“I thought she was very impressive,” Trump said. “She said she had tremendous success with hundreds of different patients. I thought her voice was an important voice, but I don’t know anything about her. ”
The swinging pendulum of Trump’s tone represents Trump’s last resort retreating from his frequent tactics: pushing evidence-deficient claims, intertwining political attacks with policy announcements, only to reverse in a matter of days. It is a trend that dates back to its campaign days, but has been particularly evident in recent months as the pandemic and nationwide protests have rocked the country.
In March, after minimizing the virus for weeks, the president suddenly adopted a bleaker tone, just days later to predict a major reopening at Easter. Later, in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police, the president first said he recognized the grief Americans felt at the death, but days later he called for the “dominance” of people protesting the police violence.
While critics of Trump inevitably roll their eyes every time Trump resumes, his sponsors say as long as he avoids the most egregious babble, like retweet a video of a supporter yelling “white power” – his original style will remain a political tool.
“If every now and then a storm of tweets about Dr. Fauci breaks out, that’s fine,” said a person close to the White House, referring to the president’s occasional attempts, even Tuesday night, to discredit Anthony Fauci, one of the members of the government. more respected voices in the coronavirus. “You just need to have more days as we saw in the last week and a half than not. You don’t need perfection, you just need to earn 60 percent of the next 100 days. ”
The attempt to get Trump relatively on the message comes as coronavirus cases increase in the United States, with major spikes in Arizona, Florida, and Texas. Meanwhile, the death toll from the disease has continued to rise, exceeding 147,000and renewing concerns on protective equipment and hospital space.
Before last week, Trump had repeatedly rejected the increase, arguing that it was simply due to an increase in the availability of evidence and that there was no pending shortage of any kind. Instead, it had focused almost exclusively on reopening the economy.
The president’s enthusiasm for changing the subject did not bode well in the polls: the president’s approval rating for handling the pandemic fell to his lowest mark in early July.
As a result, White House advisers began urging the president to resume a coronavirus approach, speaking more on issues like vaccine development and promising therapies rather than bragging about the economy with millions of Americans without jobs.
The White House brought frequent reports so that the president could directly address the American people and give written updates on the government’s action at Covid-19. And he renewed communications equipment around the pandemic, bringing in State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus.
In fact, Trump’s first briefing after the long hiatus was viewed as a success within the White House. The briefing led to a series of coverages on how Trump sought to convey a different and more realistic attitude about the coronavirus.
However, the tone began to falter a day after his return to the White House podium in the press room.
In his second briefing, the president claimed, without evidence, that the southern border wall was helping to keep the coronavirus out of the United States and lashed out at former President Barack Obama and presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. On Twitter, he accused them both of spying on his campaign.
“So Obama and his team of lowlifes spied on my campaign and got caught: open and close the case!” Trump tweeted on Friday. Will they ever pay the price? The political crime of the century!
But Trump had yet to return to some of his favorite talking points from the first months of the pandemic. First, that its critics were trying to suppress hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 drug for political reasons. And second, that governors should quickly reopen their economies.
Then on Monday, Trump resurrected both problems.
During a trip to North Carolina, Trump said: “Many of the governors should be opening states that are not opening.” And on Monday night, the president began announcing flawed studies and comments about hydroxychloroquine, which he once took as a prophylactic, on Twitter. On Tuesday he defended his choice.
“I think it works in the early stages. I think frontline doctors believe that too. Some. Many. So we will see it, “Trump said, without offering details. “It doesn’t cause problems. I had no problem I had absolutely no problem. “
However, for Trump supporters, these outbursts are only detrimental if they occur every day.
“For two months in a row it was almost daily without a script,” said the person close to the White House. “No one says it has to be someone who is not. It just means you can’t generate daily negative headlines like in the past few months. “
Critics have long argued that the Food and Drug Administration authorized the emergency use of hydroxychloroquine in March with thin and questionable data. The agency finally revoked Those authorities in June after a series of rigorous clinical trials showed no benefit from the drug in treating seriously ill Covid-19 patients. Later research suggested that it also doesn’t help people with mild illnesses.
Another study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine found that hydroxychloroquine, taken alone or with azithromycin, did not appear to affect any Covid-19 patient after taking one of the treatments for 15 days.
The president’s promotion of the drug comes when pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Pfizer started trials of late-stage vaccines in hopes that the results will be available in November.
But while the controversial statements have continued, Trump has still gestured to the increasingly dire nature of the pandemic. The president canceled plans for a major Republican National Convention in Jacksonville, Florida, citing security concerns. And on Monday, he wore a mask during his trip to North Carolina. On the podium, he asked Americans to adopt the same behaviors that he recently started showing himself.
“I ask all Americans, regardless of origin or age, to practice social distancing, which people have become very used to, but we have to keep doing it; stay tuned for hygiene,” Trump said. “Wear a mask whenever appropriate.”
Sarah Owermohle contributed to this report.
