“I have to tell you, Anderson, I’ve never seen President Trump like this … I think, to some extent, he is scared right now, Anderson, and we could all feel that in the [briefing] room … This was a different Donald Trump tonight. I think he gets it, Anderson.” — Jim Acosta, cnn reporter, on “Anderson Cooper 360,” quoted at Breitbart, 3/31/20

“This is the most effective job of communicating President Trump has done during this crisis.” — John Harwood, cnn reporter, on Twitter, 3/31/20

It was the high point for the media, the apex, if you will: the task force briefing when President Trump soberly extended the “federal guidance” for another 30 days, based on the vaunted model projections of up to 240,000 deaths even with perfect obedience to guidelines.

The drive-bys were ecstatic. “Finally! Trump is scared! He knows this is the apocalypse! He gets it! He realizes this is the impossible problem that will bring down his Presidency! Hooray, Trump has succumbed to our scare tactics!”

But it’s been downhill ever since for the Democrat operatives in the media, as Trump has fielded every drama-of-the-day hysteria they’ve thrown at him. He has solved multiple enormous and seemingly intractable government problems, while regularly announcing “tremendous light at the end of the tunnel.”

Then, by April 18, Trump was using the task force briefing to gloat that the left’s celebrations of his defeat were premature; in fact he was the one who defeated them: “All you have to do is look at the big ‘V’ for victory or ‘V’ for ventilator … Everybody said they had us on that; they had us. They thought they had us, but we got them done at numbers that nobody would have believed.” What a huge “Screw you!” to the press, but it went by so fast I don’t think anyone noticed. I didn’t see any coverage of it. “You people really thought you had me! Nope, not even close! I got the V for victory on that!”

But the brief moment the media believed their own talking points about Trump being “scared” is a teachable moment. You know why the media thought Trump’s supposed fear was wonderful? Because they thought it signified that Trump was not invincible. Trump was vulnerable. If Trump is scared, that means they can get Trump. It means Trump is not all-powerful and all-confident in dealing with this crisis.

That’s the only reason John Harwood praised Trump’s “effective job of communicating.” Harwood believed Trump was communicating weakness, that he finally realized he can’t do anything about this disease. Harwood was convinced Trump was communicating that he can’t fix it — and therefore, he can’t be Trump! Yay! Trump’s powerless! Trump’s gettable.

For a short, happy (for them) instant, the left thought this crisis had defeated Trump. They believed Trump had been beaten, that he was not larger than coronavirus, that his mission to get the country past this was lost. It excited them.

This is what they want you to believe, that we’re powerless, that all we can do is sit here and be attacked by covid-19: “There’s nothing we can do. We can’t stop what’s happening. Trump can’t do a damn thing about it, a position he’s never been in before. Trump ran on ‘I alone can fix it.’ He always thought he could fix everything, but he can’t fix this.”

It’s 180 degrees out of phase. The last thing I’ve ever detected in Trump is a single hint of fear. It’s just not in him. In fact, as I watch these White House task force briefings what occurs to me more and more is how spot-on and informed Donald Trump has become about every aspect of this problem. The President often says, “We’ve learned a lot.” That’s certainly true when it comes to Trump; his expertise on all things coronavirus has become remarkable. As such, he dominates the press conferences, which absolutely infuriates the media. Anderson Cooper even angrily accused Trump of “hijacking” his own briefings [see “Stupid Quotes“], which is hilarious.

A dominant President Trump makes them livid, which is why a (perceived) weak President Trump makes them delighted. But Trump is the farthest thing from weak or scared. His entire record on this is one of operating from strength. He has called the entire country to be involved in solving this. He has mounted what he calls a “whole-of-government” approach, marshalling all of the vast federal resources. He has created a “public-private partnership” to marry the government power with the entrepreneurial nimbleness of the private sector.

And he’s telling the entire country that we can do this. He has bypassed the drive-by media — he talks to us directly every day — which is at the heart of what upsets them. They are furious that they can’t mediate him or recast what he says because he has direct access to you.

The public-private partnerships combine optimism and patriotism with determination. You know, Andrew Cuomo occasionally does say some things well, and I liked what he noted during one televised briefing: “Government process is very good at saying, ‘Well, we’re trying. We’re working on this. We’re doing our best.’ Winston Churchill [said], ‘It is no use saying we’re doing our best. You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.’”

I think that’s profound. Usually when someone whines, “I’m doing the best I can,” the sensitive response is to applaud and give him an A for effort. “Congratulate him! He’s trying his best!”

Doing one’s best is certainly worthy, but it’s the results that ultimately matter. What if your effort falls short? Especially in a crisis, everybody has to do what’s necessary. Doing your best doesn’t guarantee getting to the finish line. It’s good for participation trophies, but it doesn’t equal doing what is necessary — and in Trump’s world, you do what is necessary. It has to get done, period.

And speaking of Trump’s world, I’ve noticed how often many of the members of the task force use the term “Trump time” when giving their updates. Nobody has had to define this; it means no-excuses, solve-the-problem, don’t-wait-for-bureaucracy, push-the-bottom-line, make-it-happen-immediately, produce. Every obstacle hyped by the press — testing, masks, ventilators, hospital beds — gets solved by the Trump team going into hyperdrive, doing it in “Trump time” rather than “government time.” It’s been absolutely revolutionary and never mentioned by the drive-bys.

The President points it out, though, as he did at the April 20 briefing:

“Testing” is [now] the big word. Remember, it was all ventilators. And the reason it was all ventilators — they said, “There’s no way he’ll ever be able to catch this one.” And not only did we catch it, we are now the king of ventilators all over the world. We can send them anywhere. We have thousands being made a week. And they’re very high quality. That wasn’t playing well so then they said, “Testing, testing, we’ll get him on testing.” Well, testing is much easier than ventilators … Remember, it was all about ventilators a month ago. “Ventilators, ventilators,” then we fixed it. You don’t hear about ventilators … [Y]ou [reporters] haven’t asked about ventilators recently. What’s going on?

Trump created something called the national Dynamic Ventilator Reserve, by which these sophisticated machines can be immediately deployed wherever needed, with military precision. We are building tens of thousands of them, meaning our country is now perfectly prepared, instead of bereft, as previous Administrations left us. The logistics and innovation involved in inventing and making operational this system in literally weeks are beyond stunning.

Trump took a similar approach with testing. Having been handed a ridiculously outmoded testing protocol — with the vaunted cdc initially sending out covid-19 test kits actually tainted with covid-19, rendering them useless — Trump brought in the private labs. They were quickly up and ready, able to process millions of tests all over the country. America went from dealing with an unpleasant procedure that took weeks for results and could only be processed in a few government labs to where we are today, with widely available test machines that can give results in five minutes and the fda having just approved a home testing kit.

And speaking of approvals, Trump has cut through the bureaucratic red tape at every bottleneck, deploying field hospitals and hospital ships, and winning unheard-of lightning-speed emergency drug and testing approvals. He has overdelivered — to the point that the states are now sending these assets, which they now don’t need, elsewhere.

These kinds of accomplishments do not result from Presidential fright. They are happening because Trump is motivating and leading, bringing the right people in so they can do what is necessary. As candidate, Trump answered during the 2016 campaign, when asked how he would accomplish his agenda: “Management.”

Donald Trump is not afraid of anything. But since I’m focusing on this as a teachable moment, let’s look back at what President Donald Trump actually said at the 3/31/20 task force briefing in which he was supposedly shaking in his boots:

I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead. We’re going to go through a very tough two weeks. And then, hopefully, as the experts are predicting, as I think a lot of us are predicting after having studied it so hard, you’re going to start seeing some real light at the end of the tunnel.

But this is going to be a very, very painful two weeks. When you look and see … the kind of death that’s been caused by this invisible enemy, it’s incredible … As a nation, we face a difficult few weeks as we approach that really important day when we’re going to see things get better — all of a sudden.

And it’s going to be like a burst of light, I really think and I hope. Our strength will be tested and our endurance will be tried, but America will answer with love and courage and ironclad resolve.

Does this sound even remotely like fear to you? Nope. It’s the exact opposite. It’s strength. And leadership — even statesmanship. And it’s the plain truth, with a bit of the visionary thrown in. Let’s roll!

Illustration ©2020 by permission of A.F. Branco and Creators Syndicate, Inc.