Trump tweets support for protesters
President Donald Trump’s guidelines for states to reopen their economies had the hallmarks of a permission structure. But what he really created was a blame structure.
Yesterday, he emphatically embraced protesters who defied the orders of their states’ governors to restrict movement and large gatherings to combat the coronavirus pandemic. Less than 24 hours before, he had given governors a guide to make their own decisions. But he did it in a way that also pushes responsibility to the states, giving him a way to shift the blame if things go badly. And he pushed to dump the ongoing problem of a shortage of testing for the virus in the governors’ laps as well.
In making the case that large swaths of the country can safely ease restrictions under the new guidelines, Trump also found a way out of his constitutionally questionable assertions that he had ‘‘total authority’’ to decide how the states return to a semblance of normalcy.
He couldn’t have been more explicit in casting the need for expanded screening for the virus – something that public health experts say is necessary before Americans can get back to normal life – as the governors’ problem.
‘‘The States have to step up their TESTING!’’ Trump declared on Twitter.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, was having none of that. He said Trump had passed the buck to the governors ‘‘without passing the bucks’’ for states to do what’s needed. His state has been the hardest hit with more than 14,000 virus-related deaths of the 37,158 national total.
If there was any doubt about how quickly Trump wants the economy firing on all cylinders, he dispelled it with a trio of tweets saying to ‘‘LIBERATE’’ Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia – all states with Democratic governors. In effect, he was egging on protesters resisting the governors’ stay-at-home restrictions.
And he jabbed at Cuomo. ‘‘Governor Cuomo should spend more time ‘doing’ and less time ‘complaining’. Get out there and get the job done,’’ Trump tweeted.
Trump’s eagerness to revive the economy – a key part of his reelection strategy – was evident in the evolution of the guidelines issued by the White House.
The final guidance doesn’t go as far as what the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention had recommended to the White House.
The CDC, according to a draft of the recommendations obtained by the AP, talked about using more specific criteria and in many cases looking for improvement over longer periods of time, before easing restrictions in high-transmission areas. Examples include wanting to see sustained reductions over 30 days in positive tests for coronavirus, and sustained reductions over 15 days in numbers of coronavirus deaths. Under Trump’s guidelines, a state would have to see a decline in documented Covid-19 cases over 14 days.
The dilemma for states is clear. Some experts say available data seems to suggest that a national peak has been reached, but the situation differs from city to city and state to state. Others say it’s not yet clear there’s been a peak anywhere.
The lack of a national testing strategy will increase the chances for prolonged deadly waves of the disease to emerge in the months ahead, said Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert at Georgetown University.
Drs Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci, the top medical experts on the White House coronavirus task force, say the ‘‘new normal’’ in American life will look much different for some time. But Trump scoffs at the idea of an America where restaurants aren’t packed with diners or big stadium events are half empty in the name of social distancing.
‘‘Our normal is if you have 100,000 people in an Alabama football game – or 110,000, to be exact – we want 110,000 people there,’’ Trump said. ‘‘We want every seat occupied.’’
But Gostin said it was not realistic that the country would return to such normality soon.
‘‘The president’’s guidance is not entirely irresponsible,’’ Gostin said. ‘‘It’s also not a national plan.’’