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Bush Calls for Unity. Trump Attacks Bush. And Then a Host of Others. Trump Foresees Virus Death Toll as High as 100,000 in the United States
(about 3 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Trump had a quick reaction on Sunday after former President George W. Bush called for national unity. He attacked Mr. Bush. WASHINGTON — President Trump predicted on Sunday night that the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic ravaging the country may reach as high as 100,000 in the United States, far worse than he had forecast just weeks ago, even as he pressed states to reopen the shuttered economy.
National unity, Mr. Trump made clear, was not on his agenda for the day, even as the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic that has ravaged the country passed 67,000 and tens of millions of out-of-work Americans struggled to get by. Mr. Trump, who last month forecast that fatalities from the outbreak could be kept “substantially below the 100,000” mark and probably around 60,000, acknowledged that the virus has proved more devastating than expected. But nonetheless, he said that parks, beaches and some businesses should begin reopening now and that schools should resume classes in person by this fall.
Amid the death and devastation, the president was busy not only assailing Mr. Bush but another predecessor as well, embracing a fringe conspiracy theory to accuse former President Barack Obama of masterminding a “hoax” to take him down. Mr. Trump also attacked a prominent Democratic congressman, denigrated the news media and threatened to withhold aid to states hard hit by the virus unless they bowed to his demands on immigration policy. “We’re going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100,000 people,” the president said in a virtual “town hall” meeting at the Lincoln Memorial hosted by Fox News. “That’s a horrible thing. We shouldn’t lose one person over this.” But he credited himself with preventing the toll from being worse. “If we didn’t do it, the minimum we would have lost was a million two, a million four, a million five, that’s the minimum. We would have lost probably higher, it’s possible higher than 2.2” million.
Then he planned to end his day with a long appearance on Fox News aimed not at speaking to the country as a whole but to his political base six months to the day before the November election, headlining a virtual “town hall” on the pandemic at the Lincoln Memorial, named for another previous president who famously once warned that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” The death toll passed 67,000 on Sunday, more than the total American deaths in the Vietnam War and already higher than the president’s earlier prediction. More than 1,000 additional deaths have been announced every day since April 2 and while the rate appears to have peaked, it has not begun to fall in a significant, sustained way. The model embraced by the White House a month ago had assumed the death rate would begin to fall substantially by mid-April.
The messages of the day underscored once again that Mr. Trump does not view the presidency in the same way as its previous occupants, favoring combativeness over conciliation even in times of national crisis. For Mr. Trump, it is a formula that has worked and one that finds him at his most comfortable and confident. Despite that, Mr. Trump indicated again that he favored lifting stay-at-home orders and other restrictions that have cratered the economy and put more than 30 million people out of work, arguing that the government had armed itself enough against the virus to be prepared to curb any additional outbreak even after people begin emerging from their homes to re-enter workplaces and other public spaces.
He regularly scorns the notion that he should be more “presidential,” dismissing that concept as weak and boring. But it is at moments like this that his departure from the norms of his office becomes most evident. “At some point we have to open our country,” the president said. “And people are going to be safe. We’ve learned a lot. We’ve learned about the tremendous contagion. But we have no choice. We can’t stay closed as a country. We’re not going to have a country left.”
Mr. Trump, who spent the weekend at Camp David in his first getaway since most of the nation began locking down in mid-March, seemed peeved at a three-minute video message posted by Mr. Bush that made no mention of the current president but warned against partisanship in a time of peril. Mr. Trump asserted again that the virus would eventually fade. “This virus will pass,” he said. “It will go. Will it come back? It might. It could. Some people say yes. But it will pass.” While he has previously expressed doubt about a second wave in the fall anticipated by public health experts, he conceded that it could happen. “We may have to put out a fire,” he said.
“Let us remember how small our differences are in the face of this shared threat,” Mr. Bush said in the professionally produced video set against music and photographs of medical workers helping victims of the virus and of ordinary Americans wearing masks. “In the final analysis, we are not partisan combatants. We are human beings, equally vulnerable and equally wonderful in the sight of God. We rise or fall together, and we are determined to rise.” The president’s appearance on Fox, in which he sat at a distance from the hosts at the foot of the Abraham Lincoln statue and took questions sent by video from around the country, came in the middle of a furious debate in the United States about how and when the states should begin restoring a semblance of everyday life. The program was titled “America Together: Returning to Work.”
As of Friday, more than a dozen states had begun to reopen their economies and public life while many others had set plans to do so under certain conditions and with certain precautions, in some cases over the warnings of public health specialists who feared that moving too quickly would reignite a wave of infections.
Mr. Trump predicted that a vaccine would be developed by the end of 2020, which would be sooner than some public health experts anticipate and much faster than any other vaccine for such a major virus. “We are very confident that we’re going to have a vaccine at the end of the year, by the end of the year,” he said. Even if it is developed that soon, though, he did not say whether it could be approved and produced in sufficient quantities for widespread use by then.
The president confirmed that he was warned about the virus, which originated in China, in an intelligence briefing in January, but asserted that it was characterized as if “it was not a big deal.” He said intelligence agencies would release information about his briefings as early as Monday.
“On Jan. 23, I was told that there could be a virus coming in but it was of no real import,” Mr. Trump said. “In other words, it wasn’t, ‘Oh, we’ve got to do something, we’ve got to do something.’ It was a brief conversation and it was only on Jan. 23. Shortly thereafter, I closed the country to China. We had 23 people in the room and I was the only one in the room who wanted to close it down.”
Mr. Trump was referring to his decision on Jan. 30 to block entry by most foreign nationals coming from China, a move that in fact was supported by a number of his advisers and came only after major American airlines had already canceled flights. Some public health advisers have said that the travel limits helped slow the spread to the United States but that the Trump administration did not use the extra time to adequately prepare by ramping up testing and producing medical equipment.
Mr. Trump said his travel limit, which did not apply to Americans or legal residents, was not driven by the Jan. 23 warning. “I didn’t do it because of what they said,” he said. “They said it very matter of factly. It was not a big deal.”
In forecasting the toll of the virus, the White House had relied on models by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, which last month had predicted 60,415 deaths by the first week of August. Last week, the institute increased its estimate to 72,433 by early August. But now the toll looks likely to pass that number within a week.
“It looks like we’re headed to a number substantially below the 100,000,” Mr. Trump had said on April 10. “That would be the low mark. And I hope that bears out.” He said a lower number would amount to a victory for him. “Hard to believe that if you had 60,000 — you could never be happy, but that’s a lot fewer than we were originally told and thinking.”
Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin appeared with Mr. Trump on Sunday’s broadcast. Mr. Pence acknowledged making a mistake by not wearing a mask during a visit to the Mayo Clinic last week despite the medical center’s policy.
Because masks are meant to protect other people and he has been tested regularly, Mr. Pence said, he was in keeping with federal guidelines. “I didn’t think it was necessary,” he said. “But I should have wore the mask at the Mayo Clinic.”
The Fox town hall came on a day when Mr. Trump lashed out at former President George W. Bush, who called for national unity in a three-minute video message posted on Saturday.
“Let us remember how small our differences are in the face of this shared threat,” Mr. Bush said in the video, which was set against music and photographs of medical workers helping victims of the virus and of ordinary Americans wearing masks. “In the final analysis, we are not partisan combatants. We are human beings, equally vulnerable and equally wonderful in the sight of God. We rise or fall together, and we are determined to rise.”
While Mr. Bush never mentioned Mr. Trump’s name, the sitting president clearly took the message as an implicit rebuke. In a Twitter message, Mr. Trump paraphrased a Fox News personality saying, “Oh bye the way, I appreciate the message from former President Bush, but where was he during Impeachment calling for putting partisanship aside.”While Mr. Bush never mentioned Mr. Trump’s name, the sitting president clearly took the message as an implicit rebuke. In a Twitter message, Mr. Trump paraphrased a Fox News personality saying, “Oh bye the way, I appreciate the message from former President Bush, but where was he during Impeachment calling for putting partisanship aside.”
Mr. Trump then added in his own voice: “He was nowhere to be found in speaking up against the greatest Hoax in American history!”Mr. Trump then added in his own voice: “He was nowhere to be found in speaking up against the greatest Hoax in American history!”
Hours later, Mr. Trump went after another predecessor, reposting a tweet from a pro-Trump website accusing Mr. Obama of plotting against him. “Evidence has surfaced that indicates Barack Obama was the one running the Russian hoax,” said the original message retweeted by the president. Hours later, Mr. Trump went after another predecessor, reposting a tweet from a pro-Trump website accusing former President Barack Obama of plotting against him. “Evidence has surfaced that indicates Barack Obama was the one running the Russian hoax,” said the original message retweeted by the president.
Mr. Trump also reposted messages attacking Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the leader of the House managers who prosecuted the president at his Senate impeachment trial this year, and vowing to deny federal money to bail out states that maintain sanctuary policies protecting some illegal immigrants. In a less feisty moment, the president did take time out to post a message praising his golf course in Scotland.
Mr. Bush’s video message was part of a series of videos aired online as part of a 24-hour live-streamed project, “The Call to Unite,” that also featured Oprah Winfrey, Tim Shriver, Julia Roberts, Martin Luther King III, Sean Combs, Quincy Jones, Naomi Judd, Andrew Yang and others.Mr. Bush’s video message was part of a series of videos aired online as part of a 24-hour live-streamed project, “The Call to Unite,” that also featured Oprah Winfrey, Tim Shriver, Julia Roberts, Martin Luther King III, Sean Combs, Quincy Jones, Naomi Judd, Andrew Yang and others.
Mr. Bush’s office said he had no response to Mr. Trump’s message. “The video was a part of an event called ‘A Call to Unite,’” said Freddy Ford, the former president’s chief of staff. “I hope those covering it will resist the temptation to use it as a call to divide.” Mr. Obama’s office had no comment.Mr. Bush’s office said he had no response to Mr. Trump’s message. “The video was a part of an event called ‘A Call to Unite,’” said Freddy Ford, the former president’s chief of staff. “I hope those covering it will resist the temptation to use it as a call to divide.” Mr. Obama’s office had no comment.
Former President Bill Clinton also delivered a message, speaking into a camera in what looked like a video chat from his home. “We need each other, and we do better when we work together,” he said. “That’s never been more clear to me as I have seen the courage and dignity of the first responders, the health care workers, all the people who are helping them to provide our food, our transportation, our basic services to the other essential workers.”
Mr. Trump has declined to call on his predecessors to help bring the country together during the pandemic. Past presidents made a point of enlisting former occupants of the White House from both parties in times of crisis to demonstrate national resolve and unity.
Mr. Bush recruited his father, former President George Bush, and Mr. Clinton to respond to a devastating tsunami in Asia and then to Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Obama asked the younger Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton to respond to an earthquake in Haiti.
Mr. Trump, for his part, has dismissed the idea of calling his predecessors for help, either to participate or even to offer advice. “I don’t think I’m going to learn much,” he said when asked about the idea in March. “I guess you could say that there’s probably a natural inclination not to call.”
Mr. Bush has never been a fan of his fellow Republican president. Mr. Trump defeated his brother Jeb Bush for the nomination in 2016 and has criticized the 43rd president’s record repeatedly. Mr. Bush refused to support Mr. Trump that fall, saying he had voted for “none of the above” instead. While disturbed by Mr. Trump’s leadership, Mr. Bush has largely kept quiet since then with a couple of notable exceptions, such as a speech in New York and a eulogy for Senator John McCain that were seen as implicit rebukes of the incumbent.
In his video message on Saturday, Mr. Bush recalled the difficult days after Sept. 11, 2001. “Let us remember, we have faced times of testing before,” he said as images flashed on the screen of him comforting relatives of those killed in the attacks. “Following 9/11, I saw a great nation rise as one to honor the brave, to grieve with the grieving and to embrace unavoidable new duties. And I have no doubt, none at all, that this spirit of service and sacrifice is alive and well in America.”
Mr. Bush also called for compassion, a trait that Mr. Trump has largely eschewed during the pandemic in favor of demonstrating what he considers strength and optimism. “Let us remember that empathy and simple kindness are essential, powerful tools of national recovery,” Mr. Bush said. And he added, “Let’s remember that the suffering we experience as a nation does not fall evenly.”