“The president was bored with that,” Dave Carney, a longtime Republican strategist who advises Texas Governor Greg Abbott, told the Times.
And a look back at Trump’s response to the virus absolutely validates Carney’s opinion. In the early months of 2020, Trump downplayed the virus, repeatedly.
“He is a person who comes from China and we have him under control,” he said in January. “It’s going to be OK”.
“When you have 15 people. And the 15 in a couple of days will drop to almost zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done,” he said in February.
As cases increased in March, Trump began to take the threat posed by the coronavirus more seriously. He also realized that he could be the virtually undisputed center of national attention by starring in the daily coronavirus press briefings.
“The Wall Street Journal always” forgets “to mention that the ratings for White House press briefings are” through the roof “(Monday Night Football, Bachelor Finale, according to @nytimes) and is the only way to escape the fake news and relaying my opinions, “he tweeted on April 9.” WSJ is Fake News! “
And then this the next day: “Because the White House News Conference television ratings are the highest, the Opposition Party (Lamestream Media), the Radical Left, the Democrats from Do Nothing, and of course the few remaining RINO’S They are doing everything possible to belittle and put an end to them. The Voice of the People! “
However, in late April, Trump was clearly losing interest.
“What is the purpose of having White House News Conferences when Lamestream Media does nothing but hostile questions, and then refuses to accurately report the truth or facts,” he tweeted April 25. “They get record ratings and the American people get nothing but fake news. It’s not worth the time and effort!” (Trump said Monday he planned to restart the briefings. “He was doing them and we had a lot of people watching, numbers. record watching in cable television history, and there has never been anything like this, “he explained.)
But even before that, it was clear that Trump was getting fed up with closing the country.
“The President of the United States makes the decisions,” he said at a coronavirus briefing in mid-April about resistance among some governors to begin reopening their states. “They cannot do anything without the approval of the President of the United States.”
Although he backed down on that curious statement, he did not stop putting pressure on the governors to reopen.
“You are going to make your own decisions,” Trump told the governors, according to an audio recording provided to The New York Times. “You are going to make the decisions. We will be with you, and we will open our country and make it work. People want to work.”
In early May, Trump was choosing to reopen as not an option at all.
“Texas is opening up and many places are opening up. And we want to do it, and I’m not sure we even have a choice,” Trump told reporters on May 8. “I think we have to do it.” . You know, this country can’t stay closed and locked for years. “(Texas is now one of the hot spots for the coronavirus).
All of Trump’s urges to reopen came despite warnings from doctors and infectious disease experts, including some in his coronavirus task force, that the virus had not been contained and that the benchmarks set for the reopening had not been met. (Still, several governors, mostly Republicans in the south, moved quickly to reopen, with Georgia and Florida among the first.)
Why would Trump ignore, or at least minimize, virus science in favor of a quick push to reopen? Because the emotion of being the face of the fight against the virus had disappeared for Trump. His aides told him that the daily press sessions were hurting him politically. The unemployment figures were staggering. He saw that his 2020 chances were fading.
Fighting the coronavirus had become too much for Trump. The virus was not cooperating. He had not left in the warmer weather, as he predicted. The more states reopened, the more the virus grew among their populations. Several school systems announced that they would continue virtual learning for the fall. The public was turning against him.
And so, like a child who tires of playing with his favorite toy, Trump tried, and continues to try, to create a post-Covid reality. Suddenly, the most pressing issue of the day was whether or not the statues of the Confederate generals should be removed. And how Democrats tried to rewrite history. And how schools taught students to “hate” the United States. And how Joe Biden “doesn’t know he’s alive.” And as if Biden wins, the United States will quickly follow the path of Venezuela.
The problem for Trump is that just because he’s done dealing with the coronavirus doesn’t mean he has done with the United States. Not even remotely. And no matter how many different ways Trump tries to change the subject, cases (and deaths) keep piling up.
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