President’s Diagnosis Puts Nation at Risk

National security experts are raising alarms about increased threats after news broke of President Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis and subsequent hospitalization. They have identified a few key areas of risk to US security posed by the latest crisis. First, there is the operational risk posed by an uncontained outbreak among senior levels of the United States government. We are still waiting for the White House to conduct contact tracing and key members of the line of succession like Vice President Mike Pence and President Pro Tempore of the Senate Chuck Grassley are refusing to quarantine or even be tested. With conflicting information being given about the President’s condition and his doctors being undermined by his own Chief of Staff, Americans, as well as our allies and adversaries, are looking for reassurance that someone is in charge of the United States and that the line of succession is secure and ready to step in if the President becomes too ill to fulfill the requirements of his office. It is also unclear how many members of the national security apparatus are ill or need to quarantine. While quarantined, they will not have access to the classified servers or key information needed to discharge their duties, hindering the United State’s ability to identify and respond to threats.

The second risk is that whether through lack of timely and accurate intelligence caused by the first risk or through illness, the President and other key decision makers will not be capable of making timely and informed decisions regarding US national security. In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson contracted the pandemic raging in his day, the Spanish Flu. He had fallen ill after arriving in Paris for the peace conference to negotiate the end of World War I. We now know that Wilson became extremely ill, hallucinating and giving unreasonable and unpredictable orders. In the end, he agreed to the harsh punitive terms of the Treaty of Versailles he had previously opposed as nonnegotiable. These terms contributed directly to World War II. Aides at the time tried to hide how ill he was, claiming he had a cold. It is unknowable if the terms of the treaty would have been different had Wilson been healthy and in full control of his mental faculties, but it is fair to speculate that his illness and the coverup caused great harm to US and global security. Presidents lying about their health is nothing new, but given the deficit of trust this administration already has, the lies will not provide confidence and a sense of calm this time. In fact, they have already fueled speculation that it is just as likely the President’s doctors are lying to keep him from panicking as it is they are lying to keep the American people and our allies from panicking.

The final risk is strategic. The US’s adversaries like Russia and China may choose to take advantage of a moment of chaos and weakness to further their own goals while they think attention is directed elsewhere and the US will be unable to respond. Putin is most likely to take this path, as he appears to thrive on chaos, particularly when it is the US in chaos. But as Samantha Vinograd points out, both China and Russia have been working to undermine the United States’ reputation as a global leader able to solve these kinds of crises. With the President himself refusing to take the necessary precautions to protect his own health as well as his staff and their families’, it’s much easier to discredit the United States as a competent nation. It also is another reminder that for this administration, national security is secondary to the President’s political goals.