WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s prime-time address to the nation offered a rare opportunity for the White House to reset its messaging, stem market losses and persuade Americans he was on top of his game in the battle against coronavirus.
It didn’t work out that way.
As Americans began to dissect Trump’s Oval Office remarks Thursday, they witnessed conflicting statements about his ban on European travel, chaos at European airports as U.S. citizens scrambled to return home and another day of massive losses on Wall Street.
Frenzied aides, some of whom were not aware of Trump’s crucial address hours before he delivered it, rushed in to clarify the president’s meaning after the cameras cut. Trump himself took to Twitter to clean up a section of the address where he mistakenly said U.S.-bound cargo from Europe would be blocked.
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European officials complained they were blindsided by the president’s travel restrictions.
“Not only did he miss the moment, he seemed clueless about what the moment was,” said Aaron David Miller, author of “The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President” and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “He seemed, in my view, to be … completely and utterly overwhelmed.”
The power of an Oval Office address
Trump was already facing stiff criticism for his administration’s response to the coronavirus as he took his seat at the Resolute Desk. He repeatedly undersold the potential impact of the virus early on, comparing it to the less deadly seasonal flu and suggesting it could “miraculously” disappear on its own. He has disputed his own health officials, claiming that a vaccine could be ready “very soon.”
Officials have said a vaccine could take more than a year to develop.
His address was a chance to right some of those earlier missteps, observers said. For decades, presidents have used televised Oval Office addresses – and the drama associated with them – to reassure an uneasy public, rise above partisanship and explain how their administration is handling the crisis at hand.
John F. Kennedy used the format during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Ronald Reagan spoke to a stunned nation in 1986 after the Challenger shuttle disaster.
In his 11-minute address Wednesday, Trump glossed over some of the problems his public health officials have acknowledged, including the relatively slow distribution of coronavirus tests in the USA compared with other countries. He promised economic aid to stem the hit from the virus but was vague about how that proposal would be structured.
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Republican leaders defended the president’s remarks and the travel restrictions on Europe. They noted Trump’s decision to restrict travel from China in January played a big role in slowing the spread of the virus into the USA initially.
“The president last night, I think, took decisive and correct action that was needed,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said on Capitol Hill. “The president stopping flights from China has actually saved lives.”
‘Questions that haven’t been answered’
The administration’s overall response increasingly drew scrutiny from Republicans as well as Democrats.
Asked whether he thought the administration’s response has been sufficient, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, a frequent Trump critic, said, “That’s a longer answer,” then got in an elevator.
“There’s questions that haven’t been answered. And until I get answers I don’t want to make a judgment on whether or not I’m satisfied,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a key player in any discussions about an economic stimulus.
“Obviously, the tests are not getting out to people who need to be tested as fast as they need to because of the way we go about it,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate committee focused on health issues. “So my recommendation to the vice president and federal government and the governors is to treat this as an emergency, and change the way we do it as rapidly as we can.”
Investors offered the sharpest clue that Trump’s remarks did little to ease fears. Stock futures plummeted after the president’s speech, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was off nearly 1,900 points in midday trading, erasing much of the year’s growth. The New York Stock Exchange halted tra ding briefly Thursday after a 7% decline.
Trump took another swing Thursday at calming the nation in a setting where he’s often more comfortable: an informal and freewheeling back-and-forth exchange with reporters in the Oval Office during a meeting with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.
The president downplayed the latest stock plunge, claiming “the markets are going to be just fine.” He dismissed criticism from European leaders about the sudden announcement of travel restrictions in his remarks.
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“We had to make a decision,” Trump said, “and we didn’t want to take time.”
Joshua Sharfstein, former secretary for Maryland’s Health Department and a former principal deputy commissioner at the Food and Drug Administration under President Barack Obama, said the president showed “an increased level of seriousness.”
He stressed the importance of the White House providing clear information to the public, such as what people should do if they get sick.
“We’re going to need to dial it up more,” Sharfstein said.
Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University, said he was surprised Trump didn’t deliver an address to the nation earlier. He said it was “smart” Trump did so, but one problem with the delay was that by the time he delivered the address, he had made so many conflicting statements on the virus that it complicated his challenge.
“Everything seems to be done in a patchwork way,” Brinkley said. “There’s still not a lot of clarity.”
Contributing: Nicholas Wu, Christal Hayes, Deirdre Shesgreen, Bart Jansen
Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/03/12/trump-coronavirus-address-nation-roiled-markets-and-politics/5030892002/
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