Jules Witcover

WASHINGTON — As President Trump praises himself for leading the country out of the coronavirus crisis, he cedes reopening the shuttered economy to state governors with little regard for public health safety, while touting and taking a drug that medical experts say is dangerous to the point of potential fatality.

On Sunday, a White House mouthpiece, Judd Deere, was sent out to declare that “the president has been leading every step of the way,” adding, “his actions, not only to protect public health but also the economy and workforce, will ensure we emerge stronger than ever before.”

But the very next day, Trump revealed that for about 10 days he had been ingesting hydroxychloroquine as a precaution against the virus, despite a Food and Drug Administration warning that the drug could cause “serious heart rhythm problems.” White House physician Sean Conley said that “after numerous discussions” with the president, “we concluded the potential benefit from the treatment outweighed the relative risks.”

But key Democrats flatly disagreed. House Speaker Nancy Peolosi said: “He’s our president, and I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists.” She noted that Trump, because of his age and weight, which she described as “morbidly obese,” was in a category of higher risk.

But Trump clearly rejoiced in his disclosure, as if it were just a playful ploy. “I was just waiting to see your eyes light up when I said this. When I announce this,” he said. “Yeah, I’ve been taking it for one and a half weeks now. And I’m still here. I’m still here.”

The startling announcement came as the president was punting to governors like Andrew Cuomo of New York, Gavin Newsom of California and Jay Inslee of Washington the reopening their states’ economies, thus shifting the political responsibility to them in the event all does not go well in the immediate future.

With more than 90,000 American deaths and the number rising daily, there has been a steady Democratic outcry against Trump’s public health responses. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut observed: “At this point, I think the president has proved to be so incompetent that most of us in Connecticut don’t want him or the people that work for him micromanaging our response.”

Trump’s recent irregular presence at White House press briefings, and his dismissals of warnings against premature state openings from top medical expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, have been duly noted. So has the president’s refusal to follow his own administration’s guideline to wear a protective face mask, apparently out of personal vanity when doing so might have spurred widespread public acquiescence or acceptance.

Trump’s willingness to allow governors to take the lead on reopening their state economies seemed a contradiction of his earlier assertion that he had total executive authority under the Constitution. But doing so will give him an option to shift blame to the governors if all does not go well.

Former President Barack Obama, himself the target of Trump’s allegation of an unspecified, fictional crime of “Obamagate,” has weighed in on his successor’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. Obama said the pandemic has “finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing. A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge.”

Thus has Trump’s self-description as “a very stable genius” begun to crumble under the weight of a huge public health crisis that knows no political or partisan boundaries. But it does provide a valid framework for evaluating his suitability to continue in the presidency for another four years come Jan. 20.

It offers an unanticipated opportunity for Trump’s prospective Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, to prescribe his own route out of the crisis, with a more comprehensive federal-state partnership with the nation’s governors to survive the faceless enemy that now confronts all Americans regardless of political partisanship.

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Jules Witcover’s latest book is “The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power,” published by Smithsonian Books. You can respond to this column at juleswitcover@comcast.net.