■ Trump weighs restarting economy in defiance of health experts’ advice.
Move would defy warning from pubic health officials
President Trump is weighing calls from some Republican lawmakers and White House advisers to scale back steps to contain the coronavirus despite the advice of federal health officials as a growing number of conservatives argue the impact on the economy has become too severe, according to several people with knowledge of the internal deliberations.
Loosening restrictions on social distancing would override the internal warnings of senior U.S. health officials, including Anthony S. Fauci, who have said the worst of the pandemic has yet to be felt in the United States.
“WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF,” Trump said in a late-night tweet Sunday. “AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!”
The 15-day period is set to end on March 30.
Fauci, a member of the president’s coronavirus task force, and other leading public health experts have told administration officials and Republican lawmakers that prematurely scaling back social distancing measures would hamper efforts to contain the virus and devastate U.S. hospitals, according to the people with knowledge of the conversations who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private deliberations. More than 30,000 people in the United States have tested positive for coronavirus, a number expected to dramatically increase in the coming days and potentially overwhelm America’s health care infrastructure.
But the push to reopen parts of the economy has gained traction among Republican lawmakers, including
Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., according to two people with knowledge of the matter. Spokespeople for the senators declined to comment.
Conservative economists Steven Moore and Art Laffer have been lobbying the White House for more than a week to strongly consider scaling back the recommendation that restaurants, stores and other gathering spots be closed, although exactly what that would entail remains unclear. Leading Wall Street and conservative media figures also have embraced the idea.
Trump has begun canvassing his advisers, GOP senators and other allies about what his course of action should be, according to a senior administration official. He is worried about the impact of soaring unemployment and severe economic contraction on his 2020 presidential re-election bid, and fielded phone calls for much of the weekend from alarmed business leaders. He remains fixated on the plummeting stock market, is chafing at the idea of the country remaining closed until the summer and growing tired of talking only about coronavirus, one person said.
Three people who have recently spoken with the White House economic team, including Moore, confirmed the growing push for restoring normalcy to the U.S. economy and returning workers to their jobs.
Asked about Trump’s late Sunday tweet, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., characterized it Monday as part of a scattershot response to the crisis.
“The president will not take responsibility,” she said. “He’s a notion-monger, just tossing out things that have no relationship to a well-coordinated science-based government-wide response to this. Thank God for the governors, who are taking the leads in their states, and for some of the people in the administration, who speak truth to power.”