If I’m reading the tea leaves correctly it appears Trump plans to announce that he has personally cured the virus with hydroxychloroquine, the epidemic is pretty much over and everything can now go back to normal. Because he wants that to be true:
Here’s a story from the Daily Beast about who he’s getting advice from:
As the country grapples with the growing number of coronavirus cases and related deaths, President Donald Trump is telling his advisers that he finds the current state of the economy unacceptable and has agitated for yet another controversial course correction.
According to two people who have spoken to the president, Trump has demanded officials put together a plan so that the economic fallout of the public-health emergency does not drag on for even “one month longer,” even as his own health professionals warn that the virus’ spread could last far longer than that.
More than a dozen White House officials, outside advisers, longtime associates of the president, and Trump campaign staffers all described to The Daily Beast a growing sense of urgency in reversing the steep declines in the stock markets—the Dow Jones Industrial Average has dipped below levels when Trump took office—and the impending spike in the unemployment rate. That urgency has been apparent in the president as well, as he has begun pressing informal advisers, TV personalities, and MAGA loyalists outside his administration for their ideas on how to stem economic losses related to the spread of coronavirus, which various economists have projected could be a 30 percent reduction in GDP.
“I had a very serious conversation with [President Trump] and with [top economic adviser] Larry Kudlow and with [Treasury Secretary Steve] Mnuchin as well,” relayed Art Laffer, a longtime conservative economist, who said he had three missed calls from Trump on Thursday night before the two connected. During the phone call, Laffer says he advised the president to back a payroll tax-cut waiver, to guarantee liquidity for successful companies, and that “we should not be bailing out insolvent firms right now. I also advised him against ‘helicopter money.’”
“The president understood exactly what I was saying,” Laffer said.
The change in emphasis illustrates the degree to which Trump continues to view the crises of his presidency—and his own political well being—on short term timelines and through the prism of dollars and cents. It has alarmed health officials, who worry that the administration will abandon measures that have worked in other countries, just as America begins to get into the thick of its own crisis.
Trump’s eagerness to soften the across-the-board health care recommendations that his own coronavirus task force has pushed has been fed by like-minded allies, as well. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who penned a much-discussed oped from Italy warning Americans to take the virus seriously, says that he has “bombarded” White House officials in recent days encouraging them to start putting in place guidelines to encourage economic activity.
Oh good. Dr. Newt’s on the case.
I know I’ve been harping on this all day long. Actually all week long. But I think we have to bear witness to what’s happening right now. This is an unprecedented crisis and the president of the United States is completely over his head. I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen.