- Some Republican governors have been holding regular conference calls to complain about President Trump and exchange ideas on how to deal with the coronavirus outbreak, The New York Times reported.
- In recent months, several Republican lawmakers have broken with the president to endorse measures to restrict the coronavirus as it spreads across the territories of the Republican Party.
- Trump has continued to downplay the importance of rising infection rates across the country, and has refused to unequivocally support simple preventive measures such as wearing masks.
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A group of Republican governors have participated in secret conferences where they share advice on how to deal with the coronavirus outbreak that is spreading across their states, and they vent on President Donald Trump’s erratic response to the crisis, The New York Times reported.
Republican governors have held calls for months, “usually at night and with no personnel present,” The Times reported, citing two party strategists familiar with the talks.
The calls are described in the report as “a kind of safe space where governors can ask their counterparts for advice, discuss best practices and, if they feel like it, vent on the administration and the erratic leadership of the president.”
In recent weeks, cracks began to appear among Republican governors in their support of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, as the infection rate continues to rise in historically Republican states in the south and west.
Some Republican lawmakers have even publicly broken with the president to unequivocally endorse the use of masks and other measures to control the spread of the virus. They include Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, one of the president’s biggest supporters.
Trump has expressed support for wearing masks, but he refused to wear one in public for months. In an interview with Fox News Sunday, he said he would not order Americans to wear masks.
Lindsey Graham, the influential Republican senator from South Carolina, is among those who have expressed their support for Dr. Anthony Fauci, a key member of the White House coronavirus task force, after the White House attempted to undermine him by doing circulate a list of what you said you had made to reporters.
Since then, the White House has moved away from the attacks on Fauci.
