Trump claims ‘total authority’ over state
decisions
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| IMAGENS DE OVOODOCORVO |
States on both coasts on Monday announced
regional plans for reopening on their own timelines.
By JEREMY
B. WHITE 4/14/20, 7:17 AM CET Updated 4/14/20, 7:54 AM CET
U.S.
President Donald Trump, hours after governors on both coasts announced regional
plans for reopening their states, asserted "total authority" over
decisions about when and how to emerge after coronavirus shutdowns.
“When
somebody’s president of the United States, the authority is total," Trump
said at a press briefing Monday when asked about the governors' plans.
"And that’s the way it’s got to to be. It's total. It’s total. And the
governors know that."
"You
have a couple bands of Democratic governors, but they will agree to it,"
Trump continued about the governors, who also include Republican Massachusetts
Governor Charlie Baker. "They will agree to it. But the authority of the
president of the United States, having to do with the subject we’re talking
about, is total.”
Trump's
evening remarks followed a pair of tweets he sent earlier in the day saying
reopening the country won't be up to governors. Leaders of states in the
Northeast and West Coast representing nearly a third of the U.S. population
subsequently announced plans to do just that on their own timelines.
California
Governor Gavin Newsom, Washington Governor Jay Inslee and Oregon Governor Kate
Brown laid out their plans to gradually begin easing restrictions. The West
Coast plan dropped shortly after the governors of New York, New Jersey,
Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Rhode Island and Massachusetts said they
would launch a coordinated effort to reopen.
The plans
by the governors set up a clash between some of the nation's most populous
states and Trump. The president has grown increasingly concerned with the
economic impact the coronavirus and its incumbent shutdowns are having on the
country.
“They can’t
do anything without approval of the president of the United States," Trump
said at the briefing.
The
president early Monday said in the pair of tweets that it is not “the Governors
decision to open up the states” but “the decision of the President, and for
many good reasons.” But within hours he had been contradicted by pushes on both
coasts to run those decisions through alliances of governors.
Those
developments highlighted the tension between Trump’s oft-stated belief in his
own supremacy and a consistent reality of the pandemic: It has often been
governors, mayors and local health officers, more than the White House, driving
critical public health decisions.
While the
West Coast blueprint is light on details and emphasizes an incremental approach
tied to data and health authorities, it reflects the fact the progress those
states have made since early outbreaks made them epicenters during the first
days of community spread.
In part
thanks to early and aggressive moves to curtail social gatherings, like
California’s once-unprecedented statewide stay-at-home order, the rate of new
cases is easing and efforts to shield health systems from fatal overloads
appear to be working. West Coast governors have been discussing a joint thaw
for about a week, and Inslee on Monday hailed the states involved as being
“ahead of the curve.”
“I’m just
very proud of the state of California for leading," Newsom said on Monday.
"The state was the first with the stay-at-home order, this was the state
that was first to request that all seniors 65 and over stay at home, we were
very aggressive on mass gatherings."
New York
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Monday that East Coast states will pool resources to
begin crafting a plan to pull the economy out of its pandemic-induced slumber.
Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo told reporters that collaboration was
“appropriate” given that “governors are the ones who have been showing great
leadership in keeping our citizens safe.”
Trump both
telegraphed solidarity with governors and criticized them on Monday at a press
briefing, saying state leaders had procured too few ventilators and asked the
federal government to supply too many. But he maintained that states have
largely been pleased with his administration's efforts.
“I’m
getting along very well with the governors,” Trump said.
Early
decisions by governors and local officials to clamp down on social gatherings,
and their determination to keep those restrictions in place, have contrasted
with Trump’s initial reluctance and his subsequent calls to quickly restart
idle portions of the economy as the unemployment rate tops 13 percent, the
worst rate since the Depression. Cuomo argued that Trump created a model of
state autonomy after he “left it to the states to close down.”
“What does
that mean, the federal government is in charge of opening? Are you going to say
when each state can open or should open?” Cuomo said on Monday, adding the
federal government could introduce “a model where they set a federal program
that the states can follow and should follow, but then you have to be
specific.”
Trump said
that “it’s a decision for the president of the United States," but that
"we’re going to work with the states.”
Newsom
sidestepped a question about a potential clash with Trump, opting for a more
diplomatic course by praising collaboration with the federal government.
But Newsom,
a Democrat who during the coronavirus crisis has struck a conciliatory tone
with Trump, suggested governors and Trump are all accountable to balancing the
same set of imperatives.
“It’s a
vexing prospect for every governor across this country, including the president
himself, to figure out a way of doing this where we don’t invite a second
wave,” Newsom said.
Marie J.
French and Anna Gronewold contributed to this report from Albany, N.Y.
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