So the return of the daily presser can be blamed on Lindsey Graham. The pretense will be the coronovirus. Deja vu all over again.
However, since Trump might not appear with administration supporters, it more likely will take the same format as previous. The old format was Trump reading some prepared remarks, then veering from them, attacking Joe Biden more this time, and closing with a short question segment, complete with a planted question from OANN.
There should be a pool for the first member of the press to ask Trump one of the five closing questions on the Montreal Cognition test, like “count down from 100 in increments of 7 in descending order.”
Resuming Trump’s “coronavirus task force briefings is the culmination of weeks of debate among his aides about how best to turn around — or explain away — his administration’s failed response to the pandemic,”
Several White House officials said the administration had to talk more about the virus because Trump’s poll numbers have fallen significantly in recent weeks.
There has been a net drop of 28 points in his approval margin on the virus since March, according to a recentWashington Post-ABC News poll. Currently, 38 percent approve of Trump’s handling of the pandemic, and 60 percent disapprove.Trump trails his Democratic rival Joe Biden55 percent to 40 percent among registered voters in the poll, the latest to show a double-digit gap.
Among the allies urging Trump to do more about the virus is Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who golfed with the president on Saturday and Sunday.
“Do you think what we’re doing right now is working?” one official said, when asked whether the briefings would improve the president’s standing.
Officials are hoping to prep the president for shorter briefings.
Many of the briefings are likely to feature just the president — a departure from previous events where public health officials also appeared, administration officials said.
“The plan is for them to be the president and to keep them short and tight,” a senior administration official said, adding that Trump could appear multiple times per week.
[…]
Trump’s critics have argued that the president has already shown that he cannot be trusted to responsibly command the country’s attention during the crisis. Some have pushed for television networks not to air the briefings, which have at times run for two hours and veered into a tangle of subjects unrelated to the pandemic.
“We’ve watched this exact scene from Donald Trump’s ongoing horror movie before when he hijacked the briefings and spread dangerous misinformation, including advising Americans who get COVID-19 to inject themselves with disinfectant — drowning out the same public health experts who he’s now outright attacking,” Andrew Bates, a spokesman for Biden, said in a statement.
Trump, repeatedly: The virus is going to go away. The virus: [doesn't go away] Trump: No, I meant, like, *eventually*. Viruses from past pandemics which are still around: [look at each other]https://t.co/J9G8RkB6e7
“If President Trump is right about anything, he is right about this: People will be watching tomorrow and people will be making funeral arrangements,” says CNN's @JohnBerman, as the President looks to relaunch his daily briefings https://t.co/vA5ZMx5531pic.twitter.com/adoV314QNq
Donald Trump Thinks '100 Minus Seven' Is A 'Very Hard' Question || Via: Huffpost UK https://t.co/08UIgpULZg
— SafetyPin-Daily (@SafetyPinDaily) July 21, 2020
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I'm flying back to DC right now to introduce legislation to STOP TRUMP from using his federal forces as secret military police. What he is doing in my state is the stuff of dictatorships and nightmares, and let me be clear: If he gets away with it in OR, he will do it elsewhere. pic.twitter.com/wOq8pdWARZ
— Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) July 20, 2020
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This is literally what they said Jade Helm was a rehearsal for. Now, somehow, its fine.
Trump's secret police are wearing camo outfits that lack identifying information as to either them or their agencies for a reason: they are a paramilitary occupying force seeking to avoid accountability for their actions. It's a mix of cowardice, authoritarianism and corruption.
Exhibit A: Trump thinks mail-in voting hurts his re-election has fought hard to restrict it. But he's been unsuccessful, in blue & red states. Having lost this battle, Trump could blame mail-in voting if he loses. That would fit with 8 years of precedent. We have the paper trail.
MORE: Cohen alleges his book contains damaging statements made by Trump, “the narrative describes pointedly certain anti-Semitic remarks against prominent Jewish people and virulently racist remarks against such Black leaders as President Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela.”
Maybe you're a horrible person if everyone thinks your [wink wink] “vacation” is because you are a racist, but it turns out that it's because you're a sexual predator. https://t.co/A6ABR19bei
