President Trump is stepping up his attacks on China and the World Health Organization as allies see an opportunity to excite the base and reignite the culture wars that propelled him to power.
During the past week, Trump has used the White House coronavirus briefings to attack journalists who question his handling of the crisis, accuse China of covering up its death toll, and hold the WHO responsible for failing to stop the outbreak at its source.
Michael Johns, a co-founder of the national Tea Party movement, said a president who defined his international credentials by pulling out of the Iran deal and taking on NATO and United Nations agencies was temperamentally and ideologically suited to the challenge.
“Now we are seeing with COVID-19 clear evidence of an international institution, in which we have placed a lot of funding and trust, has proven to be ill-prepared and maybe not predisposed to tackle it in ways that are productive,” he said.
Trump supporters have drawn parallels between nonessential workers furloughed or laid off and the “deplorables” dismissed by Hillary Clinton who proved decisive in the 2016 election.
The Trump campaign is using the attacks on China to raise money.
“China has been lying and doing everything they can to cover up the spread of COVID-19 in their country,” it said in a fundraising email this week. “It’s absolutely disgraceful, and we can’t stand by and do nothing.”
And Rush Limbaugh, one of Trump’s most powerful media boosters, said the stance on the WHO would reassure anyone who thought the president had been lost to the “expertise deep state.”
“This is vintage Trump,” he said on Wednesday after the president announced his plan to withhold WHO funding. “This is the guy you elected.
“He’s not gonna throw American money away. But more than that, he’s not gonna allow us to be made a fool of. So, just as he pulled us out of the Paris accords and pulled us out of the Iran deal, he has now said we’re gonna defund the WHO.”
On Tuesday, Trump blamed the global economic crisis on the WHO, which he said had failed in its duty to scrutinize early reports of an emerging virus and get medical experts into China when “the outbreak could have been contained at its source, with very little death.”
A day later, he said the international body had been a “tool of China” and railed against the World Trade Organization, another favorite target.
“But the fact is: We have been treated so badly by these organizations,” he said.
On Wednesday, he used the coronavirus briefing to blame Congress for delaying key appointments, leaving vacancies at senior administration levels. “We need people for this crisis, and we don’t want to play any more political games,” he said as he threatened to force appointments through by adjourning the House and Senate.
A former administration official said, “He faces all sorts of problems with his response to coronavirus, but you can always give red meat to the base.”
And the base needs red meat, according to Trump loyalists who fear that the president is in thrall to his scientific advisers, who are advocating a go-slow approach to reopening the economy. They have stepped up their public calls for a faster approach, warning that the Republican base is hardest hit by the closures, and are echoing the language of the 2016 campaign.
“Americans who work with their hands and live outside the big blue cities are considered ‘nonessential,” said Curtis Ellis, a trade expert with America First Policies, in a piece published on the pro-Trump American Greatness website.
“Families who own their businesses, or work for a family business rather than depend on the government or a global corporation for their livelihoods, are considered ‘nonessential.’ People who want to go to church rather than an abortion clinic are considered ‘nonessential.’
“Before these Americans were called ‘nonessential,’ they were called ‘deplorable.’”
