.  Can't source it unfortunately, but throwing it out there.

Additionally, yeah, it's going to just sorta disappear one day.  That is, indeed, how this will end.

Finally, I'm skeptical about how much more could have been done earlier other than the early testing issues, which was a snafu that an average president would not have the expertise in to alter.  As it is, the country actually shifted into social distancing fairly early outside of the New York/New Jersey outbreak.

In lieu of the full transcript, look at the quote you've already provided:

"It's going to disappear. One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear. And from our shores, you know, it could get worse before it gets better. Could maybe go away. We'll see what happens. Nobody really knows."

He says it "could get worse before it gets better." That's one scenario that "could" happen. To contrast it, he then says it "could maybe go away." That's the context for what he means by it going away: as opposed to things getting worse before they get better. He's saying that things might not get worse at all. That the disease might just go away. That's the thing he's saying that "nobody really knows" -- whether things would get worse, or the disease would just go away.

That's what he's saying, clearly. It's how our language works. If I say, "I could have McDonald's for lunch. Could have Taco Bell," I mean those are my two contrasting options for lunch. Not that I might have Taco Bell months from now, when the seasons change. It's also consistent with the message he'd put out several times, that the US only had a few cases; that those infected would soon be better; that we had the situation under control. So if you want a "fuller context," look at Trump's remarks from the weeks leading up to this point. It makes clear that he was pushing an idea that things weren't bad, that things weren't going to get bad, that things were basically okay.

That message was wrong and obviously wrong, from the very beginning. At this late point, it was something more and worse than simply incorrect.