President Trump has made a point of saying he keeps a mask with the presidential seal in his jacket pocket.
Photo: SARAH SILBIGER/Bloomberg NewsWASHINGTON—By the time President Trump sat down with aides on Monday to discuss his grim polling numbers, pressure was growing for a course correction on coronavirus.
At the White House with his pollsters and top political advisers, Mr. Trump was briefed on the latest round of surveys, including data that showed widespread disapproval of his handling of the pandemic and support by the majority of Americans for wearing a mask, said people with knowledge of the conversation.
Advisers had for days been gently suggesting that the president reconsider his approach, arguing that promoting mask-wearing was patriotic, and Mr. Trump signaled he was ready for a change, the people said.
“It just was a mismatch with the reality on the ground,” said a senior administration official of the White House’s previous lack of high-level, public focus on the issue.
The meeting, one of several in recent weeks that laid bare the possibility that the president could lose in November, kicked off a week in which Mr. Trump made an effort to change his virus response. The president reined in some of his rhetoric on the pandemic, led news conferences at the White House in which he for the first time acknowledged the severity of the resurgence and canceled the bulk of the Republican National Convention.
“It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better—something I don’t like saying about things, but that’s the way it is,” Mr. Trump said Tuesday at his first coronavirus briefing in several months. On Thursday, in announcing the scaling back of his convention, he said: “There’s nothing more important in our country than keeping our people safe.”
His remarks this week at times contrasted with his past statements on the pandemic. Last month, he called mask usage a “double-edged sword,” suggesting face coverings give people a false sense of security. In early July, Mr. Trump said 99% of Covid-19 cases are harmless, overstating the number of asymptomatic or less-severe cases. And up until recently, the president was holding out hope publicly and privately for an in-person convention after moving the bulk of the event from Charlotte, N.C., to Jacksonville, Fla., in search of a more permissive setting after sparring with North Carolina officials.
“The governor is a little backward there. He’s a little bit behind,” Mr. Trump said in early June, just before announcing the shift to Florida.
Mr. Trump faces challenges winning over a weary public that polls show is dissatisfied with his management of the public-health crisis. His shift comes well into a resurgence of the pandemic, which some health experts say has been fueled by reopening state economies too quickly at the urging of Mr. Trump.
The White House says Mr. Trump’s approach to the coronavirus has been consistent.
“There has been no change,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters Friday. White House spokeswoman Sarah Matthews said Mr. Trump acted early and decisively by restricting travel from China and shutting down much of the country.
In a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released earlier this month, 37% of voters approved of Mr. Trump’s handling of the pandemic, with 59% disapproving. In the same poll, presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden saw his lead over Mr. Trump rise to 11 percentage points from 7 percentage points the month before.
Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien held a conference call with reporters Friday, arguing that polls didn’t accurately predict the outcome in 2016 and saying the president had “multiple pathways” to victory.
Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster who worked on the survey, said it is too late for Mr. Trump to alter public perception of his handling of the crisis.
“While he’s making the right sounds and putting the right words out there, at no time does he convey either empathy or connection to the grief the American public is going through,” he said.
Advisers and allies said they hope Mr. Trump recognizes the gravity of the moment, after at times in the past struggling with message discipline.
“The president has decided that he’s losing more of his base than he’s gaining with his approach to Covid,” said Republican donor and energy-company executive Dan Eberhart. “He’s seeing his numbers just like everyone else, and he is realizing that he has to change course.”
Related
- U.S. Orders China to Close Houston Consulate (July 22)
- U.S. Accuses Two Hackers of Stealing Secrets From American Firms for China (July 21)
- U.S., China Trade Blame for Coronavirus, Hampering Global Economy Rescue (March 27)
- Trump Cancels GOP Convention Events in Jacksonville, Fla. (July 23)
- Trump Pushes ‘Law and Order’ Message While Rolling Out Anticrime Effort (July 22)
- Senate Republicans’ Coronavirus Plan Delayed Over Disagreements (July 23)
- Trump Relaunches Coronavirus News Briefings as Cases Surge (July 21)
- Trump Uses Official Events—and the Rose Garden—to Get His Campaign Message Out (July 16)
At the urging of his senior advisers, in Mr. Trump’s return to regular briefings he kept his remarks brief, urging mask-wearing and asking young people to stay out of crowded bars. He spoke about getting money to schools for reopening, continuing to press states to resume in-person learning but noting the decision was up to governors. He previously said Democrats were keeping schools closed for political reasons.
A person in close contact with the White House said there was agreement among White House and campaign aides that the president’s insistence that the economy should reopen was out of step with the concerns of many Americans, who wanted a focus on health and safety.
“Everybody recognized,” the person said, “we’ve gotta pivot.”
At the same time, Mr. Trump has stuck to an aggressive view on school reopenings, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released guidance this week outlining the importance of in-person learning. The president said Thursday that some schools might have to delay opening by a few weeks, at odds with many school districts that have put off reopening indefinitely.
Some aides had long urged him to shift focus away from the coronavirus and toward the economic recovery, advice that the president initially followed. But in recent weeks, others told him that strategy was no longer sustainable amid a worsening pandemic and signs that the job market was sputtering after an initial rebound.
People close to the president said he has been considering making changes to his approach for weeks. He wore a mask a week earlier during a visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and he has made a point of saying he keeps a mask with the presidential seal in his jacket pocket. He also had previously said he might need to make more changes to the convention plan. He talked with Mr. Stepien and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel over the past week leading up to his decision, people familiar with the matter said.
“They bet on a certain approach and the approach failed, and now he’s adjusting,” said Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign aide.
Write to Catherine Lucey at catherine.lucey@wsj.com and Andrew Restuccia at Andrew.Restuccia@wsj.com
Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
"course" - Google News
July 25, 2020 at 04:37AM
https://ift.tt/39rYe41
Facing Declining Polls, Staff Anxieties, Trump Changes Course on Coronavirus - The Wall Street Journal
"course" - Google News
https://ift.tt/35q9ps5
https://ift.tt/35rCFi1
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Facing Declining Polls, Staff Anxieties, Trump Changes Course on Coronavirus - The Wall Street Journal"
Post a Comment