The claim: The Brookings Institution estimated Trump’s ‘inaction’ is responsible for 70% of COVID-19 deaths
An April 18 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows a silhouette of former President Donald Trump set against a red background.
“The Brookings Institute estimates that Trump’s inaction is responsible for 70% of Covid deaths,” reads text included in the post.
Another version of the claim spread widely on X, formerly Twitter.
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Our rating: False
A spokesperson for the Brookings Institution said she is not aware of such an estimate from the organization. There is no record of such a finding on the institution’s website.
One study says Trump was ‘decisive factor’ in ‘sub-optimal’ US pandemic response, but not Brookings
Nothing matching the purported findings in the post is on the website or social media pages for the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
“We are not aware of any research by our experts that states this finding,” said Brookings Institution spokesperson Andrea Risotto.
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There have been studies that examined Trump’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and attempted to estimate the number of avoidable deaths, just not from the Brookings Institution.
A 2021 article from the medical journal Lancet said there were “tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths” during the pandemic in part because of what it described as “disdain for science” and less funding for public health agencies. The study estimated that 40% of deaths in the U.S. “could have been averted had the U.S. death rate mirrored the weighted average of the other G7 nations.”
A study published in the Public Administration academic journal in March 2022 states that “while not responsible for everything that went wrong, President Trump was a decisive factor behind the tragically sub‐optimal U.S. pandemic response.”
During his presidency, Trump made various remarks about COVID-19 that contradicted medical experts and froze funding to the World Health Organization over its response to the outbreak.
The Brookings Institution has also published content criticizing Trump’s response to the pandemic, including a 2021 column that said “Trump’s inaction highlighted the central role that governors would have to play” in combatting the virus.
Trump did take steps to address the COVID-19 pandemic. He announced Operation Warp Speed to enable faster development and approval of a COVID-19 vaccine and signed a $2 trillion stimulus package that sent direct payments of $1,200 to millions of Americans and offered funding for hard-hit industries in March 2020.
USA TODAY has debunked an array of false claims about Trump, including that a judge said he didn’t attend four of his children’s graduations, that he never visited American troops overseas during his presidency and that he was criminally prosecuted for taking out and repaying a loan.
USA TODAY reached out to users who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Our fact-check sources:
- Andrea Risotto, April 26, Email exchange with USA TODAY
- Brookings Institution, accessed April 25, Facebook page search
- Brookings Institution, accessed April 25, Website search
- Brookings Institution, accessed April 25, X search
- Brookings Institution, Sept. 16, 2021, Pandemic Politics: Why Gavin Newsom beat the recall and Ron DeSantis is in trouble
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