Washington (CNN) – President Donald Trump and other White House officials are on the attack against the coronavirus, but also against the President’s critics, who say his administration was slow to respond to the burgeoning pandemic and aren’t doing enough to protect Americans.

At a February 27 press conference meant to reassure the public, Trump seemed to spend more time defending his own actions than explaining what was being done to combat the coronavirus.

“I took a lot of heat,” Trump said about the travel ban he imposed in January, which blocked people who were in China from entering the United States. “Some people called me racist because I made a decision so early… It was a bold decision, and it turned out to be a good decision.”

The next morning, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney defended the administration’s response, saying, “We took extraordinary steps four or five weeks ago.” He touted the travel ban and the decision to impose the first federal quarantines in more than 50 years.

By the end of February, Trump and administration officials started shifting their tone. They spoke about the expected uptick in cases and Trump backed away from his comment that concerns about the virus were a “hoax” peddled by Democrats to help them at the polls this November.

A close examination of the timeline from the past two months reveals how US health officials took active steps to deal with the crisis as information trickled out of China, a country led by an authoritarian government that has been criticized for its censorship and handling of the crisis.

Regardless, with the available information, US health officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took bold steps to prepare for the outbreak. Members of Trump’s Cabinet also got involved and started briefing lawmakers, though much of the action on Capitol Hill was focused on impeachment – which Mulvaney pointed out in his remarks at CPAC.

While public health officials and medical experts rightly raised the alarm, Trump downplayed their concerns and injected controversial and unproven theories into the conversation. Throughout his presidency, Trump has undermined and contradicted public statements from other senior US officials, but never before about life-or-death issues like a possible pandemic.