Azar was apparently so cool with the leadership provided by his chief of staff, dog dude Brian Harrison, that he didn’t feel the need to engage with epidemiologists, or doctors, or any of the numerous agencies that should have been pulled into early planning. As The Wall Street Journal reports, that includes cutting out FEMA, because bringing in experts in planning for emergencies would only “complicate” the plans that he and Mr. Doodle were making for America.

Instead, Azar put Harrison—just back in D.C. from six years of running his family puppy mill—in charge of the entire nation’s entire coronavirus response. Despite having already told the media that the CDC had tests prepared on January 21, in truth there were no such tests. But Azar and Harrison set out to fix that. In the process, they apparently blocked any test put forward by companies who came to the FDA with functioning tests, none were given approval until February 29—a full month lost in the ability to distribute and conduct tests.

In the meantime, the CDC developed a test, issued the test, discovered problems with the test. The FDA visited the CDC and found that the lab which created the test was “a mess.” The CDC denied that the lab was a mess. The HHS launched an investigation of the CDC … and America has still not gotten up to speed with testing despite after being badly delayed at the start.

On Wednesday, Donald Trump was asked about how an inexperienced labradoodle breeder can be leading the national response to the biggest crisis in decades. Trump’s response was to deny knowing Harrison.

There’s no doubt that Harrison’s leadership has been incompetent. But then, Azar is incompetent. His “years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry” doesn’t come because he was a doctor or pharmacist. Azar is an attorney, who worked for Big Pharma as a lobbyist. Of course he told everyone who would listen that they could handle a killer disease without an issue—that’s what he had done for a living for years.

On Thursday morning, it’s clear that both Azar and his dog dude are on the outs. Not only had Trump given Harrison the sniff of denial, stories reporting Azar’s incompetence are suddenly everywhere. Notably, the WSJ’s report has it as Azar who is determined that the CDC develop its own test, and Azar covering up the fact that there were problems with testing—including in cabinet meetings.

But Azar’s incompetence, and how readily he appointed someone totally unprepared to a critical position, is only a mirror of the guy who put a Big Pharma lobbyist in charge of public health. The same guy who put a coal company lobbyist in charge of the environment. And an investment banker in charge of the Treasury. And Jared Kushner in charge of #$@$ing everything.

Harrison and Azar look to be the designated fall guys in this stage of the unfolding drama, and there’s no doubt they deserve to fall. But if there’s one thing that does trickle down from the top in the Trump White House, it’s incompetence.