The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021

by Peter Baker

At the White House and the campaign, some Trump advisers hoped the rash defiance of even basic safety protocols during the pandemic would finally come to an end, now that the president and first lady were stricken and others were testing positive too, including McEnany and Stephen Miller. Maybe, some imagined, there might even be a reckoning, and a political reset. Could Trump use his own life-threatening battle with Covid to present a more empathetic face to Americans as he closed out the campaign? Kushner had Alyssa Farah, the strategic communications director, and other aides draft a speech for a recovering Trump to give, expressing compassion for the suffering of others with Covid and a newfound understanding of the hardships afflicting the country. But of course it was not to be. By Monday evening, Trump was back at the White House, a return punctuated with a dramatic, made-for-television-commercials helicopter arrival in the fading early-evening light followed by an appearance on the Truman Balcony where he stripped off his mask with a flourish. He did not rip open his shirt to reveal a Superman costume underneath, as he had joked about doing with Mark Meadows before they left the hospital. But he had thought about it. He had survived the virus and the country could too. There would be no remorse, no second-guessing, no new approach to the crisis. “Don’t let it dominate your lives,” he exhorted in an address to the nation. “Get out there.”[28]