As much as I was an opponent of our Glorious Imperial Mission in Iraq, and as much as I thought it was likely to be a disaster even aside from all the dead people, it was also the case that... wow they fucked it up! This was their (Bush, the Neocons, the whole gang) initiative and they sent a bunch of Heritage interns to run the damn country. Sure there's dumb ideology and sure massive quantities of cash just disappeared into pockets, but even with those things you can still think "wow, maybe we should try to do a decent job here, I mean after our friends get billions of dollars of course, if only so we can do it again next year in Iran!" But they just couldn't do it.
How hard is it to just tell the CDC to "do whatever." They probably have some idea. And the problem isn't Trump, though he certainly isn't bringing even the conservative A game. They are unable to not fuck things up. It's just Republican governance.