Democratic swing-state governors are struggling to contain GOP revolts over lockdown measures, a development President Trump is betting will work in his favor on Election Day.
Touring a medical supply manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania Thursday, Trump told Washington Examiner columnist Salena Zito that Tom Wolf, the Democratic governor facing GOP-led protests over the state’s restrictions, “is playing politics.”
“I see your capital. They have a lot of people up there protesting today. They have the Trump signs all over the place too, nothing to do with us,” Trump said. “Just like these crowds. That’s your poll, I mean, that’s your poll. You had to see this coming in, I wish you could have.”
Business owners in Pennsylvania, encouraged by legislators in GOP-led counties, have threatened to defy Wolf’s order to reopen the state only gradually. Trump has used the unrest to his advantage, tweeting during his visit to a medical supply plant in Allentown that “Pennsylvanians want their freedom now.”
“We have to get your governor of Pennsylvania to start opening up a little bit,” Trump said Thursday. “You have areas of Pennsylvania that are barely affected, and they want to keep them closed. Can’t do that.”
Republicans see potential in the uproar in the key battleground state to garner support for Trump, who won the state by a narrow margin in 2016. Voters will be judging Gov. Wolf’s handling of the crisis and the economic fallout in November as well, according to the Associated Press.
“Tom Wolf is going to be as much on the ballot as much as the president, the legislature, and Congress for his handling of this, but he’s going to be judged not just by Republicans but by Democrats and independents,” said Lawrence Tabas, chairman of Pennsylvania’s Republican Party.
Wolf has partially rolled back lockdown measures in some rural counties that have seen less severe coronavirus outbreaks. Meanwhile, businesses in southwestern counties, which are still under lockdown, have threatened to defy the governor’s order and reopen Friday, according to the New York Times.
Republicans are betting on unrest in another swing state, Wisconsin, to drive a surge of support for Trump. The state Supreme Court sided Wednesday with the GOP legislators who sued Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’s administration in April over his strict lockdown measures. The conservative majority court ruled that the governor “cannot rely on emergency powers indefinitely.”
Once the ruling came out, Trump showed his support for the Republican movement to reopen in a tweet, writing, “The Great State of Wisconsin, home to Tom Tiffany’s big Congressional Victory on Tuesday, was just given another win. Its Democrat Governor was forced by the courts to let the State Open. The people want to get on with their lives. The place is bustling!”
Trump has also applauded protests in Michigan, another swing state, against Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home order. State lawmakers canceled Thursday’s legislative session to avoid armed protesters at the capital in Lansing, Bloomberg reported. Armed protesters gathered at the capital last month to decry Whitmer’s lockdown.
Public health experts say that the United States has to ramp up testing capacity before the country can safely reopen. Trump, however, suggested Thursday that the U.S. has met the nation’s testing needs, adding that the U.S. has administered 10 million tests since the coronavirus outbreak began.
“We have the best testing in the world,” Trump told employees at the Allentown plant. “Could be that testing’s, frankly, overrated. Maybe it is overrated.”
Pharmaceutical giant Gilead, the maker of possible COVID-19 treatment remdesivir, has signed contracts with five generic drug makers in India and Pakistan to manufacture the drug for 127 countries. As part of the agreement between Gilead and overseas manufacturers, licenses would be royalty-free until the World Health Organization declares an end to the COVID-19 global public health crisis, the BBC reported Thursday.
The Trump administration unveiled plans to have 300 million N95 respirator masks, 7 million surgical gowns, and millions of doses of the critical care drugs necessary to treat COVID-19 by the fall, senior administration officials told reporters Thursday. Officials are aiming to build up the national stockpile of supplies to deal with a possible coronavirus resurgence in the fall, which would coincide with the regular seasonal flu outbreak.
The administration also plans to contract with manufacturers to maintain the flow of protective equipment and ventilators into the stockpile, so that healthcare professionals do not experience the dire shortage of PPE seen earlier in the pandemic.
Trump said Thursday that he would mobilize the military to distribute COVID-19 vaccines when they become available, prioritizing the elderly and those in nursing homes, who are at the highest risk of getting seriously sick, CBS News reported.
“You know, it’s a massive job to give this vaccine. Our military is now being mobilized, so at the end of the year, we’re going to be able to give it to a lot of people very, very rapidly,” Trump said on Fox.
Trump said he expects a vaccine to be ready by the end of the year, an accelerated timeline that ousted vaccine scientist Dr. Rick Bright said was unrealistic Thursday in a hearing before the House Energy & Commerce Committee.
“I still think 12 to 18 months is an aggressive schedule. And I think it’s going to take longer than that to do so,” Bright said earlier Thursday.
The total number of jobless claims since the coronavirus pandemic began about two months ago reached 36.5 million, the Department of Labor reported Thursday, with 3 million people filing for the first time last week.
The rate of weekly increase is slowing, but the data shows that damage to the labor market is extensive, and businesses have only recently begun to reopen as part of governors’ phased approaches to lifting restrictions.
