Col. Larry Wilkerson: White House is full of ‘basically mediocre people’

Oh, for the days when Americans could be comforted and united in fighting a common enemy — even an invisible one. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson was comparing the era of COVID-19 to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats, far different from what he views as a disjointed response and lack of empathy coming from the White House these days.

Wilkerson, former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, has served close to the center of government, as a veteran soldier and a statesman. He is appalled by what he sees: disorganization, anger, threats of violence and a challenge to democracy itself.

Wilkerson, now a professor of government and public policy at The College of William and Mary, said Thursday in a conference call with Medill students that the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic shows a continued retreat of the country’s leadership in the global arena.

He identifies a national security crisis in the coronavirus pandemic because of the threats to military readiness and election preparedness.

Wilkerson’s sobering analysis was accompanied by concerns that the Trump administration is simply not up to dealing with the crisis.

“The unpreparedness was more or less the fault of certain people in this administration,” he said. “They knew better. They were briefed better.” He pointed to various exercises from the Rand Corporation and the Naval War College that showed how a pandemic-induced lockdown would adversely affect the country, and showed how a strong and immediate response from the federal government would be crucial to curb the spread.

The COVID-19 pandemic puts the United States in a potentially risky position from a military and defense standpoint. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper signed a stop-movement order at the beginning of April that halts most Department of Defense travel until June 30 as the Pentagon tries to prevent infection within the military. This could put the United States military at a disadvantage.

“When you freeze a military in place, you automatically encourage things like we’re hearing right now from intel sources, Russian movement in the Baltic states,” Wilkerson said. “You encourage other people in the world who might not be so concerned with coronavirus in their own states to take advantage of the fact that the U.S. military is, in a sense, immobile.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin already has his eyes on dismantling the United State’s fracking industry, and Wilkerson said it’s possible for him to take advantage of the economic unrest caused by the pandemic to advance his own goals.

“He’s been beating us all over the world, from Syria to Europe to Venezuela, largely because of our own strategic errors, but nevertheless he senses them and knows how to fall in on them and capitalize on them,” Wilkerson said.

The pandemic has most harshly affected the Navy, as there are currently 26 ships with confirmed cases, according to reporting from CNN. The Navy makes up about a third of the 3,578 total cases within the armed services, according to the Department of Defense — 776 cases alone were from the outbreak on the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

There is also, of course, the broader sense of national security that pays attention to the sense of safety among the American people.

“You’re hardly safe if a foreign army comes in and starts shooting you, or if a virus comes across your shore and starts killing your people,” he said.

Wilkerson, a member of the National Task Force on Election Crises, also said much of his concern is focused on how the pandemic could impact the November general elections. He said the group has run scenarios on how an emergency declaration — like the one in place now — could affect elections, even so far that governors could potentially cancel them outright in the name of public safety. He said he imagined a situation where state legislatures select the electors to decide the presidency, completely bypassing a public vote.

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what the results of that would be,” he said, referring to the 29 Republican-controlled state legislatures and 26 Republican governors.

“We have run scenarios that scare me,” he said. “And 31 years in the military—you can’t scare me too bad.”

The national security threats are accompanied by a lapse in leadership, according to Wilkerson. He has experience being in the room during global crises, most notably the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Trump and his Coronavirus Task Force have held about 40 televised press briefings, events often marred by verbal sparring sessions with reporters and promulgation of false claims relating to Covid-19 infection rate, treatment and testing capability. Wilkerson said that many of the people in the White House are “incredibly inexperienced” and ignored the seriousness of the pandemic until it was too late.

“The people in the White House put their pants on the same way you do,” he said. “They’re not superheroes. They’re not even close to superheroes. In fact, many of them are basically mediocre people. It’s the nature of our democracy.”

Wilkerson contrasted the Trump communication response to FDR’s s fireside chats during the Great Depression and World War II. Those chats, he said, gave a sense of calm leadership to an anxious America. As the country enters another bleak chapter with the Covid-19 pandemic, government leadership is not proving itself a source of comfort.

“[Fireside chats] worked in keeping the American people on an even keel,” he said. “We’re not seeing that today. We’re seeing very much elasticity in the remarks coming out of the White House.”