When President Trump sought to reassure a nation on edge over the coronavirus, he was flanked Wednesday evening at the White House by more than a half-dozen public health experts.
But the very officials whose expertise the president is now counting on are part of the vast bureaucracy of scientists and other public servants that Trump has repeatedly maligned, ignored and jettisoned.
Throughout his more than three years as president, Trump has obsessed, at times conspiratorially, over what he calls the “deep state” — the thousands of career government specialists in national security, intelligence, science and other areas whose expertise he shuns in part because he suspects they are disloyal saboteurs. Continue reading.