Trump’s ‘mission accomplished’ moment masks deep
White House unease
Just before the US president took a victory lap on
coronavirus testing, the White House told staff to start wearing masks after
two aides tested positive for COVID-19.
By NANCY
COOK 5/12/20, 5:59 AM CET Updated 5/12/20, 6:04 AM CET
On the day
the U.S. death toll from coronavirus topped 80,000, U.S. President Donald Trump
stood in the White House Rose Garden for a “mission accomplished” moment.
Behind
Trump were a row of American flags and a pair of giant signs reading, in all
capital letters: “America leads the world in testing,” referring to the total
number of U.S. tests conducted in recent months rather than per-capita testing,
in which America does not lead the world. In front of Trump sat his staff and
reporters, physically distanced and all wearing face masks under an edict the
president said he issued Monday afternoon to control the spread of coronavirus
within the West Wing.
At an event
carefully crafted to reassure businesses and governors they could safely
restart a crippled economy, Trump declared America had accomplished its mission
on coronavirus testing.
“In every
generation, through every challenge and hardship and danger, America has risen
to the task,” Trump said. “We have met the moment and we have prevailed.”
It was a
pronouncement incongruous with the widespread anxiety among employers across
America about whether enough testing exists to reopen their workplaces. It was
also incongruous with the internal turmoil spreading on Monday inside the West
Wing, where officials were scrambling to prevent the virus from crippling the
most famous and supposedly safest office in America — one that already featured
ample testing capacity for anyone who meets with Trump or Vice President Mike
Pence.
The White
House Management Office issued a memo that afternoon requiring West Wing
staffers to wear masks or other facial coverings at all times in the building,
except at their own desks. Additional new procedures include daily testing for
the majority of West Wing staff and additional teleworking depending on the
office, according to two senior administration officials.
The White
House escalated its measures to keep the president and vice president safe from
the coronavirus after two aides tested positive for Covid-19 in the past week.
It marked a dramatic shift amid a national culture war over mask-wearing and a
reluctant acceptance of a federal recommendation issued more than a month ago.
At the Rose
Garden briefing on testing, every seated White House staffer including the president’s
senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner wore masks — a change from even
late last week.
Under
questioning from reporters, Trump later clarified that he meant the U.S. had
prevailed only in creating enough tests for Americans — not that it had tamed
the virus, which is expected to kill tens of thousands more Americans in the
coming months.
“You never
prevail when you have 90,000 people, 100,000 people, when you have 80,000
people as of today, when you have the kind of death you are talking about, when
you have potentially millions of people throughout the world that are dying,”
Trump said. “That’s not prevailing. What I'm talking about is we have a great
testing capacity now. It's getting even better. There is nobody close to us in
the world, and we certainly have done a great job on testing.”
White House
aides are deeply aware the president’s message urging states to reopen their
economies does not mesh with the optics of the virus spreading throughout the
West Wing.
Even beyond
the threat the virus could pose to the health of both Trump and Pence, aides
recognized that new infections inside the White House will only mar the
president’s cheerleading on the economic front and his efforts to revive the
national mood ahead of the November election.
“The
president’s physician and White House Operations continue to work closely to
ensure every precaution is taken to keep the President, First Family and the
entire White House Complex safe and healthy at all times,” White House deputy
press secretary Judd Deere said of the new procedures. “In addition to social
distancing, face coverings, daily temperature checks and symptom histories,
hand sanitizer, and regular deep cleaning of all workspaces, every staff member
in close proximity to the president and vice president is being tested daily
for COVID-19 as well as any guests.”
One White
House aide said staffers are being more cautious and trying to do as many
meetings as possible by phone, three days after Pence’s top spokesperson tested
positive for the coronavirus and the vice president himself spent the weekend
at home.
Pence’s
only public event on Monday was a teleconference with governors, and as of now
he has no travel publicly scheduled for this week. He did not appear alongside
the president at the briefing as he usually does when not traveling.
The new
White House memo on masks marked a turning point for the Trump administration.
Trump,
Pence and top officials all traveled within the past week without wearing face
coverings, even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in April
urged Americans to start wearing masks in close quarters in grocery stores or
pharmacies and in areas with high levels of transmission.
Pence did
not wear a mask on his recent visit to the Mayo Clinic, though he later said he
regretted that move, Trump’s aides and advisers said it was doubtful Trump
would start wearing a mask — both because he views it as a political liability
and because staffers around him are tested daily.
The
president last month said he could not envision himself in a mask at all. “I
just don’t want to be doing, somehow sitting in the Oval Office behind that
beautiful Resolute Desk, the great Resolute Desk, I think wearing a face mask
as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don’t know,
somehow, I don’t see it for myself. I just don’t. Maybe I’ll change my mind,”
Trump said in early April.
Until now,
different offices in the White House complex have also been handling the threat
of the virus in wildly different ways.
Trump’s
deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger has worn a mask inside the
White House complex for weeks, sometimes facing eye-rolls from his colleagues.
The first lady’s staff also has been consistently wearing masks, keeping their
distance from her and largely teleworking.
“Everybody's
working from home, and if I go in there for any meetings, I'm tested every
single day,” Stephanie Grisham, the first lady’s chief of staff said during an
appearance on Fox News. “If we do meet with her, you know, we sit 6 feet apart.
If you haven't been tested, you wear a mask. And then even when we've done the
videos, it's a very, very small footprint in terms of staff and video crew.
That's very important to her. She's also reduced the number of resident staff,
and they all wear masks, as well."
Trump’s top
three health officials are all self-quarantining and doing meetings remotely
after they came into contact with an infected person last week at a coronavirus
task force meeting. One of the president’s military valets and Katie Miller,
Pence’s top spokesperson, both tested positive for the virus last week. Miller
is married to Stephen Miller, one of the president’s closest aides, who is also
avoiding the White House.
Maintaining
6 feet from others is virtually impossible in the West Wing, with its cramped
hallways and stairwells, low ceilings and cubicles, so aides now must keep
masks with them at all times.
The seven
people who work for second lady Karen Pence have been teleworking since
mid-March, as well as two staffers who work for the vice president's residence,
according to a spokesperson for Karen Pence. Karen Pence's staffers usually
work from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and from an office in the
Naval Observatory.
The
staffing and work hours for naval aides, who prepare meals and maintain Pence's
residence, were reduced in mid-March, according to the spokesperson. The naval
employees at the Naval Observatory have also been following Defense Department
guidelines, which require staff to wear masks on military bases.
Pence
arrived at the White House on Monday after remaining at home all weekend, but
instead of heading into the West Wing, he worked during the early part of the
day out of an office he keeps in the adjacent Eisenhower Executive Office
Building. A spokesperson said Pence was eager to start traveling again soon.
“We are
taking the advice of the White House Medical Office. There are no announcements
to make on travel, but the VP is looking forward to getting back out there to
show the American people what we can do when we come together,” said Devin
O’Malley, one of Pence’s spokespeople.
The
president is expected to go to Pennsylvania later this week.
In addition
to new mask requirement, some health experts would like to see the White House
rely on a different method of testing to keep its staff and top officials safe.
The White
House has relied on a point-of-care coronavirus test made by Abbott
Laboratories that can deliver results in under 15 minutes, but it drew fire
from Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, last
week for having too high of a false negative rate. The company says the test
performs as expected when samples are directly tested instead of transported in
chemicals — but some health experts say other rapid tests that take longer to
run should be used by the White House.
David Lim,
Daniel Lippman and Gabby Orr contributed to this report.
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Authors:
Nancy Cook
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