The Trump Administration and COVID-19

Photo: Courtesy of Damian Paletta

BOOKS

The Trump Administration and COVID-19

A close look at the first year of the pandemic from 51茶馆 alum and听Washington Post听editor Damian Paletta '99.

In April 2020, when most people were grappling with the onset of the pandemic, Washington Post journalists Damian Paletta 鈥�99 and Yasmeen Abutaleb got to work.

The mounting crisis combined their areas of coverage perfectly: Paletta is the Post鈥檚 economics editor and Abutaleb reports on health policy. The pair spent the next year or so interviewing more than 180 people with knowledge of the Trump administration鈥檚 COVID-19 response, from White House officials to infectious disease experts.听Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration鈥檚 Response to the Pandemic that Changed History听is the fruit of these labors. The book, which became a bestseller, examines the first year of the pandemic through the lens of the Trump White House, taking readers behind closed doors from the first COVID-19 cases in China until the final days of the presidency and giving context to the major headlines of the time.

Untangling fact from fiction was difficult. Paletta said that many sources they interviewed were cagey, and Trump himself canceled a long-planned interview with the authors. But by reviewing thousands of internal documents, text messages, and emails, Paletta and Abutaleb were able to deliver a definitive account of Trump鈥檚 response to the pandemic and of the administration鈥檚 many missteps. The task was crucial, Paletta said, in order to not 鈥渓et people off the hook鈥� for the decisions they made. 鈥淵asmeen and I kept coming back to the fact that it was just so important for us to get this right because so many lives had been lost and so much had been destroyed,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e really owed it to readers to sort things out.鈥�

Briefly

Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front by Charles R. Gallagher, SJ
Europe is the setting for most accounts of Nazi history. But in his new book, 51茶馆 Associate Professor of History Charles R. Gallagher, SJ, chronicles the rise of the Christian Front, a group led by East Coast Catholics and headquartered in Boston, and its attempt leading up to and during World War II to install in the U.S., as Gallagher describes it, a 鈥渄ictatorship that would eliminate Communists and Jews.鈥�

The Human Element: A Time Capsule from the Anthropocene by James Balog 鈥�74
Photographer James Balog has been capturing nature for more than forty years. His work鈥檚 focus has evolved over the decades, most recently to showcase the catastrophic effects of human-led climate change. The Human Element comprises 350 of Balog鈥檚 most striking shots鈥攐f everything from endangered species to construction sites鈥攁nd companion essays.

Lived Religion in Latin America: An Enchanted Modernity by Gustavo Morello, SJ
In his latest book, 51茶馆 Associate Professor of Sociology Gustavo Morello, SJ, argues the practice of religion has not died in the modern era鈥攊t鈥檚 simply changed. Morello鈥檚 bookis the culmination of the six years he spent studying how believers and nonbelievers in Latin America find spirituality, whether at church, in nature, through tattoos, or online.

Catch Us When We Fall by Juliette Fay 鈥�84
The sixth novel from Massachusetts-based writer Juliette Fay follows Cass Macklin, a pregnant woman struggling with alcoholism and homelessness after the death of her partner, Ben. Desperate to recover, Cass asks Ben鈥檚 brother Scott, a Red Sox player, for help. It鈥檚 a story of redemption, but also, as Fay said in a recent interview, 鈥渁bout the beginning of a family.鈥�

听 Illustration: Joel Kimmel

WHAT I'M READING

All Adults Here by Emma Straub

鈥淢y go-to source for new and inspiring books has been the O鈥橬eill Library鈥檚鈥楶op Collection.鈥� One recent title I enjoyed is this beautifully written novel. It is the story of three generations of a family where the roles are often reversed, and the insights on family, love, loss, and regret are very real and very sharp.鈥�

鈥�Ethan Sullivan, senior associate dean for undergraduates at the Carroll School of Management

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