NYTimes Investigation: 5 Takeaways on Trump’s Effort to Shift Responsibility

President Trump and his top aides sharply shifted their pandemic strategy in mid-April after seizing on optimistic data suggesting the virus would disappear, a Times investigation found.

WASHINGTON — President Trump and his top aides decided to shift primary responsibility for the coronavirus response to the states during a critical period of weeks in mid-April, eagerly seizing on overly optimistic predictions that the pandemic was fading so the president could reopen the economy and focus on his re-election, a New York Times investigation found.

The investigation revealed that critical decisions about the handling of the virus during that crucial period were made not by the better known coronavirus task force, but by a small group of White House aides who convened each morning in the office of Mark Meadows, the president’s chief of staff.

One of their goals: to justify declaring victory in the fight against the virus. In that effort they frequently sought validation from Dr. Deborah L. Birx, a highly regarded infectious disease expert, who was the chief evangelist in the West Wing for the idea that infections had peaked and the virus was fading quickly....

Interviews with more than two dozen senior administration officials, state and local health officials, and a review of emails and documents, show how a critical period in mid-April set the nation on a course to a new surge, with the United States logging more than 65,000 new cases of the virus each day.