Pro claimed himself a wartime president and the coronavirus the enemy, the United States was already on course to see more of its people die than in the wars of korea, vietnam, afghanistan, and iraq combined. That is from the lead story in yesterdays Washington Post on sunday the paper published the results of a monthlong investigation, an account of the governments failure to properly anticipate and respond to the coronavirus crisis. The report retraces the failures of the first 70 days of the outbreak. Quote, from that initial notification for President Trump to treat the coronavirus not as a distant threat or harmless flu strain well under control, but a lethal force that had outflanked americas defenses and was poised to kill tens of thousands of citizens. That more than twomonth stretch now stands as critical time that was squandered. Heres the time line. We start on december 31 white supremacist we start on december 31st, the cdc learns of a case cluster in china. January 3rd, china tells the cdc of the outbreak. Hhs secretary azar is informed, who informs the white house and the National Security council. A few days later, u. S. Spy agencies warn trump of the outbreak in the president s daily briefing. January 8th, the cdc issues a public warning about covid19. January 18th, azar finally gets to talk to trump about covid19 but trump wants to berate him instead over his agencys attempt to limit vaping. The president dismissing azar as alarmist. The hhs secretary is so worried that he asks advice on how to get trump to listen to the warnings. January 21st, a seattle man becomes the First American to contract the virus. January 22nd, trump is asked by a a reporter in davos if hes worried. Its one person coming from china. We have it under control. Its going to be just fine. January 24th, china blocks a u. S. Lab to get a sample to study, one day after shutting down the city of wuhan. Trump lavishes praise. January 31st, azar bans most nonu. S. Citizens traveling from china to the u. S. Nsc and Health Officials push for a europe travel ban, but President Trump and treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, refuse saying it will hurt the economy. February 6th, the w. H. O. Announces the shipping of 250,000 testing kits for covid19 around the world. The cdc only has 90 to send to a few state health departments. Those tests prove faulty, setting the program back. February 10th, trump addresses the virus at a rally in New Hampshire. By the way, the virus. Theyre working hard. Looks like by april, you know, in theory when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away, i hope thats true. Were doing great in our country. February 26th trump again takes on the future of the virus. When you have 15 people and the 15 within a couple days is going down to close to zero. February 29th, the Washington State man became the First American to die of a coronavirus infection. That same day after a month of cdc failures, the fda approves private testing for covid19. March 6th, trump, donning a campaign hat, visits the cdc in atlanta. Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. Theyre there. They have the tests. And the tests are beautiful. Anybody that needs a test gets a test. And i like this stuff. You know, my uncle is a great person, he was at m. I. T. Taught at m. I. T. I think for like a Record Number of years, he was a great super genius, dr. John trump. I like this stuff. I get it. People are surprised. Every one of these doctors said how do you know so much . May have been i have a natural ability. Maybe i should have done that instead of running for president. He says that the tests, theyre there now, anyone who wants a test can get it now. That was on march the 6th. Chances are very good, if you want the test now, as an american, you cant get it. Yeah, that was not true. That was a lie. March 9th, president mocks state lockdown orders tweeting, the common flu kills thousands each year and nothing is shutdown in life, in the economy, it will go away. Stay calm. March 11th, trump finally shuts down travel from europe several weeks after the nsa and Health Officials required he do so. March 31st at a news conference, the president finally succumbs to the coronavirus reality, announcing it is absolutely critical for the American People to follow the guidelines for the next 30 days. Its a matter of life and death, frankly, its a matter of life and death. I know our citizens will rise to the occasion and they already have sacrificed a lot. He had actually called it a hoax before then. Called the press coverage a hoax, saying they were exaggerating. The post concludes, the United States will likely go down as the country supposedly best prepared to fight a pandemic but ended up catastrophically overmatched. It did not have to happen this way. Though not perfectly prepared the United States had more expertise, plans, and experience than dozens of countries that ultimately fared far better in if fending off the virus. It may never be known how many thousands of deaths or millions of infections might have been prevented with a response that was more coherent, urgent and effective. Coming up we spoke with one of the reporters behind that sweeping story, greg miller. He details the long list of missed opportunities in the fight against covid19. Plus how americas response compares to the rest of the world. That conversation is straight ahead. Well be right back. Rsation is ahead. Well be right back. [ ] every time you touch a surface, bacteria is left behind. Now, consider how many times your family touches the surfaces in your home in 24 hours. Try microban 24. Spray on hard surfaces to kill 99. 9 of viruses and bacteria initially. Once dry, it forms a bacteria shield that keeps killing bacteria for 24 hours, even after multiple touches. Try microban 24. Available in multipurpose, sanitizing, and bathroom sprays. This has been medifacts for microban 24. Lookentertainmentour experience xfinity x1. Its the easiest way to watch live tv and all your favorite streaming apps. Plus, x1 also includes peacock premium at no extra cost. This baby is the total package. It streams exclusive originals, the full peacock movie library, complete collections of iconic tv shows, and more. Yup, the best really did get better. Magnificent. Xfinity x1 just got even better, with peacock premium included at no additional cost. No strings attached. Welcome back. We are revisiting some of our coverage from back in the spring as it became increasingly clear just how severely the administration was mishandling the outbreak of covid19. The Washington Post framed it like this, quote, the u. S. Was beset by denial and dysfunction as the coronavirus raged. Lets bring in greg miller, a coauthor. The thing that will strike most americans who are still hearing the president in denial into march is, what happened, how early all the warnings came the president s way and everybodys way in the white house. Even last year, december 31st of last year, the cdc begins developing the reports for hhs after getting the information about the virus, january 3rd, formal notification from china. A few days later, early january, u. S. Spy agencies began warning the president of the outbreak and the president s daily brief. On january 3rd the cdc chief relayed the news to the hhs secretary azar. He shared that information with the white house on the 6th. The cdc offered assistance to china that same week the hhs convened an Interagency Task force with hhss azar, the cdc head and dr. Fauci. On the 8th, the cdc issued a warning about covid19. All of that, thats all within basically the first week of january. Right. And its important to i mean, the purpose of the story was to look at that timeline, because so much of it was squandered. Preparing for the outbreak of a novel virus like the coronavirus, experts and professionals will tell you requires sort of worstcase scenario thinking from the very beginning. It requires taking preparations that ultimately might not be necessary and that you hope will not be necessary, but you wont have time to take care of later and thats sort of what we are facing in the United States now. These delays set back the development of testing, which contributed heavily to the out to the inability to track the outbreaks in places like seattle, los angeles, and, of course, new york. It contributed to the inability of the government to procure badly needed supplies that are now in acute shortages at hospitals dealing with this outbreak. And you have to look back at that first month and even that second month as extremely costly for u. S. Citizens. Jonathan lemire . Greg, its jonathan lemire. Terrific piece. Thank you for walking us through it. I wanted to zero in on that idea. You just started touching about it on testing. It seems thats the biggest difference between countries that have been able to respond correctly and those that have not, and the u. S. Is sadly in the latter category. Take us into more detail about the steps that were missed instead of producing widespread tests, the lack of urgency at the white house to mobilize the private sector to help create the one thing that as you said would allow the nation to track whats going on and potentially stop this spread . Yeah. Because interrupting, slowing the spread of a virus like this really comes down to your ability to figure out who has it and who doesnt and separate those people as quickly as you can. So if you dont have a test, you dont have that visibility into the spread of the virus, and that was a critical issue in this case. And the breakdown came for many reasons. I mean, one of the first was that china itself refused for a while to provide samples of the virus. So that was a set back for u. S. Researchers and scientists. But that also that was just the earliest of a series of cascading failures. Which also i think when we spoke to u. S. Officials in the administration, in the cdc, and elsewhere, acknowledged that there was some institutional hue brus here, that the cdc for many years has taken the lead on developing tests for new outbreaks like this and felt certain this was one of those cases they would take care of it, no need to enlist the dozens and dozens of private laboratories that the United States has that are also able to develop tests like this. So when the cdc test failed, and this was critical, they send samples out. They think theyre ready to go, and these labs start using them around the country, they realize almost immediately that theyre giving bad results. Theyre not reliable and then youre back to square one. So thats a critical squandered period of time. And theres a date here, february 27th, fda official lashes out at the cdc saying if they were a private business, quote, i would shut you down. One failure after another. The bbcs katty kay is with us, she has the next question. Its striking reading your report yesterday and then listening to the White House Briefing and how often we heard the president and the Vice President say what a fantastic job the administration is doing. Is there anyone in the administration, according to your reporting, who would recognize your timetable and admit that there were moments where, for example, with the tests that went wrong, things that went wrong or the tests they promised were going to get out, didnt get out, or the lockdowns they said were going to happen didnt happen on time . How many recognition and acceptance of responsibility is there anywhere in the administration that this has been a catalog of missteps . Of course, in this administration, its perilous for anybody to contradict the president , you dont last long if youre not on the same page with the president or you undercut what hes saying. In this case, though, we were able to identify important individuals high up in the administration who were on the case from very early on. Matt pottinger is the deputy National Security adviser and by january he was urging mobilization. In february, he is urging the shutdown of flights coming from europe, where the outbreak had already spread from china. So weve the Trump Administration blocks flights from china early on, but allows flights to continue into the United States for weeks from europe after the outbreak is already there. And pottingers guidance or advise goes ignored for a month or so, in part because his voice is drowned out by those guarding the economy and the stock market, including the chief of staff at the mulvaney. So there were these frictions and battles inside the administration, what do we care about more . Preventing this virus from spreading in the United States or preventing the stock market from plunging . All right. Greg miller, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you and your colleagues for great reporting. An important story in yesterdays Washington Post. Well talk to you soon. Lets bring in council on Foreign Relations head and ask you Richard Haass to give us more of a global view. We hear italy the cases may be going down, same with spain, the uk continues to skyrocket. China, its opaque, we dont know whats going on in china because they havent been transparent from the very beginning. And then, of course, japan may be facing a few rough months ahead. What can you tell us looking at the global stage how this pandemic is playing out and what lessons youve learned from it so far . Joe, what youve just described is the mixed bag but in general okay or moving in the right direction what you call the developed world, places like south korea, taiwan, singapore, china impossible to get information out of. Spain, italy have been through hell but hopefully the worst is behind them. Whats missing is the rest of the world, latin america, southeast, asia, middle east and pakistan. What worries me, i think thats where the next catastrophe is going to come from. You begin with terrible Public Health systems, crowding so social distancing isnt an issue, its like entering a war and they are disarmed and they are going to get hammered. A year from now, when theyre still then recovering from that, i think we could well have an economic or financial debt crisis on top of it because these countries entered this battle not only without any protective gear, without any of the tools you need to fight it, but also they begin in a perilous state of financial debt. And by the time this is done, they are going to be, essentially, improvished as a time countries like the United States are going to be looking inward and were not going to have the means or the appetite to help them. Looking at this white house right now, especially at a time when the country is going into this horrific week where we will be losing thousands of people, were watching government at every level, state and local, working 24 hours a day to try and deal with this, businesses, the medical Community Getting ravaged, everybody working as teams, trying to figure out how to get through this. I wonder about the president s team beyond the Scientific Team led by fauci and birx and others, although i dont know how many others are there, who is the inner circle . Is it jared and ivanka and Peter Navarro and Steve Mnuchin . Who else . Because it feels like the presidency right now is unmatched for the crisis at hand. Mika, to build on my colleagues excellent reporting about the timeline, you now see in the white house, pervasive wishfulness about the power and efficacy of hydroxychloroquine and other drugs that have yet to be formally and fully approved for use with the coronavirus by the food and drug administration. And you have a wishfulness that this situation will turn around. Thats a trait throughout the white house in the recent weeks and continues to be. When you ask about the inner circle its clear to me peter navaro more than anyone, whether its urging the president to take a position different than dr. Fauci on drugs or when it comes to the defense production act and nudging corporations to sometimes pushing the r corporations to do what the white house wants, navarro is at the center and jared is there to be liaison to different corporations. The confusion is whether companies should work through jared or Vice President pence and the task force. And you have jared more than anyone. But we saw tension sunday on the news conference. The president prevented dr. Fauci from answering a question about hydroxychloroquine. He didnt want to get into a discussion about the efficacy of the drug. Whats the president s obsession with unproven use of a drug for malaria where the president himself how many weeks has it been that he gets up there and rambles on incoherently about this drug, says what do we have to lose, and then admits he doesnt know whether its going to work or not. Whats behind that . Its bizarre. Now you have Rudy Giuliani doing it. You have a bunch of trump hacks on the internet that are doing it. What is the story behind the use of this antimalaria drug that the president tells us every day he doesnt know whether its going to work or not . Thats seen at the cdc from weeks ago, where the president says hes familiar with medicine even though hes not a medical professional. Is a statement you often hear inside the white house. Top Officials Say the president has confidence thats not backed up by experience or data. This is an alarming situation. For not only people in the white house but many governors privately in recent weeks they say bob they say if the president keeps talking about hydroxychloroquine in a way that is encouraging people to go seek it out, youre going to have a medical chaotic situation in the country where people are trying to get a drug thats not truly proven as effective as treatin