Just over a month ago, as the deadly coronavirus spread around the globe and the Dow Jones Industrial Average reacted by falling a now quaint 600 points, Donald Trump, who cares exclusively about the stock market and his reelection chances, reportedly “grew concerned that any stronger action by his administration would hurt the economy,” telling advisers not to “do or say anything that would further spook the markets.” How’d that plan of action, or in this case inaction, work out for the president? In a word, badly. In two words, quite badly. In 40 words, like a bomb that won’t stop exploding in your face, even after the flesh has been completely singed off and the only thing that’s left is a light shadow of bronzer that went all the way through to the bone. One, because the virus has since surged outside of mainland China, with cases in the U.S. topping 500 and the stateside and global death counts hitting 22 and nearly 4,000, respectively. And two, because those 600 points represent a simpler time, when panic had barely registered and all-out pandemonium was but a glimmer in the global markets’ collective eye. Fast-forward a little more than a month later, and things have changed just a bit!

From the Archive: Profiles in Wall Street Panic

On Monday the Dow Jones dropped more than 1,800 points at the open while the S&P 500 fell more than 7%, a massive sell-off that triggered a circuit breaker and halted trading for 15 minutes. (If it falls 13%, there will be another 15-minute pause; if it falls 20%, the markets will close for the day.) Why is all this happening? Well it turns out that President Windmills Give You Cancer doesn’t actually have any idea what he’s talking about, and the rapidly spreading disease is going to have a big impact on the global economy. On Sunday the threat of a “coronavirus-fueled oil war” hit crude prices by more than 20%, after Saudi Arabia, deadlocked with Russia over production, announced that it would slash the price of oil it sells and flood the market with hundreds of thousands more barrels per day at a huge discount. That may sound like a sweet deal, but it’s actually not a good thing. “Cheap oil is one thing. Super-cheap oil is another,” John Kilduff, of Again Capital, told the Washington Post. “The stock market is looking at the oil-price plunge as a canary in the coal mine of a disinflationary one-two punch, driven partly by cratering demand for transportation fuels and a wanton price war among the major oil producers” that will result in serious losses for U.S. and Canadian producers. In times like these, steady leadership can often do wonders or, at the very least, not make things worse. Unfortunately we’ve got Donald Trump, who spent the morning—one of the most consequential of his presidency!—doing this:

In addition, Trump lashed out at New York governor Andrew Cuomo, accusing him of “political weaponization” of the virus, while also referring to the governor’s brother, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, as “Fredo,” because if there’s a time to bust out references to The Godfather, it’s now. The attack was actually Trump’s second against the governor of a Democratic state since Friday, having described Washington’s Jay Inslee as a “snake” while touring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta, telling reporters he had urged Vice President Mike Pence not to be complimentary to Inslee re: his handling of the crisis.

Meanwhile, if you were holding out hope that the administration had things handled behind the scenes, keep holding: