Trump aide says ‘we’re not going to control the pandemic’
The coronavirus has reached into the heart of the White House once more, little more than a week before Election Day, and the president’s top aide says “we’re not going to control the pandemic.” Officials on Sunday scoffed at the notion of dialing back in-person campaigning despite positive tests from several aides to Vice President Mike Pence, who leads the White House coronavirus task force.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, pressed to explain why the pandemic cannot be reined in, said, “Because it is a contagious virus just like the flu.” He told CNN’s ”State of the Union“that the government was focused on getting effective therapeutics and vaccines to market.
Pence, who tested negative on Sunday, according to
his office, planned an afternoon rally in North Carolina, while the president held an afternoon rally in New Hampshire and visited an orchard in Levant, Maine, where he assured mostly unmasked supporters that a “red wave” was coming on Nov. 3.
Democrat Joe Biden attended church and was planning to take part in a virtual get-out-the-vote concert at night. He said in a statement that Meadows was effectively waving “the white flag of defeat” and “a candid acknowledgment of what President Trump’s strategy has clearly been from the beginning of this crisis.”
In a brief exchange with reporters before the orchard visit, Trump demurred when asked if Pence should step off the campaign trail as a precaution. “You’d have to ask him,” Trump said. The White House said
none of the staff traveling with Trump on Sunday had been in close contact with any individuals in the vice president’s office who had tested positive.
The U.S. set a daily record Friday for new confirmed coronavirus infections and nearly matched it Saturday with 83,178, data published by Johns Hopkins University shows. Close to 8.6 million Americans have contracted the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and about 225,000 have died; both totals are the world’s highest. About half the states have seen their highest daily infection numbers so far in October.
Trump, campaigning in Londonderry, New Hampshire, said the rising rate of infections was nothing to be concerned about. “You know why we have cases so much?” Trump asked a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd. “Because all we do is test.”
Trump and his aides again on Sunday lashed out on Biden, falsely asserting Biden was determined to lock down the economy, while the president centers his attention on getting therapies and vaccines to market. “We want normal life to resume,” Trump said. “We just want normal life.”
Biden, in fact, has said he would only shut down the country if that is what government scientists advise. He has said that if elected he would make the case for why a national mask mandate might be necessary and would go to the governors to help increase Americans’ mask-wearing.
Pence’s office says there are no plans to curtail campaigning. In addition to chief of staff Marc Short, who tested positive Saturday, a “couple” other aides also have also contracted the disease, Meadows said.