Reelection hopes gloomy as President hit on all sides
Pummeled from all sides, US President Donald Trump appears increasingly desperate to turn the page on the unrelenting coronavirus pandemic eating away at his prospects for reelection in November.
“Great News on Vaccines!” he tweeted Wednesday, striking a hopeful note.
But the reality is stubborn and sobering: 136,900 Americans have perished; confirmed new cases are on the rise in 40 out of 50 states; Trump is clashing with health experts tasked with fighting the crisis.
With infection rates that have taken radically different trajectories than those in Europe, the US is in bad shape – and the president appears to be dodging the subject.
On Wednesday he traveled to Atlanta – not to visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for an update on the pandemic response as cases spike in Georgia and elsewhere, but to deliver a speech on modernizing America’s infrastructure.
His attempt to discredit respected infectious disease specialist Anthony Fauci, who has bluntly warned that the US strategy against the virus is faltering, has flopped.
Even some voices within his own camp are urging the president to tackle the problem more seriously rather than blame scapegoats.
“We don’t have a Dr Fauci problem,” stressed Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. “I think any effort to undermine him is not going to be productive.”
The White House has sought to calm the waters, even as one of its own sowed new confusion.
In an opinion piece Tuesday in USA Today, Trump’s chief trade advisor Peter Navarro attacked Fauci with renewed animosity, writing that “Fauci has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.”
The administration rushed to mop up the mess, saying Navarro bypassed normal White House channels when he published his op-ed.
Trump himself castigated his advisor.
Navarro “made a statement representing himself. He shouldn’t be doing that,” Trump told reporters. “We’re all on the same team, including Dr Fauci.”
But Trump and the White House have repeatedly criticized Fauci in recent weeks.
Fauci described the efforts as “bizarre,” telling The Atlantic magazine that “ultimately, it hurts the president to do that.”
Amid the hubbub, Barack Obama weighed in with an appeal for apolitical action. “The latest data offers a tragic reminder that the virus doesn’t care about spin or ideology,” the 44th president tweeted Wednesday without naming the 45th, but clearly referring to Trump.
An aerial view shows a long line of cars at a COVID-19 testing site at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles, California on Wednesday. Photo: AFP
