Reaching out to predecessors in crisis is standard American practice, and could help unite the country during the coronavirus crisis. But Trump has rewritten the rules
No one expects to see Trump and Obama traveling the world arm in arm when Trump is no longer president, but right now would be an opportunity for the former presidents to come together, as they have in the past, and share their experiences dealing with health crises.
Bush could tell Trump about how he dealt with SARS during his presidency and Obama could share details about H1N1 swine flu . But instead of supporting each other and offering clear guidelines, Obama is communicating one message—to “stay home”—directly to millions of people using social media—while Trump is using the bully pulpit to say that business should get back to normal sooner rather than later. It is whiplash-inducing, and it is a sad side effect of the Trump presidency. Trump has not spoken with Bill Clinton since his inauguration, and aside from saying “hello” and “goodbye” at George H.W. Bush’s funeral, he has. He’s had only slightly more communication with his most recent Republican predecessor, George W. Bush. One former top Trump aide said that it would be a welcome sign if Trump would pick up the phone and call his predecessors, who would surely help, and convey a unifying message. “It would be reassuring to the American public to show that there’s a limit to how far you can politicize all relationships and policies,” the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said. “This requires us to go beyond politics.” A former top Obama aide, who also requested anonymity, said it’s unlikely for the former presidents to band together to do something without Trump’s invitation. “It would be so sensationalized by the media.” Trump has essentially tied their hands, because if they did band together, the story would become all about the former presidents versus Trump. They are trapped.President Obama had called on former presidents to help in times of crisis and sought their counsel, saysa former Obama spokesman. “I am certain,” he said, “that Obama would help if Trump asked.” When Obama was president, LaBolt noted, there was a respect for career officials who’d been through a crisis before. “Those folks were never pushed out of the room.” It is a long-held tradition of the presidency to put pride and hurt feelings aside during catastrophes. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the agonizing 13-day standoff between the U.S. and the Soviet Union over Soviet nuclear missiles being built in Cuba, John F. Kennedy called Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower to brief them on the situation. Former presidents have often been bitter about losing and resentful of the person who replaced them. But even then they would do anything to help. In 1981, then president Ronald Reagan asked Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, andwho he had just beaten badly, to represent him at the funeral of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in Cairo. Of course Carter went, as did the others. At George W. Bush’s presidential library dedication in 2013, when all the living former presidents were
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