On Saturday, The New York Times published a bombshell expose titled, “He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus.
The report was written by Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger, Maggie Haberman, Michael D. Shear, Mark Mazzetti and Julian E. Barnes — five of whom have been part of teams winning Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of the Trump administration.
Some of what was detailed in the report was based on “Red Dawn” email messages. Reporter Eric Lipton published a second story on the topic titled, “The ‘Red Dawn’ Emails: 8 Key Exchanges on the Faltering Response to the Coronavirus.”
“As the coronavirus emerged and headed toward the United States, an extraordinary conversation was hatched among an elite group of infectious disease doctors and medical experts in the federal government and academic institutions around the nation,” The Times reported.
“Red Dawn — a nod to the 1984 film with Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen — was the nickname for the email chain they built. Different threads in the chain were named Red Dawn Breaking, Red Dawn Rising, Red Dawn Breaking Bad and, as the situation grew more dire, Red Dawn Raging. It was hosted by the chief medical officer at the Department of Homeland Security, Dr. Duane C. Caneva, starting in January with a small core of medical experts and friends that gradually grew to dozens,” the newspaper explained.