President Trump is getting pressured by conservatives to ease pandemic restrictions earlier rather than later and, by some, to disregard or fire his top public health adviser.
Conservative advocacy groups, led by Stephen Moore, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation and Washington Examiner columnist, will lobby for reopening the economy as soon as possible, against warnings from public health officials that slowing the spread of the coronavirus requires more time. Representatives from Tea Party Patriots, FreedomWorks, and the American Legislative Exchange Council will appeal to the White House as well as governors, according to the Washington Post.
Meanwhile, conservatives have increasingly criticized top government infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci and coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx. Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, tweeted Monday that Fauci and Birx “should no longer be the primary voices at the table” and that the country has to be reopened immediately to prevent a Great Depression.
Speculation that Trump might dismiss Fauci ramped up Monday after he retweeted a tweet Sunday night that included the hashtag “FireFauci.”
Later Monday evening, though, Trump said during the White House press briefing that he has no plans to remove Fauci from the coronavirus task force. “Not everybody’s happy with Anthony. Not everybody’s happy with everybody. But I will tell you we have done a job the likes of which nobody has ever done,” Trump said.
He dismissed the importance of the hashtag, saying it was just someone else’s opinion, and not his.
The hashtag arose after Fauci appeared on CNN Sunday and said that an earlier intervention by the government “could have saved lives,” a comment that some interpreted as a criticism of Trump.
Early in Monday’s press briefing, Fauci sought to clarify his comments, saying they were not meant as criticism and that Trump has taken his recommendations.
“I’m not firing him, I think he’s a wonderful guy,” Trump said of Fauci.
The White House will be putting forward details about plans for easing pandemic restrictions soon, Trump said, including about a new task force to study the issues. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that he’d presented names of hundreds of business executives to the president as possibilities to provide consultation.
Trump said that the plan would include guidelines for states and cities, but asserted that the decision about when to scale back pandemic-related restrictions would be his alone. “The authority of the president of the United States having to do with the subject we’re talking about is total,” he said.
Meanwhile, states began working toward the same goal on a regional basis Monday.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced a West Coast coalition aimed at working together to reopen the states’ economies. The governors will work with local leaders to adjust their state’s stay-at-home orders and to protect people who are already at a social disadvantage, such as people in nursing homes and those in poorer areas, where it’s more difficult to distance themselves from each other. “COVID-19 doesn’t follow state or national boundaries. It will take every level of government, working together, and a full picture of what’s happening on the ground,” the governors said in a joint statement Monday.
Governors on the East Coast have also agreed to team up to decide when and how their states’ economies will reopen. The group comprises New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Rhode Island. Governors of the six states joined in on a press call Monday to tell their residents that they would create a committee of economists and public health experts, as well as their chiefs of staff, to come up with the best time to reopen their economies while keeping their residents’ health in mind. “Well, seeing as we had the responsibility for closing the state down, I think we probably have the primary responsibility for opening it up,” Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, said later Monday that he would join the other six states in the discussions.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a decline in the rate of new deaths reported since Wednesday, having dropped on Sunday to 671. A decrease in new deaths along with the stabilization of new hospitalization rates indicate a “flattening,” Cuomo said. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said hospitalizations in New York City dropped from 463 on Friday to 383 on Monday.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that the countrywide lockdown will extend to May 11, but restrictions will lift soon after. Kindergartens, schools, and workplaces will gradually reopen, according to Politico, while restaurants, bars, theaters, museums, and concert halls will remain closed beyond May 11. The government will announce a more detailed plan for reopening schools and businesses by the end of April.
