Trump’s visit seen as signal for reopening
Talks start on closing down virus task force, Pence says
PHOENIX — President Donald Trump visited an Arizona face mask factory Tuesday, using the trip to demonstrate his determination to see an easing of stayat-home orders during the coronavirus pandemic.
“The people of our country should think of themselves as warriors. We have to open,” Trump declared as he left Washington.
Meanwhile, the White House has begun discussions about winding down its virus task force, which has already been meeting less frequently, Vice President Mike Pence said.
In Arizona, Trump acknowledged the human cost of returning to normal.
“I’m not saying anything is perfect, and yes, will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open, and we have to get it open soon,” he said.
Trump had said he would put on a face mask if the factory was “a mask environment,” but in the end he wore only safety goggles during a tour of the Honeywell facility. Nearly all factory workers and members of the media, as well as some White House staff members and Secret Service agents, wore masks. Senior White House staff members and Honeywell executives did not.
The president spent about three hours in Phoenix, touring the Honeywell factory and holding a round-table discussion on American Indian issues. Aides said the trip shows that the nation is taking steps back to normal. The trip was also expected to be a marker of Trump’s return to a regular
travel schedule, as he hopes the nation, too, will begin to emerge from seven weeks of virus-imposed isolation.
After weeks cooped up in Washington, Trump got a firsthand view of one big effect. At the airport, Air Force One parked next to dozens of grounded commercial airliners with covered engines and taped-over probes and vents.
Trump’s first stop was a meeting with American Indian leaders during which he distributed 1,000 Abbott quick virus tests.
“Native Americans have been hit hard by the terrible pandemic,” Trump said. “Hopefully, that will be helpful to you.”
TASK FORCE FUTURE
Concerning suspending the coronavirus task force, Pence said at the White House, “I think we’re having conversations about that and about what the proper time is for the task force to complete its work and for the ongoing efforts to take place on an agency-by-agency level.”
Pence, who leads the group, which includes top public health experts Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, said the panel could wind down its work by early June.
“Mike Pence and the task force have done a great job, but we’re now looking at a little bit of a different form, and that form is safety and opening,” Trump said in Arizona, “and we’ll have a different group, probably, set up for that.”
When asked whether he considered the mission of combating coronavirus to be accomplished, Trump answered: “No.”
There have been more than 1.2 million cases of covid-19 and more than 71,000 deaths from the disease in the U.S., but states are beginning to try to reopen businesses and lift social-distancing regulations as the growth of the outbreak slows.
“We have slowed the spread, we have flattened the curve,” Pence said. Not every U.S. community is “out of the woods yet,” but now have the resources they need, he said, adding that officials are watching the Chicago and Des Moines areas closely.
“We are very confident we can meet the moment” with resources now available at hospitals, he said.
“Whatever decision the president makes with regard to the White House coronavirus task force will all be conditions-based,” he said. “But we are beginning — as states are reopening, we’re seeing progress that we’re making, we’re beginning to have those discussions about winding down the work of the task force.”
“The work goes on,” Pence said, adding that the White House intends to retain Birx, the State Department immunologist who’s coordinated the task force’s activities. “She’s the best in the world,” he said.
Asked about his statements in February playing down the threat of the virus, Trump told ABC in an interview that medical experts also had underestimated the risk and added: “I want to be optimistic. I don’t want to be Mr. Doom and Gloom. It’s a very bad subject. I’m not looking to tell the American people when nobody really knows what is happening yet, ‘Oh this is going to be so tragic.’”
Trump is seeking to pivot his focus away from the virus’ spread and toward more familiar ground — talking up the economy. As more states have begun to ease closure orders, Trump has been trying to highlight his administration’s work in helping businesses and employees rebound.
To that point, aides said the president would hold more frequent round-table discussions with CEOs, business owners and beneficiaries of the trillions of dollars in federal aid already approved by Congress, and begin to outline what he hopes to see in a future “phase four” recovery package.
Pence told reporters at a White House briefing Tuesday that the U.S. could be “in a very different place” come late May and early June “as we continue to practice social distancing and states engage in safe and responsible reopening plans.” The administration is beginning to look at that window as the appropriate time for federal agencies to begin managing the pandemic response “in a more traditional way,” he said.
Birx said the federal government would still keep a close eye on the data if the task force disbands.
“It took us a while to build that capacity, and we’ll make sure that we’re watching that at a federal level,” she said.
“We did everything right. Now it’s time to get back to work,” the president said. He added that the country has “the best testing,” with more than 7 million now completed.
NO TESTIMONY IN HOUSE
In other news, Trump said Fauci was blocked from testifying before the House of Representatives on the coronavirus this week because the House is controlled by Democrats, undercutting the White House’s explanation.
“The House is a setup, the House is a bunch of Trump haters, they put every Trump hater on the committee, same old stuff,” Trump said Tuesday in response to a question about why Fauci wasn’t allowed to testify.
A White House spokesman, Judd Deere, said in a statement last week that it would be “counterproductive” to allow top U.S. medical officials to testify to Congress while they’re working to combat the coronavirus outbreak.
“We are committed to working with Congress to offer testimony at the appropriate time,” Deere said.
Trump told reporters at the White House that Fauci will testify to the Senate. “He looks forward to doing that, but the House, I will tell you, the House, they should be ashamed of themselves,” the president said.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pressed ahead Tuesday with the next coronavirus aid, a package that is expected to be unveiled soon even as the House stays closed while the Senate reopens.
Key to any plan to reopen the economy, Democrats say, is robust testing. They are also expected to propose another round of direct cash aid for anxious Americans, funds for states to prevent layoffs and more money to shore up businesses in the stay-home economy. Pelosi had indicated more than $800 billion could be needed, but her office declined to confirm a final figure Tuesday.
“We still don’t have a national testing strategy that is adequate,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said. “It’s life and death.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday it’s time to push “pause” on more aid.
The GOP leader insists that any new aid package must include liability protections for the hospitals, health care providers and businesses that are operating and reopening in the pandemic. He said Tuesday that he wants to prevent “an epidemic of lawsuits.”
But McConnell also signaled an interest in beefedup virus testing strategies as central to the nation’s ability to take steps “back toward normalcy.”
“I just don’t think we need to act as quite urgently as we did last time,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas told reporters at the Capitol.
The No. 2 Republican, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, said Washington had already “flooded the zone” with virus relief and should assess “what’s working and what’s not.”
With Democrats looking at a new aid package, Pelosi outlined the governors’ requests for $500 billion, with the counties and cities seeking as much as $300 billion, which she has said could be spread out over the next several years.
Trump said any new package must have a payroll-tax holiday.
U.S. CASES RISE
New confirmed infections per day in the U.S. exceed 20,000, and deaths per day are well over 1,000, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. And public health officials warn that the failure to flatten the curve and drive down the infection rate in places could lead to many more deaths — perhaps tens of thousands — as people are allowed to venture out and businesses reopen.
“Make no mistakes: This virus is still circulating in our community, perhaps even more now than in previous weeks” said Linda Ochs, director of the Health Department in Shawnee County, Kan.
U.S. testing for the virus has been expanded, and that has probably contributed to the increasing rate of confirmed infections. But it doesn’t explain the entire increase, said Dr. Zuo-Feng Zhang, a public health researcher at the University of California at Los Angeles.
“This increase is not because of testing. It’s a real increase,” he said.
Deaths in Iowa surged to a new daily high of 19 Tuesday, and 730 workers at a single Tyson Foods pork plant tested positive. On Monday, Shawnee County, home to Topeka, Kan., reported a doubling of cases from last week on the same day that business restrictions began to ease.
Gallup, N.M., is under a strict lockdown until Thursday because of an outbreak, with guarded roadblocks to prevent travel in and out of the city and a ban on more than two people in a vehicle.
Authorities have deployed water tankers, hospital space is running short, and a high school gym is now a recuperation center with 60 oxygen-supplied beds.
Zhang said it worries him that the rate of new cases is increasing at the same time some states are easing up: “We’re one country. If we’re not moving in the same step, we’re going to have a problem.”
WORLD DEATHS
Elsewhere around the world, Britain’s official coronavirus death toll, at more than 29,000, topped that of Italy to become the highest in Europe and second-highest in the world behind the United States.
Even so, the rate of deaths and hospitalizations in Britain was on the decline, and the government prepared to begin loosening its lockdown.
Many European countries that have relaxed strict lockdowns after new infections tapered off were watching their virus numbers warily.
“We know with great certainty that there will be a second wave — the majority of scientists are sure of that. And many also assume that there will be a third wave,” said Lothar Wieler, head of Germany’s national disease control center.
South Korea reported three new cases, its lowest daily total since February, and the country’s baseball season began Tuesday with no spectators allowed.
In China, it has been three weeks since any new deaths have been reported in the country where the outbreak began late last year.
The official number of dead worldwide surpassed a quarter-million, by Johns Hopkins’ count, though the true toll is believed to be much higher.
Information for this article was contributed by Zeke Miller, Jill Colvin, Darlene Superville, Nicky Forster, Carla K. Johnson, Mike Stobbe, Lisa Mascaro, Andrew Taylor, Mary Clare Jalonick, Kevin Freking and Laurie Kellman of The Associated Press; and by Mario Parker and Jennifer Jacobs of Bloomberg News.