The Contemporary Presidency: Two Presidents, Two Crises: Bush Wrestles with 9/11, Trump Fumbles COVID‐19

This article compares the response of Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump to the two largest crises since the Cuban missile affair: 9/11 and the COVID‐19 pandemic. In examining how each president handled the early warnings, crisis communication, decision making, bureaucratic management, and the public response, we find a mixed picture. Employing these five criteria, it seems at this juncture that while the Bush response ultimately had some successes and some troubling long‐term consequences, the Trump crisis response is destined, in the absence of some dramatic change in events, to be ranked as among the worst in presidential history. Keywords: Trump, Bush, Covid‐19, 9/11, presidents, presidency, crisis management