Trump finally gets message right
Only COVID-19 itself could halt potential super-spreader events
WASHINGTON — On Thursday, I was talking to an insistent Donald Trump supporter who was sitting on a stoop in the town of Bedford in central Pennsylvania.
“Look at our economy before they pulled this here gag, this coronavirus s - - -,” he said. “That’s all that is. A gag. Nothing but political.”
Some gag: More than 200,000 Americans dead, more than 7 million infected. Some politics.
And after Trump confirmed early Friday morning that he and his wife Melania had tested positive for COVID-19, it’s hard to tell who exactly the gag is supposed to be on.
In an election year that has already seen enough dramatic revelations and disastrous events to last a generation, Friday’s news was a particularly disruptive and potentially tragic October surprise.
“The end of the pandemic is in sight,” Trump told the audience at a charity dinneron Thursday. By Friday morning, he had contracted the virus. His actions — shunning masks, holding mass rallies and in-person fundraisers, mocking and accusing those who want to slow society’s roll towards indoor classes, dining and mass gatherings — now yield the result many have warned could result from such a cavalier approach. Trump is infected. And he may have exposed many of his supporters, staff and colleagues along with him.
Ashish Jha, the dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, noted in a Twitter thread Friday that because of the incubation time of the virus, “Everyone who has been near the President at least from Saturday on needs to be identified,” and many of them quarantined.
That’s a lot of contacts. Last Saturday, Trump introduced his Supreme Court nominee at the White House. Since then, he’s held rallies in Pennsylvania and Minnesota, many media events with senior government officials in attendance, and was on a debate stage unmasked with opponent Joe Biden for 90 minutes (and where his family members refused to wear masks when asked by event staff in the indoor auditorium). On Thursday, after his aide Hope Hicks had already tested positive, Trump went to a fundraiser in New Jersey and gladhanded 30 to 50 donors.
That’s in addition to any private meetings he and his close advisers may have had with officials, including members of Congress who are set to hold confirmation hearings on Trump’s Supreme Court nominee and continue talks about economic stimulus.
The long list of people who likely should be tested and quarantined will include many of the key personnel who run two branches of the federal government, people who regularly criss-cross the country and meet with hundreds of others.
That list could have got a lot longer. On Friday night, the Trump had been expecting to hold a rally for as many as 20,000 people in Central Florida; on Saturday, he had planned two rallies in Wisconsin. Biden called that campaign approach “irresponsible” at the debate on Tuesday, and Trump responded by mocking his caution.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tweetedFriday that he planned to plow on “full steam ahead” with the Supreme Court nomination hearings despite the news.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows also portrayed the news as minimally disruptive Friday morning, saying, “We have a president who is not only on the job, he will remain on the job.” Notably, Meadows did not wear a mask when speaking to the media; he said he didn’t need to because he’d
been tested.
The situation has observers brushing up on what happens in the worst-case scenarios. If the president becomes incapacitated, for instance, the U.S Constitution’s 25th Amendment would see VicePresident Mike Pence take over, either temporarily or permanently. If one or both of the presidential candidates were to become incapacitated or die before the election, their parties would determine who would stand in their place.
It may be unlikely to come to that. Despite being in a highrisk age group, chances are the president will recover quickly. But the very potential for such scenarios will have a disruptive effect on the government and the campaign.
Whether it will shift the opinions of those like the man in Pennsylvania who thought it was all “a gag” is anyone’s guess.
Conservative commentator DeAnna Lorraine speculated Friday that Trump could have been infected at the debate due to some kind of deliberate foul play. “Does anyone else find it odd that no prominent Democrats have had the virus but the list of Republicans goes on and on?” she tweeted.
There’s a much simpler explanation, of course: Republicans are aggressively and performatively defying advice on how to prevent the spread of the virus — treating it like “a gag.” Democrats are not.
If the virus were deterred by bluff and bravado, Trump would have completely stomped it out long ago. Instead, he’s been infected. As it goes for him, so too for the country he leads.