Republicans 'have committed political suicide' as Trump flails on outbreak: analysis

President Donald Trump’s reaction to a recent outbreak suggests that America could be in serious trouble in the event of a more serious pandemic, a conservative recently warned.

“They know that Donald Trump has spent much of his second presidency waging an all-out assault on America’s global health infrastructure—by downsizing or eliminating existing agencies and programs, and transforming them in ways that make them instruments of other goals like extracting mineral rights or ending DEI,” The Bulwark’s Jonathan Cohn wrote on Sunday. “This assault has also included withdrawing from the World Health Organization, and from global health cooperation more generally.”

Cohn added, “That has left the federal government without some of the tools, systems, and personnel it has deployed in the past. The result is a federal response to outbreaks that is weaker overall, and could falter in the face of a more serious threat.”

After breaking down how the hantavirus outbreak both observed that “the CDC hasn’t ‘had a press briefing, we haven’t heard anybody talk about mobilizing investigators across the world who are already working on potential treatments,’” Jeanne Marrazzo, an internationally recognized physician who now leads the Infectious Diseases Society of America, told Cohn by phone. Overall, Marrazzo expressed concern that gutting the CDC weakened America’s ability to effectively monitor and contain outbreaks, with the hit-or-miss reaction to the hantavirus incident serving as key evidence of this.

Cohn is not alone among writers for The Bulwark to issue this warning. Lauren Egan, a reporter for the conservative website The Bulwark, wrote for The Bulwark on August 31st that “the descent of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention into an agency of anti-vaccine agendas and organizational chaos…. has created additional fodder for Democrats already keen on campaigning on health care in 2026.” She mentioned that Democrats like Sen. Patty Murray of Washington have focused on the controversial policies promulgated by Trump officials like Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"Democrats are already attacking Republicans for passing Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' that cut Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, which could leave nearly 12 million Americans newly uninsured and unable to afford basic health care," Egan wrote. "When Republicans return to D.C., they will face pressure to extend the enhanced ACA subsidies, which were created with the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and are set to expire at the end of the year…. Some Dem officials and health care advocates see parallels between the upcoming midterms and the 2018 cycle, when the party focused its campaigns on Trump's failed attempt to repeal Obamacare. The difference this time around is that Republicans actually succeeded in passing their legislation."

Brad Woodhouse, executive director of Protect Our Care, warned Egan that the issue of health care costs will be politically fraught for Republicans in 2026.

As Woodhouse told The Bulwark, "I do think it's gonna be a health care election, but I think it's gonna be wrapped into this whole issue of affordability. There's a wicked brew here that is amassing against Republicans, and it's all self-inflicted. They've committed political suicide."

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