Trump says guidelines won’t be extended
Government social distancing limits expire; Kushner gushes over progress despite toll
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the federal government won’t renew its coronavirus social distancing guidelines once they expire today, and his son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, predicted that by July the country will be “really rocking again.”
Putting a positive face on the latest grim numbers — the U.S. death toll now has surpassed American lives lost in the Vietnam War — Trump delivered his daily update and Kushner described the administration’s much-criticized response to the pandemic as “a great success story.”
The White House has been trying to pivot to a new stage of the crisis, focusing on efforts to reopen the nation’s economy stateby-state amid concerns that lifting restrictions too quickly and without sufficient testing and contact tracing will spur a resurgence.
“We’re heartened that the worst of the pain and suffering is going to be behind us,” Trump said as he led a roundtable with executives from companies such as Hilton and Toyota.
Trump laid out a vision of a return to pre-coronavirus normalcy — “with or without” a vaccine — with packed restaurants and filled stadiums. That vision flies in the face of sober assessments from doctors who say the country will
need to embrace a “new normal“that includes extended social distancing and mask-wearing.
“I don’t want people to get used to this,” Trump said. “I see the new normal being what it was three months ago.”
To underscore his confidence, Trump announced that he plans to resume out-of-state travel after spending more than a month mostly cooped up in the White House. He said he’s planning a trip to Arizona next week, followed by a possible trip to Ohio, even as much of the country remains under effective lockdown with all but essential travel banned.
“We’re going to start to move around and hopefully in the nottoo-distant future, we’ll have some massive rallies and people will be sitting next to each other,” he said, adding that having people spaced out in accordance with social distancing guidelines “wouldn’t look too good.”
He didn’t say exactly when he envisioned such rallies returning, but said the timing would depend, in part, on the states, since some have had far fewer cases than others. The federal government and most states have urged residents to avoid mass gatherings and to remain at least 6 feet apart.
The announcement came after Trump said he won’t extend the White House’s “30 Days to Slow the Spread” guidelines when they expire today.
“They’ll be fading out because now the governors are doing it,” Trump said in the Oval Office as he met with John Bel Edwards, the Democratic governor of Louisiana.
Edwards, who recently extended Louisiana’s stay-at-home order through May 15, is under fire from Republican lawmakers in his state. While he was in Washington, some GOP legislators were trying to rally support to take the extraordinary step of trying to override the governor’s emergency decision-making.
But Trump commended Edwards on the job he’s done after New Orleans became one of the nation’s coronavirus hot spots. “I just wanted to congratulate you,” Trump said.
The White House and Trump have been eager to give the country positive news as they work to move past the crisis and rebuild the economy, even as the country’s death tally continues to rise.
Trump said the number has risen because of an increase in testing. The country has dramatically improved its testing after a slow and rocky start, but many health experts say the country still must do more — as many as 5 million tests a day — to safely reopen. Otherwise, they warn, cases will skyrocket as Americans return to work.
“The only thing worse than an unnecessarily slow recovery is a reversed recovery,” Joshua Bolten, the president of the Business Roundtable, an association of prominent CEOs, said during the White House event.
Meanwhile, Kushner, who has been helping lead response efforts, said on “Fox and Friends” that he believes May will be “a transition month“and that, “by June, a lot of the country should be back to normal. And the hope is that … by July the country is really rocking again.“”
“I think that we’ve achieved all the different milestones that are needed,” he said. “So the federal government rose to the challenge, and this is a great success story.”