Americans critical of Trump handling of virus

Less than three weeks from Election Day, majorities of Americans are highly critical of President Donald Trump’s handling of both the coronavirus pandemic and his own illness, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The survey also shows that few Americans have high levels of trust in the information the White House has released about Trump’s health. Initial accounts of the president’s condition were murky and contradictory, and the White House is still refusing to say when the president last tested negative for COVID-19 before his infection became public.

Trump’s illness and hospitalization has refocused the critical final stretch of the presidential campaign on the pandemic, which has killed more than 216,000 people in the United States this year. Democratic challenger Joe Biden has sought to make the election a referendum on the Republican president’s handling of the virus, arguing that Trump has mismanaged the pandemic and cost Americans lives.

The AP-NORC poll suggests many Americans agree with that sentiment, with 65 percent saying Trump has not taken the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. seriously enough. The poll, which was taken a week after Trump disclosed his own COVID-19 diagnosis, also shows that 54 percent of Americans disapprove with how the White House handled the episode.

The Rev. Joseph Wiseman, a 49-year-old registered Republican and Biden supporter from Wichita, Kansas, is among them. Wiseman said he was turned off by the president’s “cavalier attitude” toward the pandemic and what he saw as Trump’s “disregard for the health and well-being” of people around him who were exposed to the virus at White House events, as well as when the president drove in a vehicle with Secret Service agents to greet supporters during his hospital stay.