President Donald Trump snapped at Democrats on Friday as he was trying to shift the responsibility for the way he managed to handle the coronavirus pandemic, in hopes to avoid blame for the ravaged economy under his watch.
The strategy of the division was on full display Friday, with Trump aiming ire at Democratic governors in key battleground states through a series of three rapid-fire Tweets: “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!”
And on Virginia, he threw in a reference to gun rights: “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!”
CNN reported that the President’s terse messages echoed and encouraged protests being staged by conservative groups in all three of those blue battleground states and beyond. Trump made no mention of Republican governors, who in many cases are working alongside their Democratic counterparts, trying to fight the deadly coronavirus outbreak.
“I think some things are too tough,” Trump said Friday evening at a White House briefing, not offering any specifics. Asked whether states should lift their stay-at-home orders, he said: “No, but I think elements of what they’ve done are too much.”
It was the clearest indication yet the President is laying the groundwork for blaming the dire economic conditions on decisions of Democratic governors, rather than taking steps to improve his actions and acknowledge failures of the administration’s handling of the crisis.
While he began the week by incorrectly declaring that he had “total authority” as President, Trump is ending it by passing that responsibility to governors, which advisers inside and outside the White House said was a clear tactic to try to safeguard himself from any fallout that could come with trying to reopen the national economy.
Although Trump boasted of handing authority to governors to make their own decisions, his calls for liberation sent the opposite message.
“Until we solve the medical crisis, the economic one is going to go longer and it’s going to be harder for us to come back,” Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan told CNN. “A sustained, consistent, scientifically-based message from the federal government and the White House in particular would really save more lives.”
Whitmer is among the Democratic governors who have been in the President’s crosshairs. The message to “liberate” followed angry protests outside the Michigan capitol this week, where thousands defied and demonstrated against Whitmer’s strict statewide stay-at-home orders to combat the spread of coronavirus.
“I just have to lead,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, another Democrat, told reporters Friday when asked about the criticism from the President. “If they’re not going to do it, we’re going to do it.”
Blaming Democrats may be a longshot, but it’s a strategy the President and some Republicans are increasingly turning to. His campaign is facing a far more uncertain and tumultuous landscape than envisioned only a month ago, with advisers acknowledging deep concern about Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida — all of which he won in 2016.
The pandemic has upended the race, eviscerating one of Trump’s strongest calling cards: a robust economic record.
The President has also become increasingly sensitive to criticism that his administration was slow to ramp up testing in recent weeks, though his own aides privately acknowledge mistakes. After the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a flawed test earlier this year, the agency stalled to correct the mistake as thousands across the nation were infected.
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