First and foremost, before making any comments stemming from today's "Meet The Press" we sincerely hope that you and you're family is staying safe and healthy in this time of worldwide crisis.
Nothing could be more true that American healthcare workers are overworked, overrun and overwhelmed. As Dr. Deborah Birx succinctly stated, there is no metro area in the United States that is going to be spared by this virus. There still seems to be debate on what the states should be doing versus what the federal government should take responsibility for during this crisis, but regardless it is imperative that the president needs to be honest with the American people and consistent in his messaging.
When Chuck Todd asked the panel whether the president should step up more or step back, conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt said that the president should lean into the crisis and stay out front whereas The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson should step back because he is saying things that are counterproductive making him more and more irrelevant. In a way, both are right. The president should be the one to lean in with leadership and empathy, but Mr. Trump with his 'thinking out loud' approach is sending mixed messages and doling out attacks on governors that seem petty. Given that, the president needs to step back and let the scientists and doctors lead the strategy.
There have been moments where the president has captured the right tone and has said the right things, but there has been no consistency in his statements. An example of this came just yesterday when the president said that he was considering a full quarantine of the New York City metro area, to which New York governor Andrew Cuomo responded that that would be in essence like declaring war on the states. Also, what the president needs to realize but never has is that in this time of crisis he is the president for all Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike so attacking governors shows a pettiness that is detrimental to the nation. NBC's Carol Lee posed that the president has to decide whether he wants to be a wartime president or Donald Trump, which implies that he can not be both.
As to being a wartime president, Mr. Trump did enact the Defense Protection Act to compel General Motors to start manufacturing ventilators, an action that should have been taken at least a month ago. Fmr. Vice President Joe Biden said that he would have taken this step in the production of personal protective equipment (PPE) - masks, gowns, face shields. He also said that the Congress should be preparing for the next round of funding because the current aid package may not be enough. All this speaks to the administration's slow response and its original approach of downplaying the danger. When the president says that no one could have seen this coming, it is simply not true because the administration back in 2017 cut from the security council pandemic response, drilled on this in 2019 and ignored warnings from the security council in January and February of this year. Carol Lee also explained that there is tension between the CDC and FEMA on who should take control of what. If Donald Trump wants to indeed be a wartime president, he needs to step up because the administration as it stands right now is losing this war.
In terms of the presumptive Democratic nominee and the president the polls have tightened as Mr. Trump is seeing his highest approval ratings of his presidency at 48 percent. Commentators are making this seem as though the president is operating from a position of strength when in actuality he is still underwater in terms of job approval. Mr. Hewitt said that we shouldn't pay attention to the polls at this time and he's right, but for the wrong reasons because he is presuming that they will improve in the president's favor come November, which isn't likely.
This is a flawed timeline for the president, just as the other arbitrary timelines the president has set like his administration's 15-day plan to slow the spread of the virus, which is up on Tuesday. This is unrealistic just as seeing packed churches on Easter (April 12). As Dr. Fauci has said, the administration can not set the timeline for reopening the country, the virus sets the timeline.
Panel: Andrea Mitchell, NBC News; Carol Lee; NBC News; Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post; Hugh Hewitt, Salem Radio Network
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