As Virus Spread Early On, Reports of Trump Administration Briefings Fueled Sell-Off
On the afternoon of Feb. 24, President Trump declared on Twitter that the coronavirus was very much under control in the United States, one of numerous rosy statements that he and his advisers made at the time about the worsening epidemic. He even added an observation for investors: Stock market starting to look very good to me!
But hours earlier, senior members of the presidents economic team, privately addressing board members of the conservative Hoover Institution, were less confident. Tomas J. Philipson, a senior economic adviser to the president, told the group he could not yet estimate the effects of the virus on the American economy. To some in the group, the implication was that an outbreak could prove worse than Mr. Philipson and other Trump administration advisers were signaling in public at the time.
he next day, board members many of them Republican donors got another taste of government uncertainty from Larry Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council. Hours after he had boasted on CNBC that the virus was contained in the United States and its pretty close to airtight, Mr. Kudlow delivered a more ambiguous private message. He asserted that the virus was contained in the U.S., to date, but now we just dont know, according to a document describing the sessions obtained by The New York Times.
The document, written by a hedge fund consultant who attended the three-day gathering of Hoovers board, was stark. What struck me, the consultant wrote, was that nearly every official he heard from raised the virus as a point of concern, totally unprovoked.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/14/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-investors.html