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Trump team’s new mission: Defend the ‘wartime president’

By Wednesday morning, the president, his allies and top administration officials were nearly all employing the rhetoric of war: encouraging sacrifice, promising better days ahead while acknowledging difficulties now, promoting patriotism and praising “bold” actions that might quickly return the country to normalcy.

In the opinion pages of USA Today, Pence asked young and healthy Americans — some of whom spent last weekend going about their normal lives — to commit to making small sacrifices to keep others safe, writing that “there is no substitute for the action of the American people.” In an email blast Wednesday afternoon, the Republican National Committee praised Trump’s “wartime footing” and “whole of America” approach.

Senior Pentagon officials even advised Esper to talk more about the Pentagon’s efforts to protect all Americans — not just military personnel — in his public comments, according to a former Defense Department official.

Even former Vice President Joe Biden, who is close to securing his spot as Trump’s Democratic challenger in the 2020 election, described the coronavirus outbreak in warlike terms. Speaking to supporters from his Delaware home after a series of primary victories Tuesday, Biden said “tackling this pandemic is a national emergency akin to fighting a war.”

“This is a moment where we need our leaders to lead, but it is also a moment where the choices and decisions we make as individuals, and collectively as a people, will make a big difference in the severity of the outbreak…,” Biden said.

An outside adviser to the Trump campaign said the president’s 2020 team is hoping to capitalize on Trump’s new messaging strategy by launching a series of digital ads as soon as next week that highlight the president’s efforts to battle the “invisible enemy” — a phrase Trump has recently used to describe the deadly respiratory syndrome. A Trump campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

“I wouldn’t mind seeing the Trump campaign expend some resources to communicate to his supporters that this is important,” Fratto said. “And if he has to use wartime language to do it, it’s in all of our interests to let him.”

If the president’s strategy works, he could have a shot at finding himself back on the Speaker’s balcony for his second swearing-in ceremony next January, having won reelection because voters either cut him slack — something his predecessors who became wartime leaders appeared to benefit from even as economic turmoil persisted — or because the country recovered from a war their commander-in-chief led them through.

But there’s no guarantee Trump will meet the same fate as Madison, Lincoln, Roosevelt or Bush even if Americans agree that this is war.

Damaged by his handling of the war in Vietnam, President Lyndon Johnson stunned the country in 1968 when he announced he would not run for reelection.

And a quarter century later, President George H.W. Bush lost his bid for a second term to an Arkansan named Bill Clinton a year after the 1991 Gulf War.

Source: politico.com
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