Trump has a problem as the coronavirus threatens the US: His credibility

WASHINGTON - When Hurricane Dorian crashed into the Atlantic Coast in September, President Donald Trump assumed a take-charge role in response. But he undermined his own effectiveness after it became apparent that before displaying a map in front of the television cameras in the Oval Office, he had altered it with a Sharpie pen to match his inaccurate forecast of where the storm was headed.

On Wednesday evening, Trump delivered an almost casual account of the administration's response to the coronavirus, leaving it to the experts appearing with him to relay the real information and assure a jittery public. Still, he kept trying to suggest the risk was low. During a crisis, presidents are looked to for direct and honest assessments of threats and for reassurance to the public about their impact. During the swine flu outbreak of 1976, President Gerald Ford announced during a news conference that the government planned to vaccinate"every man, woman and child in the United States." Ford himself was photographed receiving the vaccine in the White House as part of a public awareness campaign.

He based that prediction on a comment made at one of his briefings, when an expert noted that temperatures can affect the spread of viruses. Trump has used that data point as evidence in saying in public and in private to guests at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, that the global outbreak will be behind him by April.

But privately, they say he has been reluctant to give in to what he has called an"alarmist" view of the virus' potential to cause damage as he warily watches the effect of the outbreak on the stock market. He has been rattled by the Wall Street reaction to the spread of the virus in places like Italy, lashing out at the news media in tweets and accusing journalists of intentionally trying to harm the stock market.

The New York Times has also lost its credibility long ago with the Russia hoax

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