“We have had this great crisis in Florida, Texas, in a couple of other places,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “I will get involved and we will start making reports.”
Now, however, many of Trump’s aides worry that he may appear absent as the crisis continues. Trump no longer attends daily coronavirus task force meetings and has not held a specifically virus-focused event in two weeks.
Trump said the revival of the briefings would allow him to promote advances in therapies and vaccines, and explain the “positive things” his administration is doing to combat the virus.
“I think it’s a great way to get the information out to the public,” Trump said, adding that they would likely resume on Tuesday at 5 p.m. ET, the same time he normally reported in the spring.
“We had good space. A lot of people were watching,” Trump said, using the jargon of television ratings to describe the sessions: “We had record numbers watching,” he said. “There has never been anything like this in the history of cable television.”
As polls show Americans upset by Trump’s handling of the public health crisis, his aides began to weigh plans to put him back in front of the administration’s response, including the potential to resume the type of update almost daily that marked the first stage of the outbreak, say people familiar with the plans.
Recognizing that Trump’s re-election prospects are now intractable to the coronavirus pandemic, his aides hope that the next few weeks will mark a new approach on his part to tackle the crisis and appear in charge.
“It’s about doing the right thing,” said the adviser.
Few believe Trump is interested in resuming daily oversight of the pandemic, which has largely left him with Vice President Mike Pence since April.
The potential pitfalls seem numerous, including the kind of disastrous episode that ended his briefings on the first lap. Many are skeptical that Trump can stay on the message long enough to convince Americans that he is taking the pandemic seriously.
And Trump himself had been cautious of returning to the podium as the face of the administration’s response, concerned that it will send the signal that the virus is not under control and that his efforts so far have been unsuccessful.
But since the virus is spreading uncontrollably in many parts of the country and its position among voters worsens, Trump’s advisers feel they have no choice but to try something new.
So a change in strategy appears on the horizon, at least in theory.
“The president regularly focused on the coronavirus,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Thursday. “I think he will hear more about what we will do next week. He is working hard.”
.
