But Kellyanne Conway, the president’s adviser, publicly said that the president’s poll numbers were better when he was doing the briefings and that he hoped he would do it again. Vice President Mike Pence’s team has also wanted him to do more, but the president’s communications aides were enraged at the vice president who appeared to them when they thought Trump should be leading the effort. At the end of last week, Mr. Kushner and Ms. Hicks were reconsidering their concerns, according to people familiar with the discussions.
“The pandemic is the number 1 topic of conversation around family dinners and Zoom conversations, so the president is smart to make sure his message gets to those discussions,” said Cliff Sims, a former media adviser to the White House under Trump’s command. “If we learned anything during the 2016 campaign and at the White House, it is that he is always his best messenger and our ability to shape the debate is always enhanced by having him at the forefront.”
But Democrats scoffed at the idea that the president would better handle briefings this time. “It is quite clear that resumption of briefings is more about Trump feeding his own ego, in the absence of other forums, and sharing his own distorted version of the story directly with his base, rather than sharing updates based on done with the American public, “said Jen Psaki, White House director of communications under President Barack Obama.
The original coronavirus briefings from March to April were television events, with scientific information provided by public health experts often overshadowed by a confrontational president who punished governors, lawmakers, China, journalists and others he deemed insufficiently grateful for his leadership. He used them to defend his administration’s response to the virus and to promote a pet medication as a possible treatment on the advice of his own experts.
Trump eventually stopped holding them after they taunted him for suggesting that people could counter the virus by ingesting or injecting disinfectants like bleach, a casual comment he sent to public health agencies to warn the public not to try that approach. because it can be fatal
But in recent weeks, the surge in cases has frustrated Trump’s efforts to minimize the severity of the continuing pandemic. The United States now records more than double the number of cases each day than during the heyday of daily briefings, and the number of deaths, which had decreased substantially, has also begun to increase again.
White House officials have said in recent days that the president is too busy to attend the coronavirus task force meetings and that he is “working 24 hours” on the virus. But even when hospitals fill up and governors reverse decisions to reopen, Trump has continued to insist that the virus will simply go away on its own.
