Paul Krugman: Trump is like a lab experiment to design 'the worst possible leader for a crisis'

Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on Monday took stock of President Donald Trump's efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic, and he found himself having a hard time imagining how they could be worse.

"If you set out to design the worst possible leader for a crisis, it would be Trump," Krugman wrote on Twitter. "Aggressively ignorant, lashes out at anyone who tells him what he doesn't want to hear and — tragically — with a large following of Americans who believe what he says."

Krugman said that Trump's leadership has been particularly pernicious because he is constantly contradicting both his own administration officials and public health experts in an effort to minimize the impact the virus is having on the stock market.

"He isn't just failing to respond to the crisis, he's actively blocking anyone else's efforts to respond," Krugman wrote. "And he's giving bad advice that millions will follow, making things worse."