WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s return to the White House is poised to reshape the campaign’s final four weeks as aides debated Tuesday how to move past an extraordinary setback while grappling with how to send an infected president back on the road.
A race that had remained steady throughout the tumult of 2020 now threatens to slip away from the president after he spent 72 hours hospitalized with COVID-19, the very disease that has fundamentally altered the country he leads and the campaign he wanted to run. And as Democrat Joe Biden stood on one of the nation’s most hallowed grounds to call for national unity, the president, in his first full day back in the executive mansion, plunged Washington into further chaos by abruptly ending coronavirus relief talks.
Trump had stage-managed his dramatic, if reckless, reentry to the White House — tearing off his mask before stepping back inside Monday — and was pushing aides to return to the campaign trail as soon as possible, including to next week’s second debate against Biden. But as the president remained contagious, his health under careful watch, a division emerged between aides over how to manage the fallout.
Some believed the moment could act as a late reset, allowing the president to draw from his own experiences to at last show empathy for those affected by a pandemic that has killed more than 210,000 Americans, left millions unemployed and sent his poll numbers tumbling.
But others believed that abruptly changing course after seven months of projecting strength over the virus wouldn’t work and instead advocated for intensifying the message as a means to further fire up the president’s supporters to turn out.
Trump made clear want he wanted.
“I am looking forward to the debate on the evening of Thursday, October 15th in Miami. It will be great!” he tweeted Tuesday, after previously posting an erroneous comparison between the dangers posed by COVID-19 and the flu.
“Will be back on the Campaign Trail soon!!!” Trump tweeted.
For months, the president had tried to make the race a choice election between himself and Biden, but his diagnosis ensured, again, that his two safe harbors, the economy and the Supreme Court, were cast off the stage.
Trump added to that Tuesday by suddenly announcing that he was pulling out White House representatives from congressional COVID-19 relief negotiations, blasting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and seeming to accept the politically damaging responsibility for ending talks that were already on life support. Almost immediately, the stock market fell.
The virus cast a long shadow over the White House, where more positive cases among staff were reported Tuesday and rooms in the residence were being converted into workspaces for the president. Aides have noticed that while Trump was receiving wishes for his recovery, including from Democrats, there was little sympathy amid a sense that he had brought the virus on himself.
Trump has again played solely to his base, being the driving force behind a quick trip outside the hospital Sunday afternoon to greet fans from his armored SUV — a sojourn that energized supporters but unnecessarily jeopardized the health of the Secret Service agents guarding him. Likewise, Trump was intimately involved in the planning for his evening return to the White House, turning it into a made-for-TV moment that dominated evening newscasts.
Trump was eager to return to the campaign trail, telling aides that he wanted a series of mega rallies in Republican-friendly areas in battleground states to mark his recovery. But it remained to be seen when Trump would be cleared to set foot on Air Force One again.
The president was still contagious, and the White House doctor, Navy Cmdr. Sean Conley, said they were regularly testing Trump to determine whether he still posed a risk to others. And even once he’s no longer actively shedding the virus, Trump could still test positive for some time, putting his participation in next week’s debate in doubt despite his avowed plans to attend.
Biden said Tuesday that he and Trump “shouldn’t have a debate” as long as the president remains positive for the coronavirus.
The long-term effects of the virus on Trump’s health were not clear — White House doctors have not discussed them with the public. Nor was it clear when Trump might feel up to resuming a fuller campaign schedule. He appeared to be breathing heavily Monday evening after climbing stairs on his return to the White House.
But his aides feel that he can’t afford to be off the campaign trail for long.
“If he had his druthers, I don’t know if he would have ever gotten off the trail,” said campaign spokesperson Hogan Gidley. “He’s back, and when he’s well enough, he’ll be back on the campaign trail.”
The president has faced steady deficits in the national polls and — while smaller — in the battleground states. Aides have grown concerned about a slide in support after last week’s debate, one marked by Trump repeatedly interrupting and hectoring Biden while not offering a robust condemnation of white supremacists.
Although his campaign had felt confident about his standing in Florida, Arizona and North Carolina, he has faced stubborn deficits in Michigan and Wisconsin, putting an extraordinary emphasis on Pennsylvania, which was emerging as the potential tipping point state to give Biden or Trump the needed 270 electoral votes.
And it was in Pennsylvania where Biden on Tuesday delivered a sweeping speech, one that mentioned Trump not once but that marked the beginning of the divisive campaign’s stretch run with a call for the nation to heal.
He spoke in Gettysburg, site of the Civil War’s bloodiest battle and Abraham Lincoln’s most powerful call for unity, laying out plainly his belief that the purpose of the presidency was to bring the nation together.
“Duty and history call for presidents to provide for the common good, and I will. It won’t be easy,” Biden said. “Our divisions today are long-standing. Economic and racial inequities have shaped us for generations, but I give you my word, if I’m elected president, I will marshal the ingenuity and goodwill of this nation to turn division into unity.”
Biden had pulled down negative ads after Trump’s diagnosis but, after Trump’s return to the White House, began promoting an image of the two side by side, the Democrat wearing a mask and the Republican tearing his off.
But other Democrats have not been so reticent to go after the president. In a video released by the Biden campaign Tuesday, Michelle Obama issued a scathing rebuke of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, accusing him of being “missing in action.”
“Seven months later, he still won’t wear a mask consistently and encourage others to do the same —even when those simple actions could save countless lives,” the former first lady said. “Instead, he continues to gaslight the American people by acting like this pandemic is not a real threat.”
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Barrow reported from Gettysburg, Pa. Associated Press writer Alexandra Jaffe in Washington contributed to this report.
Trump reports ‘no symptoms,’ returns to downplaying virus
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump, said to be making progress in his recovery from COVID-19, tweeted his eagerness to return to the campaign trail Tuesday even as the outbreak that has killed more than 210,000 Americans reached ever more widely into the upper echelons of the U.S. government.
As Trump convalesced out of sight in the White House, the administration defended the protections it has put in place to protect the staff working there to treat and support him. Trump again publicly played down the virus on Twitter after his return from a three-day hospitalization, though even more aides tested positive, including one of his closest advisers, Stephen Miller.
In one significant national coronavirus action, Trump declared there would be no action before the election on economic-stimulus legislation — an announcement that came not long after the Federal Reserve chairman said such help was essential for recovery with the nation reeling from the human and economic cost of the pandemic. Stocks fell on the White House news.
As for Trump’s own recovery, his doctor, Navy Cmdr. Sean Conley, said in a letter that the president had a “restful” Monday night at the White House and “reports no symptoms.”
Meanwhile, Trump was grappling with next political steps exactly four weeks from Election Day. Anxious to project strength, Trump, who is still contagious with the virus, tweeted Tuesday that he was planning to attend next week’s debate with Democrat Joe Biden in Miami and “It will be great!”
Biden, for his part, said he and Trump “shouldn’t have a debate” as long as the president remains COVID positive.
Biden told reporters in Pennsylvania that he was “looking forward to being able to debate him” but said “we’re going to have to follow very strict guidelines.”
Elsewhere in the government, the scope of the outbreak was still being uncovered. On Tuesday, the nation’s top military leaders including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, and the vice chairman, Gen. John Hyten, were in quarantine after exposure to Adm. Charles W. Ray, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard.
It was not known how Ray contracted the virus, but he attended an event for military families at the White House on Sept. 27. The Coast Guard said in a statement that Ray felt mild symptoms over the weekend and was tested on Monday.
Also testing positive Tuesday was Miller, a top policy adviser and Trump speechwriter, who has been an architect of the president’s restrictive immigration measures.” Miller’s wife, Katie Miller, who serves as communications director to Vice President Mike Pence, had the virus earlier this year. She had been in Salt Lake City with Pence where he is preparing to debate Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris, but she left as soon as she found out about her husband’s diagnosis, officials said. She tested negative on Tuesday.
Trump on Monday made clear that he has little intention of abiding by best containment practices when he removed his mask before entering the White House after his discharge from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Waiting aides were visible when he entered the Blue Room without a face covering.
Trump’s attitude alarmed infectious disease experts. And it suggested his own illness had not caused him to rethink his often-cavalier attitude toward the disease, which has also infected the first lady and more than a dozen White House aides and associates.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins said Tuesday, “When I saw him on the balcony of the White House, taking off his mask, I couldn’t help but think that he sent the wrong signal, given that he’s infected with COVID-19 and that there are many people in his immediate circle who have the virus,.”
Trump, for his part, falsely suggested that the virus was akin to the seasonal flu.
“Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu,” he tweeted. “Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!”
In fact, COVID-19 has already proven to be a more potent killer, particularly among older populations, than seasonal flu, and has shown indications of having long-term impacts on the health of younger people it infects. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that influenza has resulted in far fewer yearly deaths than Trump said — between 12,000 and 61,000 annually since 2010.
Trump was working out of makeshift office space on the ground floor of the White House residence, in close proximity to the White House Medical Unit’s office suite, with only a few aides granted a face-to-face audience. The West Wing was largely vacant, as a number of Trump’s aides were either sick or quarantining after exposure to people infected with the virus, or otherwise working remotely as a precaution.
First lady Melania Trump was isolating upstairs in the White House. On Tuesday, her office released a memo outlining extensive health and safety precautions that have been put in place in the executive residence, including adopting hospital-grade disinfection policies, encouraging “maximum teleworking” and installing additional sanitization and filtration systems. Residence staff in direct contact with the first family are tested daily and support staff are tested every 48 hours. And since the president and Mrs. Trump tested positive, staff have been wearing ”full PPE.”
Despite Trump’s upbeat talk about the disease, his own treatment has been far from typical, as his doctors rushed him onto experimental antiviral drugs and prescribed an aggressive course of steroids that would be unavailable to the average patient. On Tuesday he was to receive his final dose of the antiviral drug remdesivir. It was not known whether he was still being administered the powerful steroid dexamethasone, which was prescribed Saturday after he suffered a second drop in his blood oxygen levels in as many days.
Dr. Conley said Monday that because of Trump’s unusual level of treatment so early after discovery of his illness he was in “uncharted territory,” adding that Trump would not be fully “out of the woods” for another week.
The coronavirus can be unpredictable, and Conley has noted it can become more dangerous as the body responds. Days seven through ten can be “the most critical in determining the likely course of this illness,” he said over the weekend.
There were also lingering questions about potential long-term effects to the president — and even when he first came down with the virus. Conley has repeatedly declined to share results of medical scans of Trump’s lungs, saying he was not at liberty to discuss the information because Trump did not waive doctor-patient confidentiality on the subject.
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Associated Press writers Lauran Neergaard and Jonathan Lemire in Washington, and Bill Barrow in Wilmington, Delaware, contributed to this report.