The Premonition: A Pandemic Story

by Michael Lewis

Outside the VA, at least a few people from his White House days had not lost track of Carter Mecher. Tom Bossert, for example. As deputy homeland security adviser to George W. Bush, Bossert had watched Carter and Richard reinvent pandemic planning, reinterpret the greatest pandemic in human history, resurrect the idea that a society could control a new disease by using social distancing in its various forms, and then somehow lead the CDC to the conclusion that the whole thing had been their idea. Donald Trump had shunned most anyone associated with any former president but had made an exception of Bossert, whom he’d named his first homeland security adviser. “The job I had was chief risk officer for the country,” said Bossert. “And it should have been named that.” After his appointment, Bossert built a team of people to deal with biological risks, and instantly called Richard Hatchett and Carter Mecher. I just want you to know that if the shit ever hits the fan, the first phone call I’m making is to you, he’d said. He considered clearing Carter and Richard into the White House in the first days of the Trump administration so that in the event of some disease outbreak, they could fly in and get right to work. But then, on April 9, 2018, Trump hired John Bolton as his national security adviser, and the next day, Bolton fired Tom Bossert, and demoted or fired everyone on the biological threat team. From that moment on, the Trump White House lived by the tacit rule last observ...