...according to administration officials, Mr. Trump has begun privately questioning the models and the official death statistics.
His skepticism is shared by others in an administration that has regularly disregarded the advice of scientists. On Tuesday, the White House Council of Economic Advisers released a model that showed deaths dropping to zero by the middle of May. The projection, which the council suggested was to ”inform policymakers,” appeared to ignore the conventions used by epidemiologists and was roundly dismissed by experts...
At the same time, the president has increasingly picked up on talk from the political fringes of inflated death counts and plots to ensure his defeat in November.
In late April, as the toll approached 60,000, Mr. Trump retweeted a post by a former New York City police official that claimed the number was being inflated by the same people behind the “failed coup attempts” of the Mueller investigation and Mr. Trump’s impeachment.
...
Few of those who [engage in] Covid-19 denialism have any real expertise in tracking pandemics. But several are funded by industries that have long sought to question the work of scientists, such as big oil companies like Exxon Mobil and tobacco companies like Philip Morris. They are also backed by conservative groups like the Mercer Family Foundation that hold immense sway inside the Trump White House, and are deeply invested in the president’s political future.
Mr. Trump, for his part, has at times sought to use the uncertainty to his advantage. Last month, after his most ardent supporters had attacked the worst-case death estimates for weeks as evidence of hysteria, Mr. Trump began calling attention to the two million figure — as a benchmark against which to judge his handling of the crisis.
Then he went further, pointing to 100,000 deaths as the number against which to judge him.
Last Sunday, though, Mr. Trump acknowledged that the toll could hit 100,000. Still, he said, it could have been much worse had his administration not acted. “If we didn’t do it, the minimum we would have lost was a million two, a million four, a million five, that’s the minimum. We would have lost probably higher. It’s possible higher than 2.2.”
“We will be lower than that number,” Mr. Trump told reporters as the death count kept by Johns Hopkins University approached 38,000. “But I really believe it could have been millions of people had we not done what we did.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/09/us/politics/coronavirus-death-toll-presidential-campaign.html?a ction=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
The coronavirus and the Trump administration’s response to it have cost President Trump support from one of his most crucial constituencies: America’s seniors.
For years, Republicans and Mr. Trump have relied on older Americans, the United States’ largest voting bloc, to offset Democrats’ advantage with younger voters. But seniors are also the most vulnerable to the coronavirus, and the Trump campaign’s internal polls show his support among voters over age 65 softening to a concerning degree, people familiar with the numbers said.
A recent Morning Consult poll found that Mr. Trump’s approval rating on the handling of the coronavirus was lower with seniors than with any other group other than young voters. And Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, in recent polls held a 10-point advantage among voters who are 65 and older. A poll commissioned by the campaign showed a similar double-digit gap.
As that has taken shape, the president has all but moved on from a focus on controlling the pandemic and is pushing his agenda to restore the country to a place that will lift his campaign. That has included making clear that despite the pandemic, he wants a traditional political convention in Charlotte, N.C., in late August, with thousands of sign-waving Republican delegates from out of state filling an arena.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/09/us/coronavirus-news-updates.html
His skepticism is shared by others in an administration that has regularly disregarded the advice of scientists. On Tuesday, the White House Council of Economic Advisers released a model that showed deaths dropping to zero by the middle of May. The projection, which the council suggested was to ”inform policymakers,” appeared to ignore the conventions used by epidemiologists and was roundly dismissed by experts...
At the same time, the president has increasingly picked up on talk from the political fringes of inflated death counts and plots to ensure his defeat in November.
In late April, as the toll approached 60,000, Mr. Trump retweeted a post by a former New York City police official that claimed the number was being inflated by the same people behind the “failed coup attempts” of the Mueller investigation and Mr. Trump’s impeachment.
...
Few of those who [engage in] Covid-19 denialism have any real expertise in tracking pandemics. But several are funded by industries that have long sought to question the work of scientists, such as big oil companies like Exxon Mobil and tobacco companies like Philip Morris. They are also backed by conservative groups like the Mercer Family Foundation that hold immense sway inside the Trump White House, and are deeply invested in the president’s political future.
Mr. Trump, for his part, has at times sought to use the uncertainty to his advantage. Last month, after his most ardent supporters had attacked the worst-case death estimates for weeks as evidence of hysteria, Mr. Trump began calling attention to the two million figure — as a benchmark against which to judge his handling of the crisis.
Then he went further, pointing to 100,000 deaths as the number against which to judge him.
Last Sunday, though, Mr. Trump acknowledged that the toll could hit 100,000. Still, he said, it could have been much worse had his administration not acted. “If we didn’t do it, the minimum we would have lost was a million two, a million four, a million five, that’s the minimum. We would have lost probably higher. It’s possible higher than 2.2.”
“We will be lower than that number,” Mr. Trump told reporters as the death count kept by Johns Hopkins University approached 38,000. “But I really believe it could have been millions of people had we not done what we did.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/09/us/politics/coronavirus-death-toll-presidential-campaign.html?a ction=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
The coronavirus and the Trump administration’s response to it have cost President Trump support from one of his most crucial constituencies: America’s seniors.
For years, Republicans and Mr. Trump have relied on older Americans, the United States’ largest voting bloc, to offset Democrats’ advantage with younger voters. But seniors are also the most vulnerable to the coronavirus, and the Trump campaign’s internal polls show his support among voters over age 65 softening to a concerning degree, people familiar with the numbers said.
A recent Morning Consult poll found that Mr. Trump’s approval rating on the handling of the coronavirus was lower with seniors than with any other group other than young voters. And Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, in recent polls held a 10-point advantage among voters who are 65 and older. A poll commissioned by the campaign showed a similar double-digit gap.
As that has taken shape, the president has all but moved on from a focus on controlling the pandemic and is pushing his agenda to restore the country to a place that will lift his campaign. That has included making clear that despite the pandemic, he wants a traditional political convention in Charlotte, N.C., in late August, with thousands of sign-waving Republican delegates from out of state filling an arena.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/09/us/coronavirus-news-updates.html
