For Americans concerned about public-health challenges, Friday afternoon brought a series of discouraging headlines. For example, we learned late last week that the United States has recorded more cases of measles in 2026 than in any other year since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000 — and this year isn’t yet over. Around the same time, roughly 1.5 million dozen white and brown cage-free eggs were recalled due to potential salmonella contamination.
And then, of course, there’s the cyclospora problem: Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday that they’ve linked cases of a diarrhea-causing parasite tied to shredded lettuce to additional states, bringing the new total to nine states.
As Friday came to an end, Frank Yiannas, who served as the Food and Drug Administration’s deputy commissioner for food policy and response under Donald Trump and Joe Biden, called for an independent review of the federal government’s response to the cyclospora outbreak.
“This one deserves a lot of questions, and it is starting to approach a catastrophic level in terms of how mismanaged it’s been on multiple fronts,” Yiannas told Politico. Pointing to the outbreak’s magnitude and widespread consumer confusion, he went on to criticize the “lack of strong federal leadership.”
It was against this backdrop that the incumbent president fielded some questions from reporters on Friday during an unrelated event in the Oval Office. “There’s this nasty parasite that is giving people in nine states explosive diarrhea,” Fox News’ Peter Doocy said. “When is it going to be safe to eat lettuce again?”
“I don’t know,” Trump replied. “I haven’t thought about it. It’s the first time I’ve been asked that question.”
At that point, the Republican apparently thought it’d be a good idea to joke about the subject. “Are you eating lettuce recently?” the president said to laughter.
As the back and forth continued, Trump concluded, “I think what we’re going to do is we’re going to put a major tariff on Mexico because of the lettuce,” which generated more laughs in the room — as if a public-health issue that’s sickened thousands of people is little more than a punch line to an unfortunate joke.
It’s hardly unreasonable to think the American public might look to the White House for some guidance on this intensifying public health issue, but by the president’s own admission, he doesn’t know anything about the issue, hasn’t thought about the problem, and hadn’t even been asked about this until Friday afternoon, at which point he struggled to hide his indifference.
Reassuring it was not.
As for the broader political context, Trump has personally invested an enormous amount of time and energy into accusing Biden of having been a doddering old “autopen” president who was unaware of events unfolding around him. Given the frequency with which President Bystander clings to “I don’t know” responses, he should probably consider a new line of attack.
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