[Goose]

Trump could have and should have done many things differently.   But I am confident that he could not order a nationwide lock down then or now.   And if you question that remember when Trump said that he could order all the states to open up? And the governors  (correctly) said - ah, no, you can’t.  

I believe the only way constitutionally he could’ve done that was to declare martial law. And that would’ve gone over real well

This is true, and Trump should not have called for a nationwide shutdown.  In addition to the Constitutional issues with that, I’m not sure it even made epidemiological sense, especially early on.

That, however, doesn’t absolve Trump.  For starters, his conflicting comments and showdowns with governors were counterproductive and made things more confusing.  Moreover, there is more to leadership than sitting on a throne and giving edicts you expect others to follow.  The President has a lot more influence than authority when it comes to local public health. And issuing clear guidelines for states to apply would have done a lot of good, especially if he would have leveraged the CDC, which is (or  at least was) well trusted by state and local authorities.

BC

 
Agree with everything you said except the leveraging of the CDC. After the testing fiasco, there was a big credibility hit. FWIW, it also seems that the local health departments had significant reservations about the CDC for a while. It seemed that they were not very responsive to inquiries or requests for information. As you know from the Atlantic, the CDC had re-directed significant local training money to other purposes. Seems a pretty big gap had opened up in the last 10 years or so.

[Goose]

Trump could have and should have done many things differently.   But I am confident that he could not order a nationwide lock down then or now.   And if you question that remember when Trump said that he could order all the states to open up? And the governors  (correctly) said - ah, no, you can’t.  

I believe the only way constitutionally he could’ve done that was to declare martial law. And that would’ve gone over real well

This is true, and Trump should not have called for a nationwide shutdown.  In addition to the Constitutional issues with that, I’m not sure it even made epidemiological sense, especially early on.

That, however, doesn’t absolve Trump.  For starters, his conflicting comments and showdowns with governors were counterproductive and made things more confusing.  Moreover, there is more to leadership than sitting on a throne and giving edicts you expect others to follow.  The President has a lot more influence than authority when it comes to local public health. And issuing clear guidelines for states to apply would have done a lot of good, especially if he would have leveraged the CDC, which is (or  at least was) well trusted by state and local authorities.

BC

 
Agree with everything you said except the leveraging of the CDC. After the testing fiasco, there was a big credibility hit. FWIW, it also seems that the local health departments had significant reservations about the CDC for a while. It seemed that they were not very responsive to inquiries or requests for information. As you know from the Atlantic, the CDC had re-directed significant local training money to other purposes. Seems a pretty big gap had opened up in the last 10 years or so.