Intelligence agencies have been warning the White House of the new coronavirus since January, but Capitol Hill was downplaying the threat in order to slow down the nationwide measures.
According to reports from U.S. officials and spy agencies, it was unclear when the virus might spread in the U.S. or which specific steps are recommended to prevent an outbreak, but they did track the international spread of the coronavirus and warn that China was initially dismissing the seriousness of what is now a pandemic, The Hill reported.
While President Trump did take early action to close the border to any travelers from China, where the coronavirus first appeared, the White House was slow to make test kits available and ceded much of the response to state governments.
Intelligence agencies “have been warning on this since January,” a U.S. official who had access to intelligence reporting told the Post. “Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were — they just couldn’t get him to do anything about it.”
The White House has defended the President’s response, dismissing claims that the administration was caught flat-footed and insisting that Trump took early and significant action.
“President Trump has taken historic, aggressive measures to protect the health, wealth and safety of the American people — and did so while the media and Democrats chose to only focus on the stupid politics of a sham illegitimate impeachment,” Hogan Gidley said in a statement to the Post. “It’s more than disgusting, despicable and disgraceful for cowardly unnamed sources to attempt to rewrite history — it’s a clear threat to this great country.”
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