In late February, the Trump administration was publicly playing down the severity of the worsening coronavirus epidemic. But in private, White House officials had a different story — and that information was shared with top traders who made fortuitous bets against the market.
Trump advisers conceded concerns about the coronavirus in private meetings with board members of the conservative Hoover Institution on Feb. 24, Kate Kelly and Mark Mazzetti of The Times report. Larry Kudlow, the White House’s chief economic adviser, told the group that the virus was “contained in the U.S., to date, but now we just don’t know,” hours after saying on CNBC that containment efforts were “pretty close to airtight.”
The circulation of the briefing, Kate and Mark write, shows “how elite traders had access to information from the administration that helped them gain financial advantage” when global markets were teetering.
Today’s DealBook Briefing was written by Andrew Ross Sorkin and Lauren Hirsch in New York, Ephrat Livni in Washington and Michael J. de la Merced and Jason Karaian in London.