Trump’s most ambitious proposals include a suspension of U.S. payroll taxes, paid sick leave for hourly workers and $50 billion in additional loans for small businesses. Both Democrats and Republicans have expressed reticence about a payroll tax cut, and about three hours after his address, House Democrats released their own plan to fight economic fallout from the virus that served to highlight how modest Trump’s offering sounded.
The Democratic plan includes free coronavirus testing, paid emergency leave for workers, food security assistance and other measures to help ordinary Americans weather the outbreak.
Foreign Problem
The address demonstrated that for the president, the coronavirus remains a foreign problem that can be resolved with a characteristically Trump approach: Closing U.S. borders. He hardly acknowledged the spread of the virus within the country, where there are now more than 1,300 cases and 38 people have died.
“We are moving very quickly, and for the vast majority of Americans, the risk is very, very low,” Trump said, once again describing the threat in more optimistic language than U.S. health authorities use. “Young and healthy people can expect to recover fully and quickly if they should get the virus,” he added.
Trump appealed to Americans to wash their hands and stay home if they’re ill. He said nothing about the U.S. delay in testing potentially infected people that has left public health authorities blind to the spread of the disease. “Testing and testing capabilities are expanding rapidly, day by day,” the president said.
But beginning within minutes of Trump’s address, events rapidly demonstrated the extent of the crisis. The American movie star Tom Hanks and his wife, the actress Rita Wilson, announced they were infected, and the National Basketball Association suspended its season after Utah Jazz star Rudy Gobert tested positive for the virus. Twitter told all of its employees to work from home. Senator Maria Cantwell, a Washington State Democrat, said a staffer in her Washington, D.C., office had tested positive for the virus.
The White House said after his speech that Trump had canceled plans to travel this week to Nevada and Colorado, and his campaign said an event with Roman Catholics planned for Milwaukee -- announced just a day earlier -- has also been canceled.
Vice President Mike Pence made the rounds on cable and network shows Thursday morning to try to calm Americans. He said the Trump administration supports family leave benefits for hourly workers and small businesses so that anyone who feels they may have been exposed to coronavirus can stay home “without fear of losing a paycheck.”
Core Questions
The crisis has gone to the heart of core, unresolved questions about Trump’s presidency: whether his streak of economic growth could be maintained through Election Day, if he could suppress his penchant for bold proclamations and political warfare as experts issued dire warnings about the disease, and how a West Wing staffed by novices and defiant outsiders would navigate the complexities of a true crisis.
Early reviews -- based on both public opinion and the reaction of financial markets that Trump himself has called the best barometer of his success -- have not been kind.