Former Trump Homeland Security Advisor: Government ‘Acknowledging Mistakes’ With COVID-19 Could Help Rebuild Trust

On Sunday, Tom Bossert, former Homeland Security Advisor to President Donald Trump, appeared on  ABC’s “This Week” to discuss COVID-19.

During the segment, Bossert asserted that the federal government should admit that is has made “significant mistakes” in order to regain trust with the American people.

“And messaging and public trust is important in this. And the messaging has been confusing,” host Martha Raddatz said.

Bossert replied, saying that the responsibility of the federal government is “procuring these vaccines and treatments, and we’ve made some significant mistakes there, failed to make big bets.”

He added that the COVID-19 treatment drug Paxlovid should have been ordered much earlier, but was instead waited on. “And so now the messaging breaks that public trust. Admit that, and I think they’d earn some trust. Then we’d be able to move forward,” Bossert said.

The former homeland security advisor continued, noting that crisis management requires three things, which are “clear and consistent messaging, telling people what you know and don’t know, and acknowledging mistakes…”

He said that if one of those is broken, things can go sideways.

Federal officials need to admit that they’ve made “some significant mistakes” during COVID-19 response in order to regain public trust, former Trump Homeland Security adviser Tom Bossert says.

“Then we’d be able to move forward.” https://t.co/qnYh49s1LW pic.twitter.com/qIbWBVRtbr

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) January 16, 2022

TRANSCRIPT:

RADDATZ: And messaging and public trust is important in this. And the messaging has been confusing.

BOSSERT: The federal government really has two big, primary roles. The first is procuring these vaccines and treatments, and we’ve made some significant mistakes there, failed to make big bets. The doctor mentioned that we — we’ve got another Merck drug that we’ve ordered. But they ordered that one early in the test trial phase. That’s what they should have done with Paxlovid. They waited six months for second and third phase trials, and they shouldn’t have done that.

And so now the messaging breaks that public trust. Admit that, and I think they’d earn some trust. Then we’d be able to move forward.

If we change our messaging, vacillate on our, on our belief set, lose sight of our common purpose or goal, people pick up on that and they don’t trust anymore. So, in fact, I tell people that, in a crisis, which is what this is, clear and consistent messaging, telling people what you know and don’t know, and acknowledging mistakes and moving on are the three keys to maintaining trust. And if you break any one of them, you’ll have a harder time with the underlying core response plan and its execution.

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