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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump only shifted his tone as the coronavirus virus spread to Trump country.
The national debate set off by Donald Trumps announcement that he wanted churches packed on Easter was, like so many Trump crises, a self-inflicted one. In the days after Trump tweeted that WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF, his medical advisers, led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, implored Trump not to relax the governments social distancing guidelines. Trump dug in. His view was: I need to show people that there is light at the end of the tunnel, a former West Wing official told me. Under pressure, members of the coronavirus task force discussed privately how parts of the country might be opened in April, but cautioned Trump not to get locked into a specific timetable given the deteriorating conditions in New York hospitals and ominous upticks in cases in New Orleans, Detroit, and elsewhere. They discussed it internally, but they never intended Trump to announce it, a Republican working with the task force told me.
Trumps impulsive decisionand its messy aftermathconsumed the West Wing during the critical week that governors were pleading with the White House to deliver medical supplies before hospital systems began to collapse. It was totally crazy, the Republican told me. Dr. Fauci, Senator Lindsey Graham, and others raced to convince Trump that an Easter opening would be a cataclysmic error that could cost millions of lives. This is a very, very stressful situation for everybody, including me, Fauci told me in a phone interview on Monday. By last weekend Faucis arguments broke through: Trump agreed to extend the social distancing guidelines until the end of April.
Trumps latest tonal and tactical shift (and almost certainly not the last) was driven by several factors, both personal and political. Trump learned that his close friend, 78-year-old New York real estate mogul Stan Chera, had contracted COVID-19 and fallen into a coma at NewYork-Presbyterian. Boy, did that hit home. Stan is like one of his best friends, said prominent New York Trump donor Bill White. Trump also grew concerned as the virus spread to Trump country. The polling sucked. The campaign panicked about the numbers in red states. They dont expect to win states that are getting blown to pieces with coronavirus, a former West Wing official told me. From the beginning of the crisis, Trump had struggled to see it as anything other than a political problem, subject to his usual arsenal of tweets and attacks and bombast. But he ultimately realized that as bad as the stock market was, getting coronavirus wrong would end his presidency. The campaign doesnt matter anymore, he recently told a friend, what I do now will determine if I get reelected.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/inside-trumps-decision-to-back-off-of-his-easter-coronavirus-miracle
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)he has co-conspirators, and accessories to the fact, and present and intended victims, but he has no friends.
marble falls
(57,077 posts)The campaign doesnt matter anymore, he recently told a friend, what I do now will determine if I get reelected.
Good for us, not so good for him.
True Blue American
(17,984 posts)BComplex
(8,036 posts)We have got to get rid of this idiot in November, and ALL of the republicans in the senate, and most of the republicans in the house.
And...in all the state houses, city councils, and county commissions across the country.
NMRE
No More Republicans EVER
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)said he seemed scared.
jls4561
(1,257 posts)How much of that is being stored at Merde-a-Lardo?
NCDem47
(2,248 posts)When it turns to white, rural America, it will be all hands on deck.
7wo7rees
(5,128 posts)A madman in charge. We are f 'ed.
Sorry.