Navigating Coronavirus — June 12

In today’s email, we take a look at the worsening pandemic and collapsing economy as Trump tries to pretend like none of this is happening. Navigator tracking takes a deeper dive on Americans’ overlapping opinions around Trump’s failure to protect the country from coronavirus and heal the nation’s racial divide.

Read on for today’s Navigating Coronavirus…

It’s been 105 days since President Trump said we’d soon have zero cases in the U.S. We now have 2 million cases and more than 116,000 deaths.

THE LATEST

Message guidance on the latest developments with President Trump’s handling of the crisis.

1. TRUMP IS DISMISSING THE THREAT OF CORONAVIRUS AS THE CRISIS GETS WORSE.

More than 2 million Americans have now been infected with coronavirus, as Trump downplayed the crisis then got bored with dealing with it and rushed an unsafe reopening.

He even held an event in Dallas yesterday, with a packed room and no masks, at the same time Dallas County was notching its highest ever single-day spike in cases — “the third straight day where a new record has either been set or tied.”

• CNN: “Trump says the virus is now reduced to just the ‘embers’ and ‘ashes’ of a spent pandemic as patience for nationwide lock downs fades and states aggressively open up. The facts say the opposite.”
• W.H.O. Executive Director: “By no means is this over. If we look at the numbers over the last number of weeks, this pandemic is still evolving. It is still growing in many parts of the world.”
• CBS Orlando: “‘It’s getting worse:’ Florida reports 1,698 new COVID-19 infections as health officials sound the alarm”
• Reuters: “Coronavirus spreads among fruit and vegetable packers, worrying U.S. officials”
• NEW NAVIGATOR DATA >> 36% of Americans now know someone infected with coronavirus, an all-time high in Navigator tracking. More than 1 in 10 Americans now knows someone who has died from coronavirus.

But Trump has given up on fighting coronavirus and is focused solely on himself and his own political interests.

• WAPO: “Trump announces rallies in states where new infections are surging”

2. TRUMP’S RUSH TO END SOCIAL DISTANCING EXTENDED THE ECONOMIC CRISIS.

44 million Americans have lost their jobs since March and the country’s window for a real recovery is closing because Trump rushed a reopening before it was safe. While he pretends like the crisis is over, Americans are suffering.

• NYT: “Sobering Jobs Outlook: ‘We’re Expecting a Long Haul’”
• Morgan Stanley Economist: “There’s still an enormous amount of layoffs going on in the economy.”
• Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, warned on Wednesday that the economic pain could last for years and that there would be “a significant chunk” — millions of workers — “who don’t get to go back to their old job”
• WAPO: “Federal Reserve predicts slow recovery with unemployment at 9.3 percent by end of 2020”

NAVIGATOR TRACKING NUMBERS . . .

TODAY’S POLLING DECK >> HERE

TODAY’S TOPLINES >> HERE

• Americans are in near-universal agreement that we are in a “state of crisis.” This includes 96% of Democrats, 88% of Independents, and 79% of Republicans.

• Americans agree the pandemic and protests are both major crises — and by a 2-to-1 margin, they place more faith in state and local leaders to handle them over Trump. 94% say coronavirus is still a major crisis/problem, including 92% of Independents, while 93% say the situation around protests in response to the killing of George Floyd is a major crisis/problem.

• Democrats and Republicans divided on biggest worries. Republicans express much less concern about key problems that worry Democrats and Independents like police violence, someone close to them getting coronavirus, or people ignoring public health guidelines like social distancing or wearing masks.

ECONOMIC CRISIS IN CONTEXT

The latest on how the economic crisis sparked by coronavirus is actually fueled by years of President Trump’s conservative economic policies, focusing today on Trump’s focus on Wall Street over workers and families.

Another 2.2 million workers filed for unemployment last week on top of the 37.2 million that have already filed and the millions more who are suffering, but all the Trump administration cares about is helping Wall Street and massive corporations.

• When a report came out last Friday showing the jobs market at Great Depression-era levels, one Trump economist said “we don’t need” more support for workers and families and another crowed about “a terrific recovery.”
• But as soon as the stock market tumbled, Trump economists went into panic mode and are attempting to launch a “counter-narrative” to persuade Wall Street that everything is fine.
• One Trump economist’s proposed solution: Training the Federal Reserve Chairman to “smile now and then” and express more “optimism.”
• Trump’s Treasury Secretary ran to CNBC to vow to Wall Street that “the economy won’t shut again” — ignoring the fact that coronavirus is still surging due to the Trump administration’s bungling and failed leadership.
• Trump is so focused on juicing Wall Street that he remains intent on cutting off unemployment benefits in a dangerous attempt to push workers back on the job before it’s safe.

REMINDER: The stock market does not actually reflect the economy.

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Navigating Coronavirus is a joint project of Governing for Impact, Groundwork Collaborative, The Hub Project, and Navigator Research.

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