PENCE IS A SPINELESS MONKEY - NO BETTER THAN A VENTRILOQUIST'S DUMMY
New Numbers Showing Coronavirus Spread Intrude on a
White House in Denial
Both
President Trump and Vice President Pence seem oblivious to the new chapter in
the pandemic.
By Michael D. Shear and Maggie Haberman
·
June 26,
2020Updated 8:33 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON — In the past week,
President Trump hosted an indoor campaign rally for thousands of cheering,
unmasked supporters even as a deadly virus spread throughout the country. He
began easing up on restrictions that had been in place at the White House since
Washington instituted a stay-at-home order in response to the coronavirus in
March, and he invited the president of Poland to a day of meetings. Then, on
Thursday, he flew to Wisconsin to brag about an economic recovery that he said
was just around the corner.
But by Friday, it was impossible to
fully ignore the fact that the pandemic the White House has for weeks insisted
was winding down has done just the opposite.
The
rising numbers in Texas, Florida and Arizona made that clear, as well as the reality
that those are all states where the president and his Republican allies had
urged people to return to normal.
In
a reflection of a growing sense of anxiety over the new numbers, Vice President Mike Pence and members of the
coronavirus task force held a public briefing for the first time in two months.
But ever loyal to Mr. Trump’s desire for good news, Mr. Pence tried to
tiptoe around the statistics that Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the task force
coordinator, pointed to, showing surging cases and hospitalizations in Florida,
Texas, Arizona and other states.
“We have made a truly remarkable
progress in moving our nation forward,” the vice president said. “We’ve all
seen the encouraging news as we open up,” he added, dismissing any suggestion
that the outbreaks across the South should prompt a return to the shutdowns
that Mr. Trump so badly wants to be over. “The reality is we’re in a much
better place.”
Refusing to wear a mask even as the
health officials next to him did, Mr. Pence described the recent outbreaks
across the country as little more than the product of increased testing among
younger, more healthy Americans who should be less likely to get seriously ill
from the coronavirus even as they spread it to others.
“Very encouraging news,” he said.
But Mr. Pence’s comments came against
the backdrop of a very different message from Dr. Birx and Dr. Anthony S.
Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, who warned of a broken
testing system and said the outbreaks could engulf the country.
“If
we don’t extinguish the outbreak, sooner or later, even ones that are doing
well are going to be vulnerable to the spread,” he warned. “So we need to take
that into account because we are all in it together. And the only way we’re
going to end it is by ending it together.”
The return of the televised task force
news conference — at which reporters were limited to only a handful of
questions — revived the deep disconnect between Washington and the states where
local officials spent Friday sounding the alarm and, in some cases, halting the
reopening that Mr. Trump has so often encouraged.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a
Republican who has resisted rolling back the economic reopening, banned
drinking in bars after saying that patrons were not abiding by social
distancing rules. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott, also a Republican, went further,
ordering all bars closed in the state. And Judge Lina Hidalgo of Harris County,
the largest county in Texas, reimposed stay-at-home orders on Friday, calling
the rise in cases there “a catastrophic and unsustainable situation.”
Taken together, it was grim news about
a pandemic that is still a threat to the public’s health, the nation’s economy
and the president’s political future.
At a time when his poll numbers now call into question whether he can
win a second term in November, Mr. Trump faces the prospect that his efforts to
boost the economy by shrugging off the virus have backfired. Rather than head
into the summer with a country on the mend, the president will be forced to
explain how his response to the coronavirus contributed to a resurgence of it
that may force some Americans back into a painful shutdown.
And yet Mr. Trump made no appearance at
the task force briefing to demonstrate concern. Instead, an hour after it was
over, the president addressed a panel of industry officials, political allies
and White House economic advisers for a self-congratulatory session about how
successful the economic recovery has been.
In
taking his victory lap, Mr. Trump made no mention of the increase in cases
around the country, underscoring a message that he posted on Twitter late Thursday
night: “Our Economy is roaring back and will NOT be shut down.
‘Embers’ or flare ups will be put out, as necessary!”
All spring, Mr. Trump expressed his
impatience and annoyance with the social distancing measures that various
states, and his own aides, were taking.
He
showed some concern when his personal valet, who serves his food, was diagnosed
with the coronavirus and Mr. Pence’s press secretary tested positive. But since
then, Mr. Trump has maintained a posture of denial and dismissiveness.
He has been enabled by a handful of
advisers, some of whom share his desire to focus on the economy and some of
whom are afraid of the president’s reaction if they press him too hard about
the public health crisis unfolding once again in large chunks of the country.
The White House chief of staff, Mark
Meadows, has been among the chief proponents of keeping the administration’s
public health experts largely out of sight, according to several senior
administration officials.
But he is not alone. Even though they
are aware that Mr. Trump’s mishandling of the virus presents a threat to his
re-election, his campaign advisers agreed to his demand for the rally last
Saturday at an arena in Tulsa, Okla., hoping the adulation he would receive
there would snap the president out of a funk he has been in for months.
But
at least eight staff members — including two Secret Service agents — tested
positive for the virus before the rally, which was lightly attended and attracted
none of the overflow crowd that Mr. Trump’s advisers had promised. Since then,
dozens of campaign aides who were in Oklahoma for the event have been told to
quarantine.
His advisers are now trying to figure
out how to give Mr. Trump the traveling road show he wants while acknowledging
the widespread fears about the coronavirus and allowing for proper health
measures. At the same time, the White House has stopped employing the health
checks it had been using for several weeks, like temperature checks for people
entering the complex.
One of the states where the cases are
rising drastically is Florida, where Mr. Trump insisted the Republican National
Convention at the end of August be relocated to meet his desire for a
large-scale event free of social distancing measures. As of now, Republicans
hope to put on a show celebrating Mr. Trump, the first lady and Mr. Pence with
three nights of crowds as large as 12,000 people in Jacksonville.
Some of the president’s political
allies have signaled in recent days that they intend to take the threat of the
virus more seriously.
Speaking to a group of health care
workers in Morehead, Ky., Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and
the majority leader, held up a simple face mask.
“Until we find a vaccine, these are
really important,” the senator said. “This
is not as complicated as a ventilator. This is a way to indicate that you want
to protect others. We all need during this period until we find a vaccine to
think of us as protecting not only ourselves but others.”
And Representative Liz Cheney,
Republican of Wyoming, had a not-so-subtle message for Mr. Pence in a tweet she
posted not long after the vice president refused to wear a mask during the task
force briefing on Friday. Her tweet included a picture of her father, former
Vice President Dick Cheney.
“Dick Cheney says WEAR A MASK,” she wrote, adding
the hashtag: #realmenwearmasks.
But
if anything, Mr. Trump, Mr. Pence and the rest of the senior members of the
administration have seemed determined in the past 24 hours to embrace a
previrus political reality — even if the medical facts contradict it.
On Thursday night, the Trump
administration asked the Supreme Court to overturn the Affordable Care Act,
a move that, if successful, would bring a permanent end to the health insurance
program popularly known as Obamacare and wipe out coverage for as many as 23
million Americans.
In an 82-page brief, the administration
joined Republican officials in Texas and 17 other states in arguing that in
2017, Congress, then controlled by Republicans, had rendered the law
unconstitutional when it zeroed out the tax penalty for not buying insurance —
the so-called individual mandate.
The president’s argument is sure to
reignite Washington’s bitter political debate over access to affordable health
care even as the accelerating pandemic has left millions of unemployed
Americans without employer-provided health coverage.
