London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Oct 03, 2025

Trump's new 'somber tone' on the coronavirus isn't a reversal of his denial of the seriousness of the pandemic — it's a realization that denial could cost him the election

President Donald Trump began to acknowledge the growing threat and impact of the coronavirus pandemic during Tuesday's coronavirus task force press briefing. However, his change of tone appears to stem from his concern over his ability to be re-elected in November. According to CNN, Trump and his team discussed polls that showed him trailing behind presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden the morning of the briefing. Despite that change, it's not clear how long this apparent acknowledgment of the pandemic will last and if it can reverse some of the damage of his response in the first six months.

President Donald Trump seemed on Tuesday to grasp the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic during his first coronavirus task force press briefing since April.

But while news outlets and pundits praised the president for his "somber tone," the switch from heavily focusing on reopening (despite the warning of public health experts) to a sudden urging of the public to don masks and avoid bars, Trump's change of tone appears to not be a reversal on his denial of the threat of the pandemic, but rather a realization that the denial could cause him to lose the upcoming presidential elections.

According to CNN, Trump and his team had discussed election polls that showed him trailing former Vice President Joe Biden prior to his briefing on Tuesday. People familiar with the conversation told CNN that some aides brought up the fact that taking a serious tone on the coronavirus has in the past been successful for Trump.

"This is a case when you line it all up, it's the last season of 'The Apprentice,' we've got 100 days left and the reality TV star just got mugged by reality," Rahm Emanuel, who served in Congress and as White House chief of staff to President Barack Obama told The New York Times.

"I think he is finally starting to get it," one Trump adviser told CNN about the president's understanding of his reelection and the pandemic, "But can he do this for the next 100 days? I think if he does, he wins."

CNN reported that in an average of recent national polls, Biden is leading by an average of 12 percentage points. Biden is also leading in several key states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Minnesota, a series of Fox News polls from this week showed.

Aides also showed Trump a series of polls that showed that more and more citizens are disapproving of his handling of the pandemic, CNN reported.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 60% of the 1,006 respondents disapproved of Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

However, as Business Insider's Sonam Sheth and John Haltiwanger pointed out, while Trump may have finally acknowledged that the coronavirus is a real threat, he hasn't taken any responsibility for how his policies and actions as president have impacted the course of the pandemic in the US, and he is also very likely to change his tune on the topic very quickly.

As of Friday, the US had over four million coronavirus cases with more than 145,000 deaths. The World Health Organization reported the largest single-day increase for cases worldwide with 284,196 cases, of which almost 70,000 came from the US alone.

While Trump may have canceled the Republican National Convention in Florida, he did so because aides told him the move would show leadership, CNN said, quoting two sources familiar with the matter. The New York Times later reported that the move may have been also motivated by finances.

"I thought I had an obligation not to have large numbers, massive numbers of people crowded into a room," Trump said during an interview on Fox News.

Just last month, despite public health recommendation, Trump held a rally in Tulsa, and several members of his security detail were asked to quarantine after two Secret Service agents tested positive for the virus. Health experts have said the rally most likely contributed to surging cases in the country.

While largely sticking to a script during his coronavirus briefings this week (except when he wished Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell "well"), it's hard to tell how long it will last or if it could erase the past six months of largely denying the threat of the pandemic.

Trump has previously suggested people inject disinfectant, undermined medical experts on his own coronavirus task force, claimed the pandemic was a hoax perpetrated by the fake-news media, and touted unproven medical cures such as hydroxychloroquine.

The president up until this week had pushed for an economic reopening despite the risk it posed to the public. Last month, he told The Wall Street Journal that those wear masks do so as a political statement against him, before suddenly encouraging mask-wearing this week. And while experts have said it's probably not safe to reopen schools, Trump has continued to push for schools to reopen and previously threatened to withhold federal funding from schools that don't reopen in the fall.

And while Trump has encouraged public-health-expert-backed mitigation strategies like masks, and not going to bars, the administration still lacks a comprehensive national testing strategy and has largely abdicated federal responsibility beyond CDC guidelines, which has led to an uneven response by individual states.

Meanwhile, states across the country, especially in the South and the West, are struggling to get cases under control and some areas are facing shortages of hospital beds to treat severe cases.

The main model used to estimate the impact of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States now predicts close to 220,000 deaths by November 1. Experts have consistently said that proper protocols taken early on could have prevented hospital systems from being overburdened, which would have led to fewer deaths.

It's not clear how long Trump can keep this tune, or if it will help his re-election campaign, but the pandemic in the US isn't slowing down, and experts are still worried what that means when a likely second wave hits in the fall.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×