Trump struggles with coronavirus message in campaign’s final month
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump claimed he was “FEELING GREAT” in a tweet on Tuesday, his first full day back at the White House after three nights in a hospital for COVID-19, and the president’s doctor said the president showed “no symptoms” of the disease.
But Trump’s reelection campaign struggled to stanch the political bleeding with just four weeks until Election Day.
Still contagious, Trump is unable to hold rallies or attend fundraisers, and his cash-strapped campaign is cutting back on television ads and polling as his race against former Vice President Joe Biden moves into the final stretch.
Some advisers believed Trump had an opportunity to turn his personal health scare into a political winner – to show a softer, more personal side, a greater understanding of the virus and more empathy for Americans who have contracted the disease or seen their lives upended by it.
Instead, the president reverted to the dismissive stance he adopted early in the pandemic, belittling the coronavirus as “less lethal” than the flu and offering his own survival as proof, effectively minimizing the more than 210,000 Americans dead from COVID-19.
“Don’t be afraid of it,” Trump said in a video posted Monday night from the White House, which has become a hot zone for the contagion. “Don’t let it dominate. Don’t let it take over your lives.”
“I just can’t imagine how Trump could be doing more to hurt himself than he is right now,” said Rory Cooper, a Republican operative who worked in the George W. Bush administration and as an aide to then-house Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
Trump dismissed the coronavirus danger even as the top U.S. general, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, and several members of the Pentagon’s senior leadership went into quarantine Tuesday after Adm. Charles W. Ray, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard, tested positive for the coronavirus. Senior policy adviser and speechwriter Stephen Miller also tested positive Tuesday, one of three new cases reported in the West Wing.
Trump then stepped into another political trap, tweeting that he was abandoning talks with congressional Democrats about crafting a deal to provide additional stimulus funds – accepting responsibility for walking away and ensuring that Americans, who support additional economic relief by a 3-to-1 margin, won’t get any before the election. The stock market plummeted in response.
Restless after his isolation in the hospital and White
House residence, Trump is eager to return to the Oval Office and the campaign trail, according to aides. But with campaign manager Bill Stepien quarantined since a positive coronavirus test, the reelection operation is relying on surrogates, including the president’s adult children and Vice President Mike Pence.
The president wants to deliver a formal address to the country and tweeted that he is “looking forward” to his second debate with Biden, scheduled for Oct. 15, even though his doctors said he is not yet fully recovered.
Polls show Trump’s management of the crisis to be his greatest vulnerability in the election. And because polls give Biden a 2-to-1 edge over Trump in terms of which the public trusts to handle the pandemic, the president’s determination to project his own vitality, not compassion, appears politically self-defeating.