May 6, 2020 / BY BRIAN BENNETT / PHOENIX
Getting things back to normal is President Donald Trump’s new game plan. After being warned off his daily dinnertime briefings, the President’s next move is getting out and about, even as the U.S. daily death toll has stayed stubbornly high and new projections based on states easing social distancing show total American deaths could surpass 130,000 by August.
Trump has told aides he wants to start traveling more as a way to encourage the country to open shuttered businesses and jumpstart the economy. On Tuesday, as he toured an N95 mask factory in Phoenix—without a mask of his own, he said he would wind down the White House coronavirus task force in the coming weeks and focus on “other phases.”
“We have now a different — it’s sort of a combination of safety and reopening,” Trump said, while sitting with leaders of Native American tribes in Arizona that have been hit hard by the epidemic and the economic shutdown. “The people of our country are warriors, and I’m looking at it. I’m not saying anything is perfect. And, yes, will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open, and we have to get it open soon,” Trump said.
