No, it doesn't matter because the moment Trump 'changed his tune' all of his followers erased in their minds the history of him denying reality. To them, he was

No, it doesn't matter because the moment Trump 'changed his tune' all of his followers erased in their minds the history of him denying reality. To them, he was always acting with foresight. You cannot discredit someone who robbed a bank and literally denies it the next day, along with millions of followers who also deny it even having seen the robbery first hand. Your assumption of 'credit' implies some kind of rationality, there isn't. It's just a big personality fight. Whatever Trump does or says is right, by virtue of the fact he said it. FYI - the same could apply to popular characters of other kinds, this not just Trump, he's just a good example. Edit: I should add, I feel this way specifically because I enjoy reading comments from various news sources as a measure of certain kinds of populism, and about 2/3 of the commenters currently on FoxNews are very pro Trump, often hailing is 'early action' etc. on the issue, completely disregarding the fact that only days ago, he was dismissing the issue as a hoax, literally indicating 'we only have a few cases, it will be zero soon' - all the while Wuhan and other places blow out of control. This should be enough to destroy any leaders' credibility. And of course, this is not a left/right/up/down thing, there are leaders of all political stripes who either do such ridiculous things or, who are credible - but still have followers who'll believe their statements over any kind of reality. I think this is more common than not: we believe personalities more than we believe facts.