President Donald Trump has never viewed Camp David with the same reverence as his own properties.
But after 34 days confined to the West Wing, the Maryland retreat Trump once called “rustic” suddenly seems like a stellar weekend getaway.
Over nearly two days, Trump is expected to meet with his chief of staff Mark Meadows and other top advisers like Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany to plan for his televised coronavirus town hall at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday night and weigh various tax policy and regulatory proposals to boost the economy, according to interviews with half a dozen senior administration officials and Republicans close to the White House. It’s all part of the White House’s broader strategy of shifting its coronavirus message to an economic one — a move the president’s political advisers believe plays more to his strengths as a former real estate developer.
“States that wait until June to reopen are wiping out all of the economic gains they would have made in 2020,” said Stephen Moore, an informal economic adviser to the Trump administration dating back to the 2016 campaign. “If I were the president, I would be talking a lot more about that — that these states are doing severe damage to societies and citizens if they keep businesses without revenue and people without paychecks for another month.”
At the White House, health officials like Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci are no longer expected to make regular briefing appearances. At Camp David, Trump had no public events scheduled for Saturday, but insisted the trip was a “working weekend.” An aide did not respond to an inquiry about whether the president would golf during his stay, as he has often done during past weekend getaways.
“We’re going to be spending a lot of time with meetings and phone calls and some foreign leaders,” Trump said on Friday. “So, we look forward to that, and we’ll be back very soon. I guess we’re doing something pretty big on Sunday night at the Lincoln Memorial.”
Two White House spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment about the president’s weekend.
The visit to Camp David comes at a pivotal moment for Trump, as he faces declining approval ratings seven months from the November election. Aides are eager for him to escape the confines of the White House and begin to travel again.
New rounds of polling show Trump’s support falling in key swing states and among demographics such as senior citizens. Eager to resurrect his political fortunes, Trump spent the week hyping an economic reopening and meeting with governors, business executives and people on the front lines of the coronavirus fight.
Trump and his top aides have been eager to portray their actions to mitigate the coronavirus as aggressive and efficient, fending off criticism from political critics, some governors and health experts who have called it slow-moving, ad hoc and dangerous — particularly as Trump peddled dubious health information from the White House.
The administration also found itself in two other controversies Friday night. First, it was revealed the White House had blocked Fauci from testifying before a Democratic-controlled House committee, although Fauci is still expected to appear before the Republican-controlled Senate sometime over the next two weeks, according to a senior administration official. Then, late Friday night, Trump also moved to replace the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services who, in a report, had identified problems with testing and supplies at hospitals.
“We’re on the other side of the medical aspect of this and I think that we’ve achieved all the different milestones that are needed,” said Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, in a Fox News interview on Wednesday, as the coronavirus death toll rose to nearly 60,000 Americans. “So the government federal government rose to the challenge, and this is a great success story and I think that that’s really what needs to be told.”
Trump’s meetings at Camp David come as roughly 15 states move to slowly restart their economies over the weekend. Governors have their own guidelines for reopening businesses and relaxing social-distancing guidelines, but Trump and several conservatives view even a fledgling reopening as crucial for the president.
Trump is slated to visit Phoenix, Ariz., on May 5 to tour a Honeywell aerospace plant that recently expanded its production to make respirator masks. Arizona is one of the states reopening this weekend.
Part of the calculus for the nudge to reopen the economy is political.
Trump’s political advisers believe he will be hard-pressed to win the November election if the economy does not show signs of improvement. They have been trying to cast Trump as a wartime president who oversaw a three-year economic boon and can jumpstart another economic resurgence once the pandemic comes under control.
Trump advisers were also heartened later in the week by the surge of attention on a sexual assault allegation against the president’s likely 2020 rival, Joe Biden. They say the attention will weaken Biden’s standing with female and suburban voters. And it has given the campaign another path to attack Biden and “punch him in the face” politically, as one Republican close to the White House put it.
“This Biden thing is a big deal and gamechanger,” the Republican said, comparing it to the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. “I don’t know if the campaign is giddy, but I do know they are looking forward to Joe Biden getting the same treatment Trump and Kavanaugh got.”
Trump picked up on the attacks on Biden Saturday morning on Twitter, retweeting jokes and condemnations of the former vice president’s handling of the sexual assault allegation. Yet it came amid the president’s usual Twitter fare about coronavirus testing and Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor, who is trying to rescind a guilty plea for lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.
“The Russia Hoax is the biggest political scandal in American history,” Trump tweeted. “Treason!!! Lets see how it ends????”
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Trump plots economic pivot at Camp David - POLITICO
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