July 20, 2020 at 12:03 PM EDT
Trump says regular coronavirus briefings will resume
President Trump said Monday that he is resurrecting the regular late-afternoon public briefings of the White House coronavirus task force — probably starting with one on Tuesday — after a long hiatus.
Trump, who held court at the briefings, often for more than an hour, shared the news with reporters during a morning event in the Oval Office.
“I was doing them, and we had a lot of people watching, record numbers watching in the history of cable television, and there’s never been anything like it,” Trump said. “It’s a great way to get information out to the public as to where we are with the vaccines and the therapeutics.”
The decision was telegraphed last week by White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, who said she advocated the move and suggested that Trump’s poll numbers would improve if the public saw him as more in command of the U.S. response to the pandemic.
Trump stopped appearing at White House coronavirus task force briefings after an April session at which he suggested that scientists test whether disinfectants, such as bleach, could be injected inside the human body to fight the coronavirus. The task force has held only two recent public briefings, with Vice President Pence taking the lead.
When Trump was appearing nearly daily, some in the White House worried that he was being overexposed.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll released Friday shows 38 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the outbreak, down from 46 percent in May and 51 percent in March.
By John Wagner
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