Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice criticizes the Trump administration’s coronavirus response

Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice criticizes the federal government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, compliments the leadership of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and explains why she sharply disagrees with Donald Trump’s use of the phrase “Chinese virus.”

Video Transcript

ANDY SERWER: I'm joined by Susan Rice, former national security advisor, former ambassador to the United Nations, and author of the "New York Times" bestseller "Tough Love." Ambassador Rice, nice to see you.

SUSAN RICE: Good to be with you, Andy.

ANDY SERWER: So two weeks ago, you wrote an op-ed piece in the "New York Times" that was critical of the federal government, saying that the government had failed when it comes to coronavirus. Do you still feel that way?

SUSAN RICE: I do, Andy, I do. I'm-- I'm afraid it's necessary to be frank about this. The "New York Times" actually, in the last couple days, had a story that elaborated how a wasted month got us behind the curve and got us, you know, in a position where we didn't have the test, we didn't have the equipment. It's actually not a wasted month. It's a wasted two months because it was actually early January when the secretary of Health and Human Services was alerted by Chinese counterparts that an outbreak was underway in Wuhan.

And from that moment, based on my experience as national security advisor and having worked the Ebola epidemic, Zika, having been part of the president's cabinet when we dealt with H1N1 swine flu in 2009, that's when all the gear start-- should have started turning because we have known for decades that a pandemic of global magnitude was imminent. In fact, we were overdue based on how frequently these things have happened in recent centuries.

And therefore, we had put in place during the Obama administration a number of mechanisms, including an office that I established under my leadership at the NSC, an office on global health security and biodefense that was supposed to be the early warning mechanism for something like this. So as soon as that call came from China, you should have understood that, in all likelihood, this was a disease with the potential to span. At that moment is when we should have begun working on putting in place the testing and having the testing capacity to spread across the nation rapidly.

It's the point at which we should have alerted the states and local authorities to begin to prepare to ensure that they had adequate supplies of masks, of ventilators, of personal protective equipment. We know that our health care infrastructure has gaps, has weaknesses, and those gaps are particularly pronounced in a crisis. And so we had early warning. We didn't take advantage of that time to prepare optimally, and that's in large part why we are behind the curve now. We still, though testing is ramped up, of course, we don't have enough. There are plenty of people who still can't get tests.

And we clearly don't have enough masks and ventilator and other protective gear to keep our health care workers and our first responders safe, and so that is a profound failing. And I-- I think the reality is, Andy, that as a result, we will have more Americans die than would have-- would have needed to be the case. Our economy will take a harder hit and will take longer to recover than would have been the case had we been optimally prepared.

And that's why at the end of the Obama administration, we left our colleagues in the Trump-- the incoming Trump administration with a 69-page playbook. We ran an exercise with the entire incoming cabinet, and I certainly briefed my successor on what we had done and why to prepare for pandemics because we recognized, as I wrote in my book and-- "Tough Love," and as I have said in-- in any number of speeches, that this is a nightmare scenario.

ANDY SERWER: Right. New York City, let's talk about that because it has become the epicenter of this virus. Today, a Navy hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, has come to New York, bringing support to the city's struggling hospital infrastructure. Are we doing enough in New York City? And what else could we do there?

SUSAN RICE: Well, I think Governor Cuomo has been a fabulous leader in a time of crisis. He's been very clear about what he and his experts estimate to be the needs in New York State for-- for hospital beds, for health care workers, for ventilators and protective gear. And he is trying to play beat the clock by building out, with federal support, the number of beds and the number of ventilated ICU units that are critical to be prepared for the surge, which he predicts could be, you know, 140,000 hospitalized patients at one time and requiring 30,000 to 40,000 ventilators. So he's doing his utmost.

And I think, you know, he would be the first to say that he appreciates what federal support he's received, but it's not yet enough. Thankfully, we are now seeing the Army Corps of Engineers mobilized to help build additional facilities. That's something that's going to have to happen not just in New York City and the nearby areas, but around the country. We have capacities that we are still not employing. The president has the authority under the Defense Production Act not just to tell GM to build some additional ventilators, but in fact, to organize the entirety of the supply chain for ventilators and protective equipment, and to say to all of the suppliers, you've got to do x by y time.

And then the federal government, very importantly, needs to be in charge of the distribution of those new ventilators and those coming out of the stockpile. Because right now, as you've heard every governor, Democratic and Republican, say multiple times, they're competing against each other and against the federal government for the vital lifesaving equipment they need. There's no reason that should be the case.

ANDY SERWER: And finally, Ambassador Rice, President Trump calls it-- has called this the Chinese virus, and you said that this is unnecessary, to put it mildly, and it demonizes foreigners. What do you mean by that precisely?

SUSAN RICE: Well, he's called it the Chinese virus. He's called it the Wuhan flu, along with Secretary Pompeo. He said it's a foreign virus. And the fact of the matter is, Andy, that pandemics and viruses don't wear flags. They don't know national borders. They can arise anywhere and spread anywhere. So in-- you know, we've heard a lot in recent days about the Spanish flu of 1918. The evidence is that that began in Kansas.

We've heard a lot about the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic. That, too, originated in North America-- Mexico and right thereafter the United States-- and spread around the globe. So there's plenty to criticize the Chinese for in terms of their domestic handling of this. But to brand it with a racist nationalistic tag and suggest that, you know, it's their fault that this arose and it's their responsibility to compensate the world, which is now sort of beginning to be the rhetoric, defies logic and defies history and is completely counterproductive.

At the end of the day, by definition, a pandemic is a global phenomenon. We have to stamp it out not just within our own shores, but in every part of the globe, because if we don't, it will come back and resurface and re-span the globe. So it's not good enough to end it in China or end it in the United States. We've got to deal with it in places from, you know, Ethiopia to-- to Burma, quite frankly. So it's just not rational. It's not productive. It's xenophobic. It's causing all kinds of, you know, reactions and-- and hostility towards Asian-Americans.

It's, you know, dangerous and-- and unfounded. And frankly, I-- I hate to say it, Andy, but it's part of the pattern that this president has employed demonizing groups of-- of people who come from backgrounds of color, whether Muslim-Americans or Mexican-Americans or African-Americans, now Asian-Americans. And it's just divisive, counterproductive, and-- and really not what we need and expect of our leadership in a time of crisis.

ANDY SERWER: Just a quick last question, Ambassador Rice. When do you think this will end, in the United States at least?

SUSAN RICE: I-- I wish I knew exactly, Andy. I'm not a public health specialist. I'm not a doctor. I do have a lot of policy experience with this [AUDIO OUT] expect that this level of lockdown that certainly people in New York and now increasingly people in the Washington area are experiencing is going to be with us, not just for weeks, but potentially for a few months. And we also need to be prepared, as the experts say, for the-- the potential that we have a slowdown in the spread of the virus, and then it comes back again with something of a vengeance in the fall and winter.

And so the goal here has to be to try to accelerate the adoption of a viable vaccine, which I believe the federal authorities and Dr. Fauci and others are working very hard on, and, at the same time, to try to ramp up any available treatments, which won't stop the spread of the disease, but will potentially mitigate its severity. And then it's crucial that each and every one of us as Americans and people living in this country do their part to really adhere to the strict social distancing requirements. Stay at home. Stay apart from each other.

When you have to go out for your critical, you know, supplies or-- or medicines, take this deadly seriously, because if you don't, more Americans will die, more health care workers will die. And, you know, the president said blithely yesterday that if 100,000 Americans or 200,000 Americans were to die, he would count that as a success. I don't know under what definition of decency that could possibly constitute a success.

But the good news, Andy, is to some extent, this is in our hands as Americans, as individuals, as citizens. We have the capacity to make this less bad than it would otherwise be, if we take these dictates to stay home, you know, avoid other people outside of your family unit. Only go outside for the most necessary errands and-- and recognize that that is the most important thing we can do to protect ourselves, protect our neighbors, protect the vulnerable, and save lives in the aggregate.

ANDY SERWER: Susan Rice, former national security advisor, former ambassador at the United Nations, and author of the "New York Times" bestseller "Tough Love." Thank you so much for your time, Ambassador Rice.

SUSAN RICE: Appreciate being with you.