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Comment by jimbob45 | Hacker News Reader

As a thought experiment, who would have access to the most information in the world outside of the sitting POTUS? The richest man in the world? Surely Trump of all people would be the most qualified to make such a claim.

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Trump was... not an ordinary president. In particular, he didn't pay very much attention to his briefings. He may have had access to the information, but there's less indication that he used that access, and plenty of indication that he frequently shot his mouth of contrary to the facts. Whether he did so in this case is not proven, but the parent's argument doesn't work for the particular president in question.

While he may have been less than attentive to these things, he would use every bit of information that was available to him to advance his agenda and he had people around him who read/in those briefings who knew and support his agenda. Certainly his agenda pre-pandemic as it related to China was pretty much an economic war for lack of a better description.

If your intention is to motivate Americans away from Chinese products, what better way to do it then to use a scary virus that seemed to emerge from China to that end.

I don't think Trump is patient enough to sit and read. It's more likely he wanted people to tell him what's important that he needs to know about.

I'm speculating of course but if you think about it, can you imagine him sitting patiently reading documents first thing in the morning? He would get bored so quickly he would end up on twitter to complain or gloat.

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