That has raised concerns, even among some of his own aides, that Trump appears disconnected from a deadly crisis that continues to plague the nation.
“There is a great deal of concern,” an adviser said, describing the president as “frustrated” by recent polls indicating that Biden could win the November election by a wide margin.
“There is a lot of frustration,” said another Trump aide about how the president and those around him view his reelection prospects.
But the adviser said many around the president acknowledge that Trump is often his worst enemy.
However, despite clear signs of trouble, Trump and his aides seem divided on whether the president should spend more time and energy dealing with the pandemic.
“I think we are going to be very good with the coronavirus. I think at some point that will just go away,” he said.
Meadows, Kushner and White House counselor Hope Hicks continue to recommend that Trump stay away from the problem. Pence and business adviser Peter Navarro are pressing the president to take a more active role, warning that the increasing number of cases could cause major disruptions across the country, according to an adviser and another source close to the White House.
A separate source close to the White House described Fauci’s testimony as “dropping bombs” on a disconnected Trump. Another administration official said Fauci was describing what can be seen as a “revival within the first wave.” Trump and Fauci, who rarely speak, have frequently disagreed in their assessments of the crisis.
As cases began to escalate again last month, the White House made a concerted effort to avoid the dramatic national emergency optic that marked the first increase in coronavirus in the United States, hoping to portray this latest increase to the public. . less alarming
“We are moving away from all four screens, nationally televised press conferences,” said an official, alleging that the first outbreak required more than an emergency response and public health education on how to mitigate the spread of this new virus. “Now we are at a point in the virus where we have outbreaks, they are important, we are monitoring them, but we also feel that we have control over it.”
The White House insisted Wednesday that Trump remains committed to the coronavirus.
“Any suggestion that the President is not working 24 hours to protect the health and safety of all Americans, lead the entire government’s response to this pandemic, including accelerating vaccine development, and rebuild our economy is completely false, “said the White House. Deputy press secretary Judd Deere said.
After appearing on television almost daily, even on weekends, during the early days of the pandemic, Trump himself has shelved the answer now. His briefings on the subject eventually became places to voice his complaints about the media and reflect on possible treatments, including ingesting disinfectants, which ultimately led to his disappearance.
Now, Trump is much more privately focused on getting the economy running again, though for the past week, he has focused on meetings primarily about how to protect national monuments and statues that he believes have come to represent his ability to maintain The safe country.
A major concern in recent days for the aides to the president, according to the aide who participated in recent White House meetings, was Trump’s retweet of a video showing a Trump supporter yelling “white power” . The tweet was finally removed.
“It just makes us worse,” said the adviser about Trump’s racially offensive tweets. “It makes it difficult to win reelection.”
“It should focus on what unites us and not on dividing us,” said the adviser about the president.
However, Trump has seemed insistent on continuing to push to protect the monuments, even as the country focuses on the coronavirus.
Trump has not appeared alongside public health experts in public in weeks and has made fewer comments about the virus in public, although a senior administration official says public messages will begin to increase again next week.
The president “will lean a little more on public messaging” about the virus, the official said, with plans for him to highlight advances in therapeutics and work to meet all requests from state governors during the events of the next week.
His message, according to this official: “Although there are outbreaks and we are attending to the needs of those outbreaks, we have the infrastructure to face them.”
The White House also plans to authorize more regular briefings at the Department of Health and Human Services by working group doctors and HHS Secretary Alex Azar, the official said.
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