Coronavirus, Power & Security, Public Health Trump's illness raises national security concerns as Pentagon looks to reassure public

Perry World House's John Gans is quoted in this piece from CNN looking at what President Trump's illness means for national security.

Military leaders moved quickly to reassure the American public Friday that it was business as usual at the Pentagon despite President Donald Trump's announcement that he tested positive for coronavirus, making it clear in the hours that followed there was no indication of an immediate threat to the US homeland from a foreign adversary...

But at the same time, Trump's illness "only makes that already chaotic system more chaotic," according to John Gans, a former Pentagon speechwriter and author of a book on the national security council who added that the President's own actions while in office may increase the risks of a "total breakdown in government."

"It is important to remember that most of the modern American national security infrastructure and processes were built because of the instability wrought by infirm or injured presidents," Gans, who served under the Obama administration, told CNN. "Because of the way Trump's runs government, his illness, like Roosevelt's death and Reagan's incapacitation, risks a total breakdown in decision making in government.

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