Trump’s Positive Coronavirus Test Upends Campaign
in Final Stretch
With his health and the country’s stability at risk,
strategists and even senior aides to the president said he would face a harsh
judgment from voters.
Jonathan
MartinMaggie Haberman
By Jonathan
Martin and Maggie Haberman
Oct. 2,
2020
Updated
3:54 p.m. ET
President
Trump’s announcement early Friday that he had contracted the coronavirus
upended the presidential race in an instant, inviting significant questions
about his cavalier attitude toward the pandemic and the future of his campaign
just 32 days before the election.
Mr. Trump
had already been trailing Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the polls, in part because of
his mishandling of a virus that has unsettled the day-to-day lives of voters
for over six months. He compounded his difficulties by disregarding and at
times belittling the basic precautions, such as wearing a mask, that his health
advisers were urging Americans to take to protect themselves. And he repeatedly
prodded states, schools, businesses and even athletic teams to return to
normal.
As stock
futures fell overnight Friday, strategists in both parties and even senior
aides to Mr. Trump said the president would face a harsh judgment from voters
for throwing the country into greater uncertainty after one of the most trying
years in American history.
“It’s hard
to imagine this doesn’t end his hopes of re-election,” said Rob Stutzman, a
Republican consultant, pointing to Mr. Trump’s “flouting of obvious precautions.”
A
President’s Positive Test and the Year That Won’t Let UpOct. 2, 2020
Some
Republicans looking for an upside expressed hope that Mr. Trump’s condition
would prompt him to refrain from the inflammatory rhetoric that has alienated
many voters and make the election less of a referendum on his behavior.
“Peace and
calm helps him,” said Alex Castellanos, a longtime Republican strategist. “He
is the polarizing element, not the direction he would like to take the
country.”
History
would indicate that Mr. Trump isn’t likely to mute himself, though, as Mr.
Castellanos noted with a caveat: “Unless he tweets more.”
Mr. Trump’s
political fortunes will depend in part on the severity of his illness. Other
world leaders, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, have been
sickened by the virus and returned to lead their countries.
Mr. Trump
was showing mild symptoms of the virus, the White House said Friday. The
president has had what one person familiar with the situation described as
cold-like symptoms.
The
74-year-old president is older than his counterparts who have contracted
Covid-19, however, and they were not on the ballot when they tested positive.
Mr. Biden’s
campaign said he tested negative on Friday and that he intended to proceed with
a trip to Michigan later in the day and hold scheduled campaign events there.
Even if Mr.
Trump does fully recover after his isolation period, millions of Americans are
already voting right now, via mail-in ballot or in-person early voting.
After a
year that began with Mr. Trump’s impeachment and has included a pandemic, an
economic collapse, racial justice protests and urban unrest as well as the
death last month of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, this October surprise could
also prompt voters to seek a respite from the tumult.
For all the
drama 2020 has delivered, the presidential race has been largely impervious to
events, including impeachment, the virus, unrest over racism and severe
economic distress. Mr. Biden has enjoyed a steady lead in the polls since
effectively claiming the nomination in April.
But an
incumbent president testing positive for a potentially deadly disease is of a greater order of magnitude.
A great
deal remains unknown, though, most of all whether Mr. Trump’s symptoms remain
mild or grow more severe. And the effect
of even seemingly cataclysmic events on the race are hard to predict. After
all, when the Access Hollywood video emerged just weeks before the election
in 2016, it was widely thought that Mr.
Trump’s boast of grabbing women’s
genitals would effectively end his chances of winning.
As for Mr.
Biden, he said Friday morning in a tweet that he would “continue to pray for
the health and safety of the president and his family.’’ His top advisers said
the former vice-president would maintain the same tone throughout the day and
refrain from criticizing Mr. Trump.
How Mr.
Biden will handle the news of the president’s infection with the virus is
unclear, and will likely hinge on Mr. Trump’s condition. He has made the
president’s handling of the health crisis the major focus of his criticism of
Mr. Trump’s stewardship.
Democratic
lawmakers on Friday urged Mr. Biden to remain on the campaign trail and tailor
his remarks to reflect the seriousness of the moment. “It’s proof that we need
to be vigilant and we need mature leadership,” said Representative Tim Ryan of
Ohio. “He doesn’t even need to bring up Trump by name, just say it’s very
serious, even the president can get it.”
While Biden
aides are being careful to not appear publicly insensitive, they are suspicious
that Mr. Trump had already contracted the virus by the time he delivered his
caustic performance through Tuesday’s debate in Cleveland, a campaign official
said Friday. And they are angry that members of Mr. Trump’s family refused to
wear masks in the debate hall, and
appeared to rebuff the efforts of an employee of the Cleveland Clinic to get
them to wear one, the official said.
In the
White House, advisers to the president acknowledged that the positive test
would remind voters of how dismissive Mr. Trump had been about the virus, not
only with his own neglect of safety but also in his overly rosy assessments
about a pandemic that has killed more than 207,000 people in the United States.
Mr. Trump’s recklessness, one adviser admitted, amounted to a political
“disaster.”
It’s almost
certain that the remaining two debates between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden will be
affected. The next one is scheduled for less than two weeks from now, on Oct.
15, and medical guidance would most likely keep the president isolated until
then.
The nature
of the campaign will be disrupted as well. And after having gone forward with
the large rallies he craves, despite rules against large gatherings in many
states, Mr. Trump will not be able to leave Washington during a final, crucial
stretch of the campaign.
Moreover,
one of his central arguments against Mr. Biden, that the 77-year-old former
vice president is enfeebled and unfit to lead the country, has now been
undermined by questions about the president’s own health.
“Trump is
now in the position of becoming exhibit No. 1 for the failure of his leadership
on coronavirus, and he runs the risk that his supporters will feel misled by
his dismissiveness of the virus and the need for precautions,” said Geoff
Garin, a Democratic pollster.
The
president was already lagging in the polls in part because of his difficulties
with older voters, a constituency that leans Republican but is also at the
highest risk from the virus.
In the
early hours of Friday, some of Mr. Trump’s aides were discussing ways for him
to be seen by the public later in the day, so that he could convey to them that
he was still leading the country. One option was an address to the nation, a
person briefed on the discussions said.
Yet in
private conversations, members of his staff were also candid that the president
has some underlying conditions that could make him more susceptible to a severe
bout of the virus.
Mr. Biden,
for his part, has been careful to respect local regulations, wear a mask and
hold small events with social distancing. But he has been pressured by some
Democrats to campaign more aggressively, and on Thursday his staff reversed
course and decided to begin in-person canvassing.
No modern
president has publicly endured a health crisis this close to a re-election
attempt. Ronald Reagan was shot and convalesced in 1981, just over two months
after he was first sworn in. And Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack
while in office, but it was more than a year before he faced the voters for a
second time.
Some
Republicans hoped his ill-fated June rally in Tulsa, Okla., when he couldn’t
come close to filling the arena and some of his own staff members got the
virus, would serve as a wake-up call.
But while
the event put an end to his rallies for a period, it did not make Mr. Trump
more sober about the threat of the virus.
The
president restarted the rallies during the Democratic convention in August. The
events have been mostly, but not always, outdoors, often in hangars at smaller
airfields. Yet his supporters, journalists, White House staff members, security
workers and others are around one another for hours at the rallies. And many of
those who attend, including Mr. Trump and members of his staff, do not wear masks.
Mr. Trump’s
stance on masks has put him out of step with the majority of the country and
even some in his party. Forty percent of Republicans said in a New York
Times/Siena College poll last month that they supported a nationwide mask
mandate when social distancing is not possible.
Other
G.O.P. leaders, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority
leader, have repeatedly highlighted the importance of masks and have been
careful to wear them inside the Capitol.
The Times
survey, along with ones taken in battleground states, also indicated that a
majority of voters disapproved of Mr. Trump’s approach to the pandemic and
trusted Mr. Biden to do a better job handling the situation.
This
drumbeat of data has not changed Mr. Trump’s approach to the disease, though.
On Tuesday,
at his first debate with Mr. Biden, Mr. Trump ridiculed his opponent, a fellow
septuagenarian, for his precautions.
“I don’t
wear masks like him,” the president said. “Every time you see him, he’s got a
mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from it. And he shows up with the
biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”
Even on
Thursday, after his close aide Hope Hicks was showing symptoms of the virus,
Mr. Trump delivered remarks from the White House for the annual Alfred E. Smith
Memorial Foundation Dinner in which he insisted falsely that “the end of the
pandemic is in sight.”
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