Coronavirus: Trump declares US ‘king of ventilators’ even as death toll tops 36,000

Donald Trump capped another wild week of the coronavirus outbreak by again criticising some of the country’s governors and declaring the United States the “king of ventilators” and his public health team discounted governors’ claims on testing shortages – even as the coronavirus death toll topped 36,000 with 692,000 confirmed cases.

The president, oddly, did not directly answer questions about criticisms from some Democratic governors. Some have claimed his rooting on conservative protesters who have called for their governors to open their states amounts to him inciting domestic instability. But Mr Trump said the protesters, many clad in pro-Trump gear, look like ”pretty responsible people, to me”.

Leading Democrats continue to claim the president and his administration oversaw a slow federal response and have done little to fill what they call an ongoing testing kit shortage. But that did not stop the president from declaring that the United States has tested more people per capita than other developed countries.

And Anthony Fauci, his leading infectious disease expert, sided with Mr Trump, despite being hailed as a truth-telling saviour by some Democrats. “The thing that we’re hearing is testing is everything,” he said, “and it isn’t”.

Minutes later, vice president Mike Pence declared this: “Our best scientists and health experts assess that states today have enough tests to implement the criteria of phase one if they choose to do so.”

But Democratic governors, like New York’s Andrew Cuomo, also have panned Mr Trump and the federal government for providing too few ventilators needed to treat Covid-19 patients for the respiratory disease, which victims report can feel as if it is suffocating them.

As he typically does, Mr Trump made a series of bold claims during his opening remarks, including saying the federal government now expects “around 60,000, maybe 65,000” deaths inside the United States from the virus. Friday evening’s briefing, which Mr Trump himself rescheduled form 5 pm to 6 pm local time, capped another wild week in Washington as the nationwide death toll topped 36,000, with over 692,000 confirmed coronavirus cases.

That projection comes a few weeks after Mr Trump, citing estimates done by coronavirus task force member Deborah Birx, said as many as 200,000 Americans could die from Covid-19. The president on Friday night again used that 140,000 projected death difference as evidence, according to him, of the “great job” he and his administration have done fighting the pandemic.

Mr Trump, for a third night in a row, appeared to have his re-election campaign on his mind. After backing down three nights earlier from a threat to withhold federal funds unless state chiefs executive complied with a reopening order he said only he could give – before also walking away from that – he announced federal financial assistance for one of his key voting blocs: $19bn for US farmers.

“Our farmers, ranchers ... great Americans. Never complain,” he said. “They never complain. They just do what they have to do.”

Mr Trump began the week with a contentious Monday evening press conference during which he declared that he – and he alone – had the legal authority to give an order reopening individual states or the entire country.

In a remark that echoed former President Richard Nixon’s claim that “if the president does it, it’s not illegal,” Mr Trump angrily told reporters that, in his view, “when somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total”.

That claim is false, as clearly stated in the constitution. About 24 hours later, the president climbed down from that claim by announcing during his Tuesday night press conference that state chiefs executive would decide when and how to open their state schools and businesses.

“You’re going to call your own shots,” Mr. Trump told governors on an afternoon teleconference. “You’re going to be calling the shots. We’ll be standing right alongside of you, and we’re going to get our country open and get it working.”

New plan, old plan

That prompted Hawaii senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat, to tell CNN that the White House’s “new plan sounds like the old plan, which is to declare victory and engage in magical thinking to try to survive another 24-hour news cycle”.

Political analysts said Mr Trump’s latest policy reversal was mostly about his own re-election campaign, putting state leaders in a position to catch his blame if the American economy continues sputtering until election day.

“The notion that Trump has an angle, a play, is always a good assumption to start with,” said Marc Hetherington, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina.

“Although such an approach fits perfectly to Trump’s personal DNA, he is missing an incredible opportunity,” Mr Hetherington said. “If he were a normal president, he would try to rally the country, arguing we are all in this together. Governors who have followed this playbook have seen their approval ratings rise 20 points or more - even with thousands of people from their jurisdictions dying.

“Trump, in contrast, continues to divide us on a daily basis,” he added. “In return, he got a paltry 5-point bounce, and it is already gone. In the end, presidents tend to get blamed for bad outcomes.”

‘Political risks’

Mr Trump's plan to put governors in charge of reopening their territories presents clear "political risks" for them, says one GOP insider.

“The governors and their health secretaries will still be dependent on the data - like testing results, infection trends, hospitalisations and deaths - that I assume will still be provided mainly by the feds,” the Republican insider, granted anonymity to be candid. “I assume the states will differ in how they interpret the data, [so] there is a political risk.”

But other sources noted that cuts both ways. Meaning it could backfire on Mr Trump if states interpret the data incorrectly or use parts of it to open too soon, leading to a new spread of Covid-19 in those states, including ones governed by GOP state executives.

As the president moved into re-election mode, the campaign for former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, criticised Mr Trump for what it sees as a lack of a federal testing program.

Mr Trump is “pushing the country to reopen quickly even as the number of coronavirus tests completed plateaus at a pace far below what is needed,” the Biden campaign said in a statement. “Trump’s initial failure to quickly develop and roll out an effective and reliable test resulted in a ‘lost month’ and left America blind as the virus spread rapidly within the United States.”