The verdict is in -- Trump 'did not rise to the challenge' for the first international crisis not of his making: op-ed

As the coronavirus health crisis began to grow, many questioned how President Trump would respond. Now we know, and according to David Rothkopf writing in the Daily Beast this Friday, Trump has completely "failed to rise to the challenge."

"At a time when public buffets are being shut down across America, this crisis has put on display a wholly unappetizing 5-week-old smorgasbord of the very worst, most odious, most dangerous and weirdest of Trump," Rothkopf writes.

According to Rothkopf and many others, the coronavirus is the greatest crisis Trump has faced since becoming president. The outbreak has exposed huge flaws in the U.S. healthcare system and has sparked an economic crisis as well as a social crisis. "It is a political crisis too, for Trump, as this threatens to become his defining failure on the eve of his re-election campaign," writes Rothkopf. "And it is now a foreign policy crisis as steps taken by Trump have done severe damage to important U.S. international relations at precisely the time global cooperation is needed most."

"As Americans face this pandemic, the risks associated with it have been made worse by a single organism, the mandemic they elected to lead them," he adds.

As the crisis grows, Trump's most prominent character flaws, his narcissism and lying, have only become more apparent. Rothkopf cites Trump's TV address to the nation in what was an attempt to calm the public's fears as an example. "Trump did not focus on what needed to be done to make Americans safer; he began and repeatedly returned to self-congratulations for the steps he alleges he took to make America safer—like closing the borders to Chinese travelers early in the crisis." The effectiveness of the U.S. response, the availability of tests, the severity of the virus' spread -- all details that Trump willfully distorted.

"We knew Trump was bad. We knew he was ill-suited for the presidency," writes Rothkopf. "But this crisis has driven home the reality that he was worse than we thought. It has reminded us that whenever he is given a choice, Trump will do the worst thing."

Read Rothkopf's full op-ed over at The Daily Beast.