‘This is the worst nightmare for the Trump
campaign’
A president who once seemed impervious to October
surprises is suddenly confronting one big enough to alter the election outcome.
By DAVID
SIDERS and CHARLIE MAHTESIAN
10/02/2020
09:06 AM EDT
Updated:
10/02/2020 09:35 AM EDT
Donald
Trump had done everything possible to shift the focus of the presidential
campaign away from his handling of the coronavirus.
His own
infection now ensures that he can’t – pulling Trump off the road 32 days before
the election, throwing debates into question and fixing the public attention’s
more squarely than ever on a pandemic dragging down his prospects for a second
term.
A president
who once seemed impervious to October surprises is suddenly confronting one big
enough to alter the outcome of the election.
“The
campaign as we knew it is over,” said Andrew Feldman, a Democratic strategist
in Washington. “This is the worst nightmare for the Trump campaign.”
Practically
speaking, Trump’s announcement early Friday that he tested positive for the
coronavirus will immediately remove him from in-person campaigning, though for
how long is unclear. Sean Conley, Trump's physician, said in a memo that Trump
and First Lady Melania Trump, who also tested positive, “plan to remain at home
within the White House during their convalescence,” and the White House removed
a planned campaign rally on Friday night in Florida from Trump’s daily schedule.
Trump’s
inability to hold rallies, even for a brief period, will hobble a campaign that
has defined itself by its large, in-person gatherings, even during the
pandemic. The second presidential debate, now scheduled for Oct. 15, is in
doubt. And Trump’s positive test will heighten scrutiny of the vice
presidential debate scheduled for next week.
Officials
with the Commission on Presidential Debates declined to comment on what the
president’s diagnosis means for the schedule and format of upcoming forums. The
second of three scheduled presidential debates is slated for Oct. 15 in Miami.
The more
significant problem for Trump is that, now Covid-positive, it will prove almost
impossible for him to steer public attention away from his biggest political
liability. Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic
by a wide margin. And cable news is going wall-to-wall with coverage of that —
not U.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, mail-in balloting or Trump’s
latest outrage.
It is a
perilous way to finish the campaign for a candidate already trailing in the
polls. In the most conspicuous way imaginable, the positive test publicly
undermines so much of Trump’s rhetoric about the virus — from his faith in
hydroxychloroquine to his cavalier pronouncements about a vaccine and his
dismissal of Covid-19 as a disease that “affects virtually nobody.”
It was just
this week, during the first presidential debate, that Trump mocked Biden for
his mask-wearing, saying, “Every time you see him, he’s got a mask.”
Trump’s
announcement of his positive test undercuts constant GOP criticism of Biden’s
decision to limit his own public appearances and choice to cloister for
stretches at his home in Delaware. It also diminishes the effectiveness of
Republican charges that Biden’s cautious approach to travel is primarily
designed to shield the 77-year-old Democratic nominee from public scrutiny.
Trump’s
illness, one Republican campaign consultant who worked in the Reagan and George
H.W. Bush White Houses predicted, will be viewed as validating “Biden hiding
out in [a] bunker for preventative reasons,” and not, as Republicans had
maintained, the “onset of dementia.”
Rob
Stutzman, a Republican political strategist who has been critical of Trump,
described it as a “devastating blow” to the Trump campaign, “the ultimate
rebuke to his callous mishandling of Covid.”
The full
extent of the political fallout is unclear. If Trump becomes seriously ill, it
stands to underscore Democratic arguments about his coronavirus leadership and
mar the strong-man image he assiduously cultivates. If the physical
consequences are less severe, he might find an opportunity to downplay the seriousness
of the disease. An illness could also serve to humanize one of the coarsest
presidents in history.
In either
scenario, the positive test will put enormous pressure on a White House known
for its secrecy, chaotic internal operations and loose relationship with the
truth to avoid any misstep or public confusion that could affect the campaign.
There was
uncertainty Friday within the president’s political orbit about what this means
for his re-election prospects. Some White House aides were eager for the
president to go on TV and address the nation.
"Folks
are kind of like, ‘What now? What does this mean for what we're trying to do
here with 32 days left?‘" said a senior Trump campaign official. "I
don't want to say this hit us by surprise because we knew the risks. [Trump]
wanted to campaign and be out there with the people, so we tailored the
campaign to the president's wishes. This definitely changes our plans,
though."
Four years
ago this month, Trump weathered both the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape
and the Obama administration’s assertion that Russia was meddling in the
election. The implications of those events were widely overestimated.
“Something
upends the campaign every day and it is not yet possible to see how this plays
out,” said Mathew Littman, a Democratic strategist and former Biden
speechwriter. “I hope Trump gets healthy and then loses by a lot. Trump was
already in deep trouble in this campaign with no real plan to turn this
around.”
But it is
also more than that, with potential health, national security and financial
implications that will reverberate beyond the campaign. International financial
markets were shaken overnight.
“This is a
geopolitical event,” Stutzman said. “Our enemies are watching. If he falls
gravely ill, the chaos could multiply … If Americans of any political stripe
reflect on this news, they should be shaken.”
Trump is
overweight and, at 74, at higher risk for severe illness. But Conley said in
his memo that Trump and the first lady are “both well at this time." The
likelihood, doctors said, is that he will recover.
Robert
O'Brien, the president's top aide on foreign policy, returned to the White
House in August after a mild case of Covid-19. U.K. Prime Minister Boris
Johnson and Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro also tested positive – in
Bolsonaro’s case, like Trump’s, after long downplaying the virus’ severity.
But even
the possibility that Trump might become seriously ill had strategists in both
parties discussing the potential implications of succession or the 25th
Amendment, under which Trump, if medically incapacitated, could transfer power
temporarily to Vice President Mike Pence.
Pence has
tested negative for Covid-19, his spokesperson said Friday, hours after the
president revealed he had contracted the coronavirus.
One
Republican strategist said in a text message early Friday that the White House
should “keep Pence in one of those giant plastic bubbles,” attaching an image
of a man inside an inflatable ball.
For Biden,
the attention that Trump’s positive test will foist on the president’s handling
of the virus was a stroke of political fortune. If Trump is confined to the
White House, one Democratic strategist said, Biden will benefit from having
“the whole country to himself” to campaign.
But Biden
will also likely have to tread carefully to avoid appearing insensitive. It is
hard to imagine him repeating the personal criticism he leveled at Trump during
the debate this week, for example, when he said more people would die from Covid-19
unless Trump got “a lot smarter, a lot quicker.”
A Biden
spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment overnight.
But the former vice president tweeted Friday morning, “Jill and I send our
thoughts to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a swift recovery.
We will continue to pray for the health and safety of the president and his
family.“
Alex
Isenstadt and Gabby Orr contributed to this report.
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