Does the Coronavirus Task Force Even Matter?

“In ordinary times in Washington, it would matter a lot. It is hardly unusual for presidents to create new structures to navigate a crisis, gathering experts who can distill the work of departments and intelligence agencies and drive the execution of complex plans across a sprawling federal bureaucracy,” the New York Times reports.

“It is why Harry S. Truman created the National Security Council to navigate Cold War realities in 1947, and why Dwight D. Eisenhower moved the science adviser into the White House a decade later to deal with the space race.”

“It is why John F. Kennedy met in secret with a committee of experts during the outset of the Cuban missile crisis to decide whether war or diplomacy was the right path.”

“But the coronavirus task force, led by Vice President Mike Pence, clearly had a different role. It had a psychological resonance with a scared public that wants to see and hear from medical experts after weeks of Mr. Trump’s playing down the effect of the virus. In the end, it was that public-facing role, rather than the expertise the task force gathered or the recommendations it issued to the states, that led Mr. Trump to flip-flop.”