THE WASHINGTON POST: Donald Trump’s biggest failure was COVID, Kamala Harris should talk about it.

The recent summer COVID surge is a stark reminder that former President Donald Trump was kicked out of office partly because of his mishandling of the pandemic.

And his terrible record of incompetence when confronted with the global health crisis should give voters pause about returning him to the White House.

The virus’ continuing threat is also a reminder that while Democrats made some missteps during the pandemic, they have a case to make against Trump on this issue and they should make it every chance they get.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz summed it up this way during a campaign appearance last month in Wayne, Michigan:

“He froze in the face of COIVD, and our neighbours died because of it,” the vice presidential nominee said. “And by doing nothing about COVID, he drove this economy into the ground.”

Democrats smartly adopted Walz’s “weird” framing to criticize Republican leaders and their policies.

They should do the same with Walz’s language on COVID, which aptly sums up Trump’s tragic ineptness. It’s a strategy that comes with some risks.

Many Americans would rather avoid the bad memories associated with the pandemic, and some accuse Democrats of overreacting and blindly following the science.

Almost 1.2 million people have died of COVID— 401,000 during Trump’s presidency — and day-to-day life was massively disrupted, the effects of which are still being felt. School kids experienced pandemic learning loss, widening pre-pandemic achievement gaps in many states. Scores of businesses shuttered permanently, leaving downtown areas grappling with vacancies.

Some data on how bad it was:

In just two months, March and April 2020, the economy lost 21.9 million jobs. Most of those jobs were recovered by the time Trump left office, but he still presided over a loss of 2.7 million jobs, with an unemployment rate of 6.4 per cent. Many of those jobs — 1.4 million — were manufacturing jobs.

Trump promised growth of at least 3 per cent, but the economy, battered by the pandemic he tried to wish away, only grew 1.45 per cent under his administration. Gas prices fell below $2 because nobody was driving and demand was low.

By contrast, the Biden-Harris administration has added 15.4 million jobs, including 773,000 manufacturing jobs. Annual growth has averaged 3.4 per cent.

Democrats want a future-oriented campaign, but to combat Trump and voters’ selective memories of his tenure, they must talk about his pandemic record.

“Voters do not like it being brought up at all,” Celinda Lake, a Democratic strategist and pollster for President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, said in an interview with Politico.

“They want to get over it.”

But “getting over” COVID won’t be easy, given that it remains one of the top 10 leading causes of death, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Not only that, Mpox, another highly contagious virus is circulating globally - and mutating.

The virus has been spreading in Africa and new cases are being discovered in Europe and Asia; there was an outbreak at an Iowa prison.

Trump’s approach to the pandemic doesn’t bode well for what he would do in a second term. While he pushed for a COVID vaccine as part of Operation Warp Speed, he sowed confusion about the vaccine’s effectiveness, spread conspiracy theories and consistently downplayed the seriousness of the virus.

This misinformation had deadly consequences for Trump’s own supporters: Research shows that pro-Trump counties had much higher death rates than pro-Biden counties.

The mistakes started early, with Trump disbanding the National Security Council team charged with preparing for a global pandemic in May of 2018. By 2020, after repeated warnings about a hypothetical and then a very real global pandemic, Trump and members of his administration ignored reality and boasted about the US’ readiness.

He called it a hoax. He said it would disappear. He said fewer tests would mean fewer cases. He called Dr. Anthony Fauci an idiot and praised quacks who were pushing unproven treatments for COVID.

He dithered and delayed and people died as a result. Rather than having a national strategy, Trump deemed the federal government a mere “backup” option for the states as they scrambled for ventilators, personal protective equipment and a system for testing and contact tracing.

Republicans, of course, are working hard to memory hole this reality. In their telling, the Trump years were simply marvellous. Trump, in an economic speech in New York on Thursday, spoke of “before the pandemic” and “after the pandemic,” skipping over what happened during the pandemic. He bragged of rescuing the economy and handing the current administration a strong “after COVID” nation.

“When our country was hit by the China virus, we saved the economy, we rescued tens of millions of jobs. And after COVID, I handed Kamala and Joe the fastest and strongest recovery ever recorded, nothing even close,” Trump said. “We did an incredible job. Far more people died under Biden-Harris than died under President Trump. We delivered an economic miracle, which Kamala and Joe turned into an economic disaster.”

But the country was very much in the depths of the pandemic in November 2020, and as Trump tries to rewrite history Democrats must remind voters of the terrible times, made much worse by Trump’s hubris, ignorance, and dereliction of duty.

Trump’s mishandling of COVID is yet another example of the former president putting himself before the interests of the country. A second term would be even worse, as Trump loyalists like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., noted nepo baby, anti-vaxxer, non-scientist and conspiracy theorist, could end up in the administration, advising Trump on issues such as childhood diseases, chronic health problems and vaccines.

In her 2020 debate against Vice President Mike Pence, Harris’ first question was about COVID.

She said that Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic was the “greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.”

With thousands dying daily and Trump recommending bleach and ultraviolet light as a cure, the 2020 presidential election was a referendum on COVID and Trump’s competence. He treated the pandemic like it was a branding challenge, not a medical and economic catastrophe.

Democrats must remind voters of this, raising the spectre of Trump at the helm again, spinning lies and doing nothing as another disaster unfolds.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Nia-Malika Henderson is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former senior political reporter for CNN and the Washington Post, she has covered politics and campaigns for almost two decades.

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