POLITICO NIGHTLY: Here come the pandemic memoirs

BY MYAH WARD With help from Tyler Weyant Scott Gottlieb | Getty Images WHAT WENT WRONG — The Trump book boom is about to enter its next phase: the pandemic memoir. And a big name looks to be first to print. Scott Gottlieb, FDA commissioner under the Trump administration from 2017 to 2019, tweeted this week that his book, “Uncontrolled Spread: Why Covid-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic,” slated for publication on Sept. 21, is open for pre-orders. Nightly called Gottlieb to talk about the current state of the pandemic, where we went wrong in 2020 and what new details his book may reveal. This conversation has been edited. What are you most worried about right now? We’ve seen how difficult it is to deploy the vaccine here in the U.S. and in parts of Europe where there’s hesitancy about taking it. That’s going to be equivalent, if not deeper, in a lot of parts of the world where there might be concerns around taking a Western vaccine. So I think we’re going to have real challenges deploying vaccines well beyond supply. We’re focusing, frankly, on the wrong challenge. There’s going to be ample supply. What would you say we got the most wrong in 2020? The near-term thing we got wrong is that we applied a flu model to a coronavirus. We used the tools that we had developed to try to mitigate a pandemic flu and then we made assumptions about how this virus was spread and how it would behave that were predicated on our assumptions about flu, without recognizing how the coronavirus would behave differently. We wrongly assumed that asymptomatic spread wouldn’t be a significant contributor to the epidemic. We wrongly assumed that it was spread primarily through droplet transmission. We wrongly assumed that diagnostic testing wouldn’t be that important to containing the epidemic because we thought the incubation period was short, like flu, and patients were only contagious once they became symptomatic and early testing wouldn’t be that important to containing spread. Could we have done anything to investigate the lab-leak theory sooner? Well, not if China wasn’t cooperative. But I think the critical piece of information that we could have identified earlier, with more certainty, was the scope of the asymptomatic spread — if we had been on the ground in China, if we had been able to investigate and work side by side with the Chinese CDC. Is there something you didn’t fully understand about the pandemic until you sat down to write? What this reinforced for me is the CDC is a largely academic type of institution that has a lot of independent silos that don’t necessarily collaborate, and isn’t really capable of mounting a large and rapid response to any kind of event of this scale. It’s much more focused on doing investigations of early outbreaks and things that are contained. And we really lacked that operational capacity. There’s no agency overseeing the different components that would be relevant. Are we going to learn any lessons from the pandemic? I think we’ll definitely be doing things differently. The question is whether we derive the right lesson. That’s what the book is really about. We need to look at capacity building. We need to look at public health preparedness through the lens of national security. That means our foreign intelligence services. We need to be doing better proactive surveillance for risks. The old notion was that this was a mission that was handled by public health agencies, and that we would get the information we needed to protect ourselves through multilateral engagement like the International Health Regulations, then WHO. But we’ve seen that those conventions fail, and fail repeatedly, and we can’t rely on them solely anymore. And this clearly wasn’t a bioterrorist weapon. But rogue regimes and terrorist groups, now looking at how this hurt us more than it hurt a lot of other nations — I think we need to reassess the calculus of how we guard against biological threats. Are you still wearing a mask? I’m not wearing a mask outdoors. But I wear a mask in certain indoor settings where there are crowds. And it’s not necessarily because I feel vulnerable. I’m fully vaccinated. I feel like it’s etiquette. When I go into a pharmacy or grocery store, there’s enough people wearing masks, that I feel like by wearing the mask, I make other people feel less uncomfortable. That’s why I’ve been wearing a mask. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas for us at mward@politico.com, or on Twitter at @MyahWard.   SUBSCRIBE TO "THE RECAST" TODAY: Power is shifting in Washington and in communities across the country. More people are demanding a seat at the table, insisting that politics is personal and not all policy is equitable. The Recast is a twice-weekly newsletter that explores the changing power dynamics in Washington and breaks down how race and identity are recasting politics and policy in America. Get fresh insights, scoops and dispatches on this crucial intersection from across the country and hear critical new voices that challenge business as usual. Don't miss out, SUBSCRIBE . Thank you to our sponsor, Intel.     WHAT'D I MISS? — Trump will remain off Facebook for at least two years: Facebook announced today that former President Donald Trump’s account will remain suspended for at least two years , setting a timetable for his potential return after its oversight board criticized the company’s indefinite ban over his posts during the deadly Capitol riot. “Given the gravity of the circumstances that led to Mr. Trump’s suspension, we believe his actions constituted a severe violation of our rules which merit the highest penalty available under the new enforcement protocols,” Facebook's vice president of global affairs Nick Clegg said in a blog post. — Modest job gains leave lingering doubts about recovery: The U.S. economy added 559,000 jobs in May, well below Wall Street expectations, stirring up further questions about what is holding back a stronger recovery from the Covid-19 epidemic. The figure marked a bounce back from a disappointing April number, but it won’t erase concerns about whether generous federal benefits are keeping Americans from rejoining the labor force or whether the Biden administration and Congress need to do more to light a fire under the economy. — FBI’s Wray reveals scope of ransomware investigations: FBI Director Christopher Wray compared the national security threat posed by ransomware to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as the U.S. government and the private sector continue to grapple with a series of debilitating cyberattacks. “There are a lot of parallels, there’s a lot of importance, and a lot of focus by us on disruption and prevention,” Wray told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. ”There’s a shared responsibility, not just across government agencies but across the private sector and even the average American.” AROUND THE WORLD ‘ONE MILLIMETER AWAY’ — Members of the G-7 group say they are close — “one millimeter away” — from a deal on a global corporate tax after a meeting of the group's finance ministers today. But they still haven’t found agreement on the main bones of contention. After a first day of negotiations, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said G-7 countries are still discussing which companies should fall under a new taxation mechanism for large businesses partially based on sales. Countries also still have to find an agreement on the other “pillar” of the reform, a global minimum tax rate. The new system “must catch all the important digital companies. That’s one point which is currently being discussed,” Le Maire told the BBC, while noting that negotiations are still ongoing on the minimum rate. A proposed minimum tax rate of 15 percent was “only a starting point,” he said. “I think that if the negotiation is still underway, that’s because we are still working on these really tricky points of the rate,” he said, noting that “it is better to have a higher level of rate than 15 percent” to make the reform more “credible.”   SUBSCRIBE TO WEST WING PLAYBOOK: Add West Wing Playbook to keep up with the power players, latest policy developments and intriguing whispers percolating inside the West Wing and across the highest levels of the Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     AROUND THE NATION SHOWDOWN AT THE STOCKYARDS — Fort Worth is one of the few major cities run by the GOP. But that could change this weekend. In the latest POLITICO Dispatch, Maya King reports on a mayoral race that has Republicans on the edge of their seats. Listen to the latest POLITICO Dispatch podcast NIGHTLY NUMBER At least one-third The decrease in prices for some condos and hotel rooms in Trump-branded buildings in Chicago, Honolulu, Las Vegas and New York, according to an Associated Press review of more than 4,000 transactions over the past 15 years. PARTING WORDS First lady Jill Biden waves as she rides her bike with President Joe Biden in Rehoboth Beach, Del. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo FIRST STATE SUMMER — Nightly’s Tyler Weyant, a Mid-Atlantic lifer, emails: I’ve been to Delaware once or twice in my life. I’ve bought peach cakes and fresh produce from Willey’s up in New Castle County’s Townsend. I’ve driven through the scenic marshes of Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge, watching red-winged blackbirds perch upon reeds. I’ve eaten a Grotto Pizza menu item that was basically just a giant tray of all their appetizers and lived to tell the tale. It’s a pretty nice place. Nice enough for the Bidens to celebrate the first lady’s 70th birthday there this week. Yet the good folks at Air Mail, the online magazine run by former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, are less impressed. “Democratic aides accustomed to Hawaii and Martha’s Vineyard are in for a surprise when they decamp to Biden’s summer home in Delaware,” Air Mail decreed in a piece titled “Rehoboth What?” that left me bluer than a hen. “Joe Biden’s summer home, a three-story Cape Cod-style mini-mansion in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, promises decidedly less glamour” than the vacation getaways favored by the Kennedys, Obamas and Trumps, journalist Alex Thomas writes, as if that were a bad thing. The Bidens bought their home for a measly $2.7 million in 2017, Thomas says, in a part of the state “spotted with Trump signs” and smelling of fertilizer. “The handful of art galleries” along the Rehoboth boardwalk, Thomas frets, “sell unremarkable oil-on-canvas seascapes and are outnumbered by stores selling bedazzled iPhone cases and trashy T-shirts marketed to teenagers.” A subhed mourns, “More Jersey Shore than North Shore.” Thomas spent three summers as a lifeguard in Rehoboth, and he seems to have affection for “the nation’s summer capital” of low-rent millionaires. And I am very aware that reporters don’t write headlines and subheds. But he definitely seems to wish they were just a little bit more fashionable, more sophisticated, the kind of people who would eat at Graydon Carter’s Waverly Inn instead of Fins Fish House & Raw Bar, whose diners are gauche enough to mob the Bidens on their way to a table. I don’t know Rehoboth as well as Thomas does. But I also am not embarrassed in the slightest to vacation in a place where Michelin tires on go-kart tracks are more common than Michelin stars on restaurants. I’ll be in Delaware at some point this summer, likely eating at one of my favorite breakfast spots in Fenwick, or visiting friends in Bethany, or talking loud enough at a bar about Joe Flacco that someone jumps in to share a thought about the Eagles’ chances this fall. If Alex Thomas is around, first Dogfish Head is on me. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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